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Studies

Hershfield et al. (2013): study US San Francisco, California 1994 /1

Publication

Author(s):
Hershfield, H.E.; Scheibe, S.; Sims, T.
Title:
When Feeling Bad Can Be Good: Mixed Emotions Benefit Physical Health Across Adulthood.
Source:
Social Psychology and Personal Science, 2013, Vol. 4, 54 - 61

Investigation

Public
Adults, San Francisco Bay Area, USA, followed 10 years 1994-2005.
Survey name
Unnamed study
Sample
Probability simple random sample
Respondents
N = 184
Non Response
Assessment
Interview: face-to-face
Participants first completed questionnaires about their health, happiness and cognitive ability. After that participants were given an electronic pager with instructions how to complete the emotion responsse questionnaires, each time they were paged. In the following week participants were paged 5 times a day. Paging times were random selected, but not more than once within a 20 minute interval. At the end of the day participants returned the 5 completed response sets by mail. After that week participants returned to the laboratory for a follow-up interview, after which they were debriefed and paid for their participation.

Happiness Measure(s) and Distributional Findings

Full text:
Self report on 19 questions repeated 5 times a day

Degree to which one feel emotion at the moment (Full text of lead phrase not reported)
A  happiness
B  joy
C  contentment
D  excitement
E  pride
F  accomplishment
G  interest
H  amusement
I   anger
J  sadness
K  fear
L  disgust
M  guilt
N  embarrassment
O  shame
P  anxiety
Q  irritation
R  frustration
S  boredom

Rated
1  not at all
2
3
4
5
6
7 extremely

Computation: (A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H)/8 -(I+J+K+L+M+N+O+P+Q+R+S)/11
Classification:
A-AB-mi-mq-n-7-a
Author's label:
Positive and negative emotions
Remarks:
Affect Balance computed by the WDH-team from PA= 3.60  and NA= 1.64.
Page in publication:
56-57
Observed distribution
Summary Statistics
On original range -6 - 6 On range 0-10
Mean:
1.96 -
SD:
0.79 -