Study Diener & Seligman (2002): study US 1997
- Public
- Undergraduate students, US, 199?
- Sample
- Respondents
- N = 222
- Non Response
- Assessment
-
Questionnaire: Paper & Pencil Interview (PAPI)
Daily report of mood and activities during 51 days; peer ratings.
Correlate
- Authors's Label
- Extremely happy or unhappy
- Our Classification
-
-
- Error Estimates
- Discriminant function in phase 2 predicted membership of the very happy group in 96%
- Distribution
- N = 1: 24, 2: 60, 3: 22
- Operationalization
- 1 10% least happy
2 27% close to average
3 10% most happy
Selelected in two stages.
Stage 1: Four happiness measures were administrated
- Satisfaction with Life scale
- Global self-reported affect balance
- Informant affect balance
- Daily affect balance
Scores were standardized and the z score for each individual were added. The highest and lowest 10% of standardized scores were selected on the basis of this distribution.
Stage 2: Three groups were filtered with a discriminant function with three measures to determine whether these group members remained the same with three other measures:
- Memory event recall balance
- Trait self-description
- Interview suicide measure
1 Ss from very happy was removed
Observed Relation with Happiness
1 10% least happy 0.1 0.8
2 27% close to average 1.8 0.5
3 10% most happy 3.5 0.5
1 10% least unhappy 0.8 0.7
2 27% close to average 1.9 0.7
3 10% most happy 3.0 0.5
In the daily reports of mood, the members of the very happy group never reported their mood to be 'ecstatic' or at the very top of the 10-point scale, but frequently assign their mood sa rating of 7 or 8 and often 9. Also the very happy were not always happy, all at least occasionally reported unhappiness or neutral moods.
1 10% least unhappy 0.3 0.7
2 27% close to average 1.6 0.4
3 10% most happy 3.7 0.5