Assessing subjective well-being: A review of common measures

• Main Authors: TOV, William, KEH, Jun Sheng, TAN, Yan Qiang, TAN, Qin Ying Joanne, INDRA ALAM SYAH BIN AZIZ
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: subjective well-being; measures; scales; satisfaction; emotion; affective well-being; cognitive well-being; Cognitive Psychology; Social Psychology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3729; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4987/viewcontent/2021_TovEtAl_HPPA.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Subjective well-being (SWB) consists of affective components (frequent positive feelings, infrequent negative feelings) and cognitive components (evaluations of life and judgments of satisfaction). We review four commonly used measures of SWB: the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Cantril’s ladder, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and the Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE). We conducted a meta-analysis of the reliability and validity of each measure based on studies published from 1999 to 2019. The SWLS, PANAS, and SPANE generally exhibit acceptable levels of reliability (alphas > .80) across most samples, time frame instructions, and age groups. All measures were substantially correlated with each other. However, SWLS was more strongly correlated with SPANE-P than with PANAS-PA. We discuss key differences between the PANAS and SPANE and their implications for researchers. Finally, we discuss ongoing issues with commonly used SWB measures that should be addressed by future research.