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Studies

Danner et al. (2001): study US 1991

Publication

Author(s):
Danner, D.D.; Friessen, W.V.; Snowdon, D.A.
Title:
Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study.
Source:
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001, Vol. 80, 804 - 813.

Investigation

Public
Nuns who lived in cloister since early adulthood. Followed into old age, USA, 1991
Sample
Non-probability chunk sample
Respondents
N = 180
Non Response
17%
Assessment
Content analysis
Content analysis handwritten biographies written between the ages of 18 and 32. The Mother Superior had in a letter sent in 1930 requested that each sister wrote an autobiography. Content-analysis: Coders identified all words in the biographies that reflected an emotional experience and classified them as positive, negative or neutral. Than they classified each sentence as containing one or more positive, negative or neutral emotion words.

Happiness Measure(s) and Distributional Findings

Full text:
Number of positive emotion words in autobiography

Content analysis by count of words/phrases that reflected an emotional experience as either positive, neutral or negative.
Coders were instructed not to code possible elicitors of emotion (such as death of a relative) but only the words that describe the emotion that was experienced. They were also instructed not to code words like good or bad, if these did not describe an emotional experienced.
Classification:
A-ASA-h-cr-n-100-a
Author's label:
number of positive words
Remarks:
The mean is calculated by taking it as a percentage of a total of all emotion words (positive + negative + neutral) of both coders.
Page in publication:
807
Error estimates:
Mean correlation of both coders of all emotion words = +.88; mean correlation of positive words=+.96
Observed distribution
Summary Statistics
On original range 0 - 100 On range 0-10
Mean:
0.85 8.52
SD:
- -
Full text:
Number of positive emotion sentences in autobiography

Content analysis by count of sentences that reflected an emotional experience as either positive, neutral or negative.
Coders were instructed not to code possible elicitors of emotion (such as death of a relative) but only the words that describe the emotion that was experienced. They were also instructed not to code words like good or bad, if these did not describe an emotional experienced.
Classification:
A-ASA-h-cr-n-100-b
Author's label:
number of positive sentences
Remarks:
The mean is calculated by taking it as a percentage of a total of all emotion sentences (positive + negative + neutral) of both coders.
Page in publication:
807
Error estimates:
Mean correlation all emotion words of coders A and B was +.88 correlation of positive sentences was +.97
Observed distribution
Summary Statistics
On original range 0 - 100 On range 0-10
Mean:
0.83 8.32
SD:
- -

Correlational Findings

Author's label Subject Description Finding mortality rate LIFE EVENTS
LIFE HISTORY
Longevity (assessed in follow up)