Writer | Author | Novelist | Podcaster | Cultural Curator | Media and research consultant | Partner, Altius Capital Management |
"Happiness researchers often define happiness as "subjective well-being," a term coined in the 1980s. It has an emotional component — the balance of positive and negative emotions a person experiences — and an evaluative component, which boils down to how satisfied a person is with their life. The latter component, life satisfaction, is especially important to researchers since they say it gets at a deeper form of happiness than the ever-changing churn of fleeting feelings. "It's a longer-term thing, basically, 'is my life good?'" says Waldinger. Momentary negative feelings can be worth it, so to speak, if they're part of pursuing a more meaningful goal, like raising a child or running a marathon. While there are, perhaps, infinite ways to live a worthwhile life, researchers have settled on a few main measures of the extent to which a person thinks they're living one. The Satisfaction with Life Scale, created by psychologist Ed Diener and colleagues in the mid-1980s, asks individuals to rate their level of agreement, on a scale of 1 to 7, with five statements related to life satisfaction, such as "I am satisfied with my life," and "If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing."" https://lnkd.in/d6b_xQNi
