Lucas-Diener 4myths

Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2/5 (2008): 2001–2015, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00140.
Four Myths about Subjective Well-being

Richard E. Lucas,*1 Portia S. Dyrenforth1 and Ed Diener2
1
Michigan State University
2
University of Illinois
Abstract
Subjective well-being is a broad construct that reflects an individual’s subjective
evaluation of the quality of his or her life. Psychologists know a great deal about
the causes and correlates of well-being, but some important misconceptions have
developed and are often repeated. The purpose of this article is to address the
evidence for four such misconceptions that we believe reflect ‘myths’ about
subjective well-being. These myths include the idea that well-being measures are
strongly influenced by irrelevant contextual factors, the idea that money is not
an important correlate of well-being, the idea that social relationship variables are
a particularly strong correlate of well-being, and the idea that well-being cannot
change.
An important goal of most scientific endeavours is to improve people’s

lives. Medical doctors seek treatments that will not only lengthen life, but
also those that will promote patient comfort, energy, and a sense of well-
being. Political scientists hope to understand the processes that promote
efficient and effective government because these types of governments are
thought to create satisfying conditions for their citizens. Economists
attempt to discover the laws that govern micro- and macro-economic
processes; but again, this work is done with the belief that economic
conditions can serve a greater good: thriving economies should lead to
flourishing individuals. Thus, quality of life – the psychological construct
that reflects the global evaluation of a person’s life as a whole – is a
common currency that can link all sciences.
One important way that quality of life can be evaluated is through
subjective evaluations of a person’s life as a whole. The field of subjective
well-being (SWB) focuses on such evaluations. Although the field is
relatively new, research findings have built up rapidly. There are now
numerous reviews of the field where catalogues of correlates can be found
(e.g., Argyle, 1999; Diener, 1984; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Eid
& Larsen, 2008; Kahneman, Diener, & Schwarz, 1999). Occasionally,
however, certain ideas about SWB propagate – either among lay people
or among scientists – even when very little empirical support for these
© 2008 The Authors
Journal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
2002 Four Myths about Subjective Well-Being
ideas exist. These ideas often have a kernel of empirical truth, but the
strength of the findings have been exaggerated, or the implications have
been overstated. The purpose of the current paper is to discuss some of
the more frequently cited findings or intuitively appealing ideas that do
not hold up to empirical scrutiny. Thus, we will not provide a general
overview of the field, as this information is available elsewhere. Instead,
we focus on four ideas that we believe reflect myths about SWB. For the
purposes of this paper, we define myths as often-repeated claims that are
not supported by empirical evidence. Because each of the myths we
address does have some kernel of truth, we will attempt to be explicit
about what part of the idea is supported by empirical evidence, and what
part is a myth.
Myth #1: SWB Measures Are Strongly Influenced by

Transient (and Irrelevant) Factors
If well-being measures are to be used to evaluate the quality of an indi-
vidual’s life, then these measures must be reliable and valid. However,
well-being, like most other psychological constructs, cannot be seen.
Thus, there is no gold standard measure against which to compare our
measures. This fact has led to some suspicion about whether well-being
can in fact be measured. One common criticism is that responses to these
measures can be influenced by irrelevant contextual stimuli. If so, responses
will vary across occasions, and no stable information about a person’s
long-term levels of well-being could be obtained. For instance, Schwarz
and Strack (1999) suggested that short-term stabilities were extremely low
and that context effects were strong. They concluded that ‘there is little
to be learned from global self-reports of well-being ... [W]hat is being
assessed, and how, seems too context dependent to provide reliable informa-
tion about a population’s well-being’ (p. 80).
In support of this argument, Schwarz and Strack (1999) cited a number
of studies that show context effects. For instance, in one of the most
famous studies, Schwarz and Clore (1983) found that life satisfaction reports
varied depending on whether people were asked to report their satisfaction
on a warm and sunny day or a cold and rainy day. A second study that is
often cited in support of context effects is a study by Strack, Martin, and
Schwarz (1988). In the Strack et al. study, participants who were asked
about their satisfaction with dating before being asked about their satis-
faction with life showed stronger correlations between the two questions
than did participants who received the questions in the reverse order. The
explanation for this phenomenon is that dating satisfaction was made
salient when the question was presented, and this led participants to
incorporate dating satisfaction into their global life satisfaction ratings.
Although these studies provide important insight into the processes that
underlie well-being judgment, it is not clear from these individual studies
© 2008 The Authors Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2/5 (2008): 2001–2015, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00140.x
Four Myths about Subjective Well-Being 2003
how strong these context effects are. For instance, although the Schwarz
and Clore (1983) weather study has been cited 659 times as of this
writing, as far as we can tell, not one of these studies has replicated the
weather effect.1 This is not to say that the original study or its conclusions
were flawed, just that the lack of replications makes it very difficult to
evaluate the size or robustness of the effect. Similarly, in regards to the
question-order effects and the more general issue of short-term stability,
it appears as though the effects of such manipulations tend to be quite
weak. Schimmack and Oishi (2005) conducted a meta-analysis of studies
that used the Strack et al. (1988) question-order manipulation, along with
five new replication studies. They found that these item-order effects tend
to be quite small. In addition, Schimmack and Oishi showed that short-term
stabilities tend to be moderate to strong (ranging from 0.55 to 0.65 for
periods as long as a year). This suggests that both in typical testing situations
and in more controlled settings that are designed explicitly to pull for
context effects, such effects tend to be quite small.
This evidence corresponds well with additional studies designed to
assess the relative impact of transient mood and stable traits on well-being
judgments. For instance, Eid and Diener (2004), administered well-being
measures (along with current mood measures) three times over the course
of a 12-week period. This enabled them to separate trait well-being variance
(which is stable across all occasions) from state well-being variance (which
changes from occasion to occasion). Furthermore, their design allowed
them to determine how much of an impact current mood has on the
various components of well-being judgments. Eid and Diener showed that
when a well-being measure is administered, most of the variance (between
74% and 84%) is stable trait variance that is consistent over relatively long
periods of time. Furthermore, only a very small percentage is reliable state
variance that is unique to the specific occasion, and even this transient
influence is only weakly related to current mood.
It is likely that the context effects that Schwarz and Strack (1999)
discuss do exist and do contribute to well-being judgments. Therefore,
studies that examine these processes make a strong contribution by identi-
fying some of the processes that go into a well-being judgment. Thus,
there is a kernel of truth to this myth. However, the question of whether
these processes exist is distinct from question about the strength of the
impact that these processes have on the validity of well-being judgments.
If context effects are small, we should expect moderate to strong stability
in well-being measures (particularly over relatively short periods of time),
combined with sensitivity to differences in life circumstances and respons-
ivity to changing life circumstances; and this is what we typically find (see
Lucas, 2008, for a review). Thus, the myth is that such context effects
have been shown to be strong enough to affect the validity of SWB
measures. To be sure, researchers must not blindly accept self-report measures.
Especially when additional predictors and outcomes are measured using
the same technique, shared method variance may inflate correlations. Thus,
multi-method studies are always desirable (see Eid & Diener, 2005). However,
self-report methods, particularly when used in combination with other
techniques, provide useful information about a person’s subjective quality
of life.
Myth #2: The Small Correlation between Income and

Happiness Means that the Rich Are Barely Happier
than the Poor
A continuing debate in the literature on SWB is whether income and
happiness are related in any important way. Intuition suggests that money
and the resources it provides should play an important role in happiness.
Money can open doors to many of the things that people want in life.
Access to wealth can bring with it access to material goods, pleasurable
experiences, better healthcare, and increased security. However, psycho-
logists often cite evidence that the correlation between income and well-being
is not large and conclude that money is not important for well being. To
reconcile these discrepancies between intuition and the empirical evidence,
we believe it is important give special attention to how we interpret the
available data.
First, it is important note that the size of the income/happiness cor-
relation varies depending on the unit of analysis that is examined. For
instance, when entire nations are compared, average income tends to
correlate very strongly with happiness (Diener et al., 2008). In contrast,
when the same nation is examined over time, the average income in each
year tends not to correlate at all with the average happiness in that year
(Easterlin, 1995). But in general, when people wonder about the
extent to which money and happiness are related, they are referring to
within-nation correlations between individual levels of income and
individual levels of happiness. In other words, do wealthy people tend to
be happier than poorer people?
To get a sense of the absolute size of the association between income
and happiness, Lucas and Dyrenforth (2006) turned to data from the
General Social Survey (GSS; Davis, Smith, & Mardsen, 1999) and several
reviews in the literature. The GSS includes responses from over 30,000
Americans between 1972 and 1998. In this large sample, real income was
correlated 0.18 with well-being. Similar results were obtained in a review
of 11 studies conducted by Diener and Biswas-Diener (2002). They found
an unweighted average correlation of 0.20. These estimates are also consistent
with two existing meta-analysis. The first examined the association between
socioeconomic status and well-being among the elderly (Pinquart &
Sörensen, 2000). The average correlation between income and happiness
was found to be 0.21, and the average correlation between income and
life satisfaction was 0.18. A second meta-analysis estimated the average
correlation between SWB and income to be 0.17 (Haring, Stock, &

Okun, 1984). Thus, across various sources, there is consistent evidence
that the correlation between happiness and income is somewhere between
0.17 and 0.21.
To interpret these effects, researchers have traditionally compared these
estimates to the rules of thumb proposed by Cohen (1988) and concluded
that the association between income and well-being is small. This would
suggest that money is unimportant for happiness and that peoples’ intuitive
beliefs regarding this association are incorrect. However, correlations are
notoriously difficult to interpret (Rosenthal & Rubin, 1982). In fact, small
correlations can hide associations that would otherwise be considered
large and practically important.
For instance, if we want to know whether rich people are considerably
happier than poor people (or even middle-income people), it is difficult
to use the size of a correlation to answer this question. In the case of
income and happiness, small correlations can translate into large mean
differences in happiness between the rich and the poor. Lucas and Schim-
mack (forthcoming) demonstrated this using data from a large German
panel study. Like previous studies, Lucas and Schimmack estimated the
bivariate correlation between income and happiness. In addition, they
estimated the average standardized life satisfaction score for distinct groups
of individuals with varying levels of income. Despite the fact that the
correlation between income and life satisfaction was just 0.18 (generally
interpreted as a small effect), there were large mean differences in happiness
across the income groups. Participants in the richest group (those who
made the equivalent of over $200,000 a year) reported happiness scores
that were over three quarters of a standard deviation higher than those in
the poorest group (those who made less than $10,000 a year). In addition,
the richest group was over one half of a standard deviation higher than
those who make an average amount of money. This pattern was also rep-
licated in the World Values Survey, a multi-national cross-sectional study.
We want to emphasize that there are no statistical tricks being played
here. Because correlations are difficult to interpret, we are simply presenting
the data in a different way, namely by reporting standardized life satisfaction
scores for people at different income levels. In the social sciences, we are
often encouraged to consider values of a predictor that are just one standard
deviation above or below the mean, as these reflect realistic estimates of
the amount of variance that typically exists in a measure. However, it can
often be useful to consider values that are farther from the mean, if these
reflect meaningful points of comparison. In the current example, people
who make $200,000 a year have incomes that are four or five standard
deviations above the income of the very poor. The fact that that these
people report happiness scores that are eight tenths of a standard deviation
higher than those reported by the poorer participants in the sample is
exactly what we would expect based on a correlation of 0.18 (0.18 × 4
standard deviations = 0.76 standard deviation difference). Although one

might interpret a correlation of 0.18 to be small, the large mean differ-
ences across people in distinct income groups leads to a very different
interpretation of this effect. In fact, these large mean differences support
the intuitive belief that wealthy people are quite a bit happier than poor
people or even those with average incomes.
Myth #3: Social Relationships Have Been Shown to Be the

Strongest Predictors of SWB
If you were to ask someone what factors predict how happy a person is,
it is likely that many of the answers would relate to some form of social
relationship. Intuition and societal beliefs suggest that friendships, romantic
partnerships, and strong family relationships are of primary importance for
leading a happy and satisfied life. Psychologists seem to agree, as social
relationships are continually cited as central to SWB. For example, according
to one review of the literature on well-being, ‘social relationships have a
powerful effect on happiness and other aspects of well-being, and are
perhaps its greatest single cause’ (Argyle, 2001, p. 71). While other demo-
graphic factors such as income, level of education, and health status are
dismissed as having only weak associations with SWB, social relationships
are repeatedly held up as a strong and primary cause of happiness.
We do not doubt that social relationships influence well-being. A great
deal of correlational and experimental evidence supports the contention
that happiness is influenced by social factors. Measures of sociability and
extraversion, the amount of time spent in social interactions, social network
size, and even marital status are all reliably correlated with ratings of
happiness and well-being. However, we do question the claims regarding
the size of these associations, particularly in comparison to alternative
predictors such as income or health. For instance, most reviews conclude
that social relationships have a much stronger association with well-being
than income. However, as we review below, the data do not support this
conclusion (see Lucas & Dyrenforth, 2006, for a more thorough review).
Because this is likely to be the most controversial of the points we wish
to make, we want to be very explicit about the precise features of this
belief that we think reflect a myth. Ultimately, our concerns boil down
to two issues. First, many reviews that focus on the associations between
SWB and social relationships fail to mention effect sizes. But when these
effect sizes are calculated – at least for objective relationship variables – they
tend to be quite small and similar to effect sizes for other objective
predictors including income and health. Second, the documented associ-
ations that do have large effect sizes tend to involve self-reports of variables
like relationship satisfaction. And as we discuss, there are some compelling
alternative explanations for why these variables might be linked with
happiness. We are certainly open to the possibility that social relationships
will eventually be shown to be the strongest predictors of well-being. Our

point is that much of the existing evidence does not show what it has
been claimed to show.
Lucas and Dyrenforth (2006) used data from two meta-analyses and the
GSS to estimate the size of many different relationship effects. First, they
examined whether the number of friends an individual has is related to
happiness. According to one meta-analysis of research on social activity
and well-being, the scope of an individual’s social contact (including the
size of his or her social network) correlated 0.16 with happiness and life
satisfaction (Okun, Stock, Haring, & Witter, 1984). Another meta-analysis
of older adults found that the quantity of social activity correlated 0.12
with life satisfaction and 0.17 with happiness (Pinquart & Sörensen, 2000).
Within the GSS, the number of friends reported was correlated with
general happiness (r = 0.13; Lucas & Dyrenforth, 2006). Although this
estimate is consistent with those reported in the literature, it is important
to note that the effect is actually smaller than the effect of income in the
same sample (r = 0.18).
Analyses using additional variables assessing the frequency of contact do
not do any better when predicting SWB. For example, participants in the
GSS reported the frequency with which they spend a social evening with
relatives, neighbors, friends, parents, and siblings. They also reported how
often they visited their closest friend and how often they spoke with that
friend on the phone. All of the correlations between these variables and
happiness were very small, with none larger than 0.06 (see Lucas &
Dyrenforth, 2006).
Both intuition and theory suggest that in addition to the sheer amount
of time spent with other people, the type and closeness of social partners
should moderate the impact that social engagement has on well-being.
For example, spending time with a good friend with whom you can
confide may be more beneficial than being surrounded by several people
who are mere acquaintances. However, data from the GSS do not support
this idea. Respondents were asked to indicate the number of people on
whom they could call if they had a problem. The correlation with well-
being was again very low, only 0.05. Overall, this is consistent with other
GSS and meta-analytic results regarding social activity that show small
associations (notably, even smaller than those for income) with well-being
(see Lucas & Dyrenforth, 2006).
A final type of relationship that speaks to the association between social
relationships and well-being is that of marital status. If marital status can
serve as a proxy measure of a strong social relationship then differences in
well-being across marital status might confirm the importance of relation-
ships for well-being. In fact, most studies show a consistent association
between marital history and well-being. For example, Mastekaasa (1994)
used data from 19 countries to compare well-being for married, divorced,
widowed, and never married individuals. The married group was consistently
highest in SWB, while the divorced and widowed groups were consistently
the lowest. Two different meta-analyses have confirmed that this association
is reliable (Haring-Hidore, Stock, Okun, & Witter, 1985; Wood, Rhodes,
& Whelan, 1989). These differences support the idea that marital status
predicts increased well-being.
However, the size of the marital status effect is not large. In the GSS,
the correlation between happiness and marital status is 0.23, only slightly
higher than that for income. A meta-analytic estimate was even smaller,
with a correlation of just 0.14 between happiness and marital status (Haring-
Hidore et al., 1985). Using only the married and never-married participants
reduced the effect size even more (r = 0.09). Furthermore, there is some
evidence that the causal direction is reversed – happier people may be
more likely to become married than are unhappy people (Lucas, Clark,
Georgellis, & Diener, 2003; Stutzer & Frey, 2003).
The evidence we have reviewed suggests that social relationships do
impact SWB. Highly sociable and extraverted people experience more
positive affect than less sociable individuals. People who spend more time
with others, or have more friends are happier than those who spend more
time alone or have few friends. And married people report higher life
satisfaction than people that have experienced divorce or widowhood.
However, the size of these effects is not commensurate with claims that
social relationships are a particularly strong predictor of well-being. Cor-
relations between the number of friends, frequency of contact, marital
status, and actual social activity are generally small, between 0.10 and
0.20. In fact, many of these effect sizes are smaller than those for other
variables often interpreted as unimportant (e.g., income).
In light of the empirical evidence that the effects are not large, it is
important to consider why social relationships have held such an esteemed
reputation as a cause of SWB (e.g., Argyle, 2001). We have argued that
both methodological and interpretational issues might be at play (Lucas &
Dyrenforth, 2006). First, the beneficial effects of social relationships on
SWB are often discussed along with outcomes from other domains such
as health and even longevity (e.g., House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988;
House, Robbins, & Metzner, 1982). In this context, the robustness of these
effects across a variety of domains seems impressive, even if the actual
effect sizes for well-being are small.
It is also possible that perceptions regarding the power of social rela-
tionships may be due more to the effects of relationship quality rather than
the simple existence of social relationships. Our earlier review (Lucas &
Dyrenforth, 2006) focused on objective measures including the existence
of social relationships and the amount of time people spend with social
relationship partners. We did not rule out the impact that relationship
quality may have on estimates of effect size. However, it is important to
note that quality of relationships is often assessed using self-report measures
of relationship satisfaction or related variables. These measures share
considerable method variance with self-report well-being variables, which

likely inflates the size of this effect. Satisfaction with one’s income also
correlates quite strongly with satisfaction with life, but few confuse satis-
faction with income for a ‘quality-of-income’ measure. Instead, these
associations would generally be interpreted as evidence for top-down
effects, whereby overall happiness makes one satisfied with a wide range
of domains within a person’s life. We believe that similar caution is
warranted when interpreting self-report measures of satisfaction with
relationships as predictors of SWB. To demonstrate that current views
about the importance of social relationships do not reflect a myth, it will
be necessary to show robust associations between non-self-report relationship
quality measures and SWB with effect sizes that are larger than are typically
found for variables like income and health.
In our review, we have described evidence that the effect for social
relationships on well-being is not as large as might be expected based on
claims in the literature. It is worth repeating, however, that we are not
arguing that social relationships are unimportant for well-being. Although
the effect sizes are small by traditional standards, we recognize that small
effects can be very important (Meyer et al., 2001). However, we believe
it is important to view this evidence objectively and that a clear under-
standing of size of this effect (as well as those for other variables) is
important to making progress toward understanding the factors that influence
well-being.
Myth #4: People Adapt to All Life Circumstances and

Happiness Cannot Change
The final myth we address concerns the idea that people adapt to all life
circumstances and that happiness cannot change. This may be the most
important concern regarding the practical utility of well-being measures.
For if people inevitably adapt, then few life circumstances will show
strong correlations with well-being. Therefore, it will be impossible to use
these correlations to inform theories of basic human needs, to provide
practical advice to people who want to improve their levels of well-being,
or to guide policy decisions. Fortunately, recent evidence suggests that
happiness can, in fact, change.
The myth regarding adaptation has arisen from at least four distinct
lines of research. First, decades’ worth of research shows that objective
measures of life circumstances correlate only weakly with measures of
SWB (Diener et al., 1999). It is thought that if circumstances such as
income, health, and marital status had a strong impact on happiness, the
correlations between SWB and these variables should be strong (though
see our above discussion for a reinterpretation of some of these effects).
Second, research on personality predictors of SWB shows that all well-
being components are moderately to strongly correlated with personality
variables such as extraversion, neuroticism, self-esteem, and optimism (Lucas,

2008). Because personality traits are reasonably stable over time, and because
they have some genetic basis, these moderate correlations suggest that
much of the influence on happiness is inborn and stable over time.
A third line of research that suggests that happiness cannot change
comes from studies of the stability of happiness. Most existing studies
show that even over long periods of time, and even in the face of chang-
ing life circumstances, happiness is reasonably stable (e.g., Costa, McCrae,
& Zonderman, 1987). For instance, research using long-running panel studies
shows that even over periods as long as fifteen or twenty years, life
satisfaction ratings are moderately stable (Fujita & Diener, 2005; Lucas &
Donnellan, 2007). Given that some changes in circumstances are likely to
occur to most people over such long periods of time, the remarkable
stability has led some to conclude that well-being variables are more like
personality traits than reactive constructs that can be influenced by life
circumstances.
To some, the most convincing evidence regarding the inability to
change happiness comes from behavioral genetic studies. Twin and adoption
studies consistently show that happiness is moderately heritable with
estimates typically ranging between 0.40 and 0.50 (see Lucas, 2008, for a
review). More importantly, Lykken and Tellegen (1996) suggested that
events may temporarily affect reports of happiness but that people will
inevitably return to their genetically determined baseline. In support of
this idea, they showed that the heritability of the stable component of
happiness was quite high – about 0.80. They concluded that although
short-term levels of happiness fluctuate, long-term levels of happiness
should be difficult to change.
These four lines of research are important because the help show the
wide variety of factors (some of which are in-born) that affect levels of
happiness and well-being. But they are often interpreted to mean that life
circumstances do not matter, and this conclusion is not appropriate. Take
for instance, the findings on heritability. There are a number of reasons
why we should not interpret a heritability coefficient of 0.50 to mean that
half of our happiness is stable and cannot be changed (Diener, 2008). For
one thing, heritability coefficients describe the extent to which variance
in a specific population (with a specific range of environments) can be
attributed to genes. This tells us little about the potential effect of
environmental factors on specific individuals. Furthermore, heritability
coefficients tell us little about the processes by which genes affect well-
being. It is entirely possible that the causal path flows from genes to life
decisions to happiness. If so, then these decisions could be changed with
intervention, and increases in happiness could result. Thus, heritability
studies and other research programs that investigate the inborn factors that
influence well-being are interesting and important, but they should not
be interpreted to mean that happiness cannot change.
Furthermore, each of the lines of research described above provides

suggestive, but only indirect support for the idea that life events do not
matter. A more direct way to address this question comes from studies that
explicitly examine the impact of life events on happiness. The ideal technique
for doing so is a prospective design where pre- and post-event levels could
be tracked. Psychologists and economists have begun to use long-running
panel studies to address these questions using nationally representative
samples. Our studies show that happiness does change following life
events, though the pattern of these changes varies depending on the event
in question. For instance, Lucas et al. (2003) assessed life satisfaction
before and after marriage. They showed that happiness increased around
the time of the marriage, but that happiness levels returned to baseline
after just two years. However, other events lead to a different picture. For
instance, they showed that widows and widowers experienced large drops
in happiness following the loss of their spouse. Although they did eventually
return quite close to their initial baseline, this process of adaptation took
about seven years to occur. Similarly, the onset of divorce was associated
with a moderate drop in happiness, followed by some adaptation. However,
the divorced individuals were significantly lower than baseline, even at the
peak of their adaptation (Lucas, 2005). Thus, unpleasant marital events
can have lasting – and sometimes permanent – effects on SWB.
Even more substantial reactions were observed following non-marital
events. For instance, Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, and Diener (2004) examined
individuals who experienced a bout of unemployment and then became
reemployed. Even though these individuals eventually found another job,
the single bout of unemployment was associated with a lasting drop in
happiness. More recently, Lucas (2007a) showed that the onset of a dis-
ability is associated with moderate to large drops in life satisfaction. For
instance, individuals who report being 100% disabled (using a metric
designed to assess severity of disability when considering work benefits)
showed drops in life satisfaction that were greater than a full standard
deviation. In addition, these life satisfaction levels did not show any evidence
of adaptation – they remained at the lowered level for the remainder of
the study. Thus, life events can have substantial associations with changes
in SWB.
An important caveat that must be made concerns the fact that there are
large individual differences in the reactions that people have to life events.
Even for events like marriage, where the average person adapts within
about two years, there are some individuals who experience lasting boosts
after the event, whereas other individuals experience lasting drops in
happiness. This suggests that a simple investigation of the average effect
may be misleading. In addition, it suggests that additional research is
needed to determine the moderators of this effect (Lucas, 2007b). In any
case, studies that examine life events using prospective data show that life
events do matter and that happiness can changes.
Summary
Considerable progress has been made in identifying robust correlates of

SWB. These research findings help to clarify the processes that underlie
well-being judgments, which, in turn, helps researchers and practitioners
use SWB measures to inform theories and practical problems in other
areas. However, there is not always a direct correspondence between the
weight of the empirical evidence and the lay person’s (or even the psy-
chologist’s) perception of this evidence. The goal of the current chapter
was to re-evaluate some findings that we believe have been misstated in
the literature or popular press.
Specifically, we addressed four findings that we believe have been
overstated in existing reviews of the field. First, although some social
psychological research suggests that self-reports of well-being are suscept-
ible to strong context effects, the larger body of evidence examining the
reliability and validity of these measures shows that they are quite good.
Second, although researchers often conclude that the association between
income and happiness is quite small, our re-analysis shows that this small
correlation can translate into large differences between distinct income
groups. Third, although psychologists often cite social relationships as the
single best predictor of happiness, the size of these effects is often similar
to other effects including the correlation with income or health. Finally,
although the evidence regarding the stability and heritability of happiness
measures has led some to conclude that happiness cannot change, more
recent studies that use prospective data to examine reaction and adaptation
to life events challenge this conclusion. Life events matter and happiness
does change.
Short Biography
Richard E. Lucas is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Michigan
State University and a Research Professor of the German Socio-Economic
Panel Study (GSOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research
(DIW, Berlin). He received his PhD in Psychology from the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the causes and
consequences of subjective well-being. In particular, he studies the asso-
ciation between extraversion and positive affect, the functions of positive
affect, the role of social activity and social relationships in well-being, and
the extent to which people adapt to major life events and life circum-
stances including marriage, widowhood, divorce, unemployment, and chronic
disability. Dr. Lucas is also interested in measurement and he conducts
studies designed to evaluate the psychometric properties of personality
and well-being measures. He has authored or co-authored papers on these
topics for journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
Psychological Bulletin, American Psychologist, Annual Review of Psychology,
Psychological Science, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Psychological

Assessment, and Perspectives on Psychological Science.
Footnotes
* Correspondence address: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing,
MI 48823, USA. Email: lucasri@msu.edu
1
It is important to note that this study is often cited because it is one of the first to demonstrate
mood misattribution effects. We do not dispute the value of this paper in this regard. However,
the study is also cited as showing that weather affects life satisfaction judgments, and it is this
aspect that has apparently not been replicated. We also want to note that we believe that
weather may in fact affect mood (e.g., Keller, Fredrickson, Ybarra, Cote, Johnson, Mikels,
Conway, & Wager, 2005). But our point is that the carryover effect from weather to mood to
life satisfaction judgments has not, to our knowledge, been replicated.
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Lucas-Diener 4myths

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Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2/5 (2008): 2001–2015, 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00140.

Four Myths about Subjective Well-being

An important goal of most scientific endeavours is to improve people’s

Myth #1: SWB Measures Are Strongly Influenced by

Myth #2: The Small Correlation between Income and

correlation between SWB and income to be 0.17 (Haring, Stock, &

standard deviations = 0.76 standard deviation difference). Although one

Myth #3: Social Relationships Have Been Shown to Be the

will eventually be shown to be the strongest predictors of well-being. Our

considerable method variance with self-report well-being variables, which

Myth #4: People Adapt to All Life Circumstances and

variables such as extraversion, neuroticism, self-esteem, and optimism (Lucas,

Furthermore, each of the lines of research described above provides

Considerable progress has been made in identifying robust correlates of

Psychological Science, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Psychological

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