Self-reports of well-being: Are they valid even if we can’t remember everything that happens to us?
People can complete self-report measures of happiness and satisfaction fairly quickly. This suggests that they are not recalling every event they have experienced during a specific period of time. Previous researchers have thus argued that well-being judgments are made-up on the spot from whichever...
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| Format: | text |
| Language: | English |
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Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
2014
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| Online Access: | https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1660 |
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| Institution: | Singapore Management University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | People can complete self-report measures of happiness and satisfaction fairly quickly. This suggests that they are not recalling every event they have experienced during a specific period of time. Previous researchers have thus argued that well-being judgments are made-up on the spot from whichever events happen to be on the person’s mind. I report the results of two studies that measured people’s experiences over a period of three-weeks (Study 1) or two months (Study 2). I evaluate the extent to which our conscious recollection of specific events trumps our actual experiences and conclude that people may be able to (1) summarize their experiences fairly comprehensively; (2) these summaries are based on their actual experiences and are distinct from their conscious memory of specific events; and (3) self-reported well-being is more strongly predicted by summarized experiences than conscious recollection of a few events. |
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