Experiential measures of subjective well-being are often proposed as alternatives to global self-reports, alternatives that address many threats to validity that global reports have. However, experiential measures may have their own problems that go overlooked because their face validity is so high. In this post, I discuss some of the concerns I have about these measures.
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The limitations of global, self-report measures of happiness are obvious. But sometimes, researchers fail to ask whether the alternative measures that have been proposed to address these limitations come with their own psychometric challenges. In this post, I describe a recent paper that compares two experiential measures of well-being: the Day Reconstruction Method and the Experience Sampling Method. This comparison raises some concerns about experiential approaches.
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In honor of International Day of Happiness, I’m posting my SPSP talk from a few weeks ago, where I discuss happiness research during the replication crisis. I talk about some good things about happiness research, and also some things that could be improved. But more importantly, I brag about my seventh grade awards, talk about the type of happiness research that I’m most skeptical about, praise some data thugs, and tell the story of how we became replication bullies.
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