title: Subjective well-being. The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index.
abstract: One area of positive psychology analyzes subjective well-being (SWB), people's cognitive and affective evaluations of their lives. Progress has been made in understanding the components of SWB, the importance of adaptation and goals to feelings of well-being, the temperament underpinnings of SWB, and the cultural influences on well-being. Representative selection of respondents, naturalistic experience sampling measures, and other methodological refinements are now used to study SWB and could be used to produce national indicators of happiness.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. ediener@s.psych.uiuc.edu
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Diener
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D011788:Quality of Life; D012494:Sampling Studies; D013694:Temperament