Positive Psychology and Happiness Measurement

Positive Psychology

• A new branch of psychology focuses on people's strengths and positive functioning
• Aims to study positive experiences that facilitate well-being and happiness

Operationalization of Happiness and Well-being

• Happiness and well-being are latent constructs - abstract and cannot be directly measured or observed
• We use indicators (e.g., surveys) to infer information about latent constructs
• Measurement error exists in self-report scores, making them inaccurate reflections of the true score
  • Random measurement error is unpredictable and unrelated to the construct
  • Systematic measurement error is related to the construct, like response bias

Reliability

• Assess how much random measurement error is present in a person's score
  • Split-half reliability compares two halves of a survey, ideally with a correlation greater than +0.70
  • Test-retest reliability assesses scores at different time points
    • Short intervals reveal reliability
    • Long intervals reveal stability (whether the measured construct has truly changed)
  • Interrater reliability assesses differences in measurements between raters (Kappa K = 1.0)
  • Internal consistency assesses how much items in a measure correlate with each other (Cronbach's ⍺ > +0.70)

Validity

• Assess how much non-random measurement error is present
  • Content validity assesses if items measure the construct at face value (face validity)
  • Construct validity assesses if the operationalization matches the theoretical definition of the construct
  • Criterion validity assesses how much a measure correlates with a gold-standard measure

Heritability of Subjective Well-Being (SWB)

• Twin studies found that around 50% of SWB is heritable, with 50% attributed to environmental factors
• This suggests a strong genetic influence, but not absolute determination
• Criticisms of this research include:
  • Small sample size
  • Only two time points, questioning the validity of the findings
  • Environmental factors play a role, evidenced by lower concordance rates at later time points

Cheerfulness vs. SWB

• Cheerfulness, a tendency towards positive emotions, displays lower heritability than SWB
• Shared environment influences emotions and moods as much as genes

Meta-analysis of Heritability

• Meta-analysis of twin studies suggests a 32-41% heritability for SWB
• Controlling for measurement error, this estimate rises to 50%
• This confirms that genetics play a significant role, but environment remains influential

Environmental Influences

• Shared environmental factors affect everyone in a family, while non-shared factors are unique to each individual
• Measurement error also contributes to variations in heritability estimates

Gene-Environment Interactions

• Stress-diathesis model highlights the interplay between genes and environmental stressors
• A genetically predisposed vulnerability can manifest when triggered by environmental stress

Self-Concordant Goals

• Goals aligned with personal values, interests, and needs contribute significantly to well-being
• Associated with an internal perceived locus of control (believing in one's ability to control positive outcomes)
• Self-concordant goals are linked to:
  • Increased effort towards achieving goals
  • Satisfaction of basic needs, including autonomy

Self-Esteem

• Reflects our evaluations of ourselves, can be both trait-based (global or domain-specific) and state-based (context-specific)
• Both cognitive and affective components, and manifests explicitly and implicitly

Explicit Self-Esteem

• Moderately correlated with well-being, both self-reported and observed by others

Implicit Self-Esteem

• Shows a weak correlation with well-being
• Correlation varies depending on the measures used
• Some studies suggest implicit self-esteem may be a predictor of negative emotions and somatic symptoms

Challenges in Measuring Self-Esteem

• Positive illusions bias can contaminate self-reported measures
• Difficulty in standardizing "average person" for comparisons

Positive Thinking

• Positive correlation exists between optimism and measures of life satisfaction, positive affect, and reduced negative affect
• Optimists expect good things to happen and attribute positive outcomes to internal factors and negative outcomes to external factors
• Self-enhancement can sometimes lead to unrealistic optimism and self-serving biases, potentially causing risky choices

Hope

• Hoping for positive outcomes in the future through personal effort
• Associated with pathways thinking (identifying multiple paths to achieving goals) and agentic thinking (believing in one's ability to achieve those goals)
• Positively correlated with well-being

Positive Comparisons

• Individuals compare themselves to standards they set, either self-defined or based on others
• Influence individual well-being and life satisfaction

Cultural Influences on Well-Being

• Relationship between affect and life satisfaction varies across cultures
• Emotion plays a greater role in individualistic nations than collectivistic nations
• Culture influences which goals are considered important for well-being

Cultural Influences on Self-Esteem

• Western cultures generally exhibit higher SWB and self-esteem compared to Eastern cultures
• Correlation between SWB and self-esteem is stronger in Western contexts
• This could be due to differences in self-enhancement tendencies and cultural values of individualism vs. collectivism

Self-Enhancement

• Universal self-enhancement exists, but the specific dimensions of enhancement vary across cultures (tactical self-enhancement)
• Mutual enhancement (enhancing others) also differs culturally
• Self-serving attributional bias (attributing positive events to oneself and negative events to external factors) is weaker in collectivistic cultures

"Unpackaging" Culture

• To understand cultural effects on well-being, we need to go beyond broad cultural classifications
• Examining specific cultural dimensions and their influence on individual and collective well-being
• Exploring the interplay of cultural values, beliefs, practices, and social structures can unlock insights into the diverse pathways to a fulfilling life