Feeling Good or Feeling Better?

Prati, Alberto; Senik, Claudia

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3584929

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The present paper instead interprets these patterns as being indicative of scale shifts. As explained in section 3.2, the interpretation invoked in this paper does not require a complete absence of the sorts of memory biases suggested by Prati & Senik (2020). Both interpretations may therefore be (partly) true.…”

Section: Descriptive Evidencementioning

confidence: 55%

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Using memories to assess the intrapersonal comparability of wellbeing reports

Kaiser¹

2022

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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Section: Descriptive Evidencementioning

confidence: 55%

“…A recent study by Prati and Senik (2020) uses the same data. Fortunately, they observe the same descriptive patterns.…”

Section: Descriptive Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Using memories to assess the intrapersonal comparability of wellbeing reports

Kaiser¹

2022

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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Scale Norming Undermines the Use of Life Satisfaction Scale Data for Welfare Analysis

Fabian

2021

J Happiness Stud

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Scale norming is where respondents use qualitatively different scales to answer the same question across survey waves. It makes responses challenging to compare intertemporally or interpersonally. This paper develops a formal model of the cognitive process that could give rise to scale norming in year on year responses to life satisfaction scale questions. It then uses this model to conceptually differentiate scale norming from adaptation and changes in reference points. Scale norming could make life satisfaction responses misleading with regards to the changing welfare of individuals. In particular, individuals who would say that their life is "improving" or "going well" might nonetheless give the same scale response year after year. This has negative implications for the use of scales in cost–benefit analysis and other welfarist applications. While there is already substantial empirical evidence for the existence of scale norming, its implications for welfare analysis are sometimes understated on the grounds that this evidence might simply be the product of errors of memory. The paper presents new empirical evidence for scale norming from two surveys (N1 = 278; N2 = 1050) designed such that errors of memory are an unconvincing explanation for the results.

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Well-being Changes from Year to Year: A Comparison of Current, Remembered and Predicted Life Satisfaction

Klemm

2021

J Happiness Stud

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I study yearly changes in personal well-being combining data on current, retrospective and prospective life satisfaction from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Predicted and remembered changes in life satisfaction are both positive on average and match well, whereas the average year to year-change inferred from reports of current life satisfaction is negative. Retrospective assessments of past well-being are strongly influenced by current life satisfaction, significantly related to past life satisfaction and linked to past predictions of current satisfaction. Due to different problems related to the ordinal measurement scale, changes in subjective reference systems and recall ability, the analysis overall suggests that direct reports of intertemporal changes provide valuable additional information for the analysis of individual well-being.

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Feeling Good or Feeling Better?

Cited by 5 publications

References 22 publications

Using memories to assess the intrapersonal comparability of wellbeing reports

Using memories to assess the intrapersonal comparability of wellbeing reports

Scale Norming Undermines the Use of Life Satisfaction Scale Data for Welfare Analysis

Well-being Changes from Year to Year: A Comparison of Current, Remembered and Predicted Life Satisfaction

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