Positive - Main Study Flashcards
What is the methodology of Myers and Diener?
The article is a literature review of search on the topic of happiness.
This study is a review of other research and some of the research referred to is also based on multiple studies. Some are reviews and some are meta-analysis
Describe how Interviews were used to gather data in Myers and Diener
This measures peoples subjective-well-being (SWB) by interviewing people using simple closed questions such as ‘are you happy with your life as a whole these days?’
Alternatively multi-item scale (questionnaire) can also be used to collect quantitative data to represent happiness
Describe how Observations were used to gather data in Myers and Diener
One way of discovering what people are doing is asking them to report what they are doing at selected times. Researchers use beepers to remind a participant to send a message saying what they are doing or thinking at a particular moment.
Give the findings of Myers and Diener related to AGE
A survey of almost 170,000 people of all ages in 16 different countries found no significant difference. And that people of all ages were equally happy. The mean score was 80% satisfaction rate in life.
Give the findings of Myers and Diener related to GENDER
Inglehart’s survey of people in 16 different countries found that 80% of men and women were fairly satisfied with life.
A different study reported gender accounted for 1% of global wellbeing.
Research found that women are twice as likely to report being depressed as men.
Give the findings of Myers and Diener related to RACE or CULTURE
African Americans reported nearly twice as much happiness as European Americans in Diener et al.
10% of people reported they were happy in Portugal
40% of people reported they were happy in the Netherlands.
People in individualist cultures report greater SWB than collectivist cultures
Give the findings of Myers and Diener related to Money
A survey in 1993 found that 75% of American college students selected being well off financially as an essential life goal compared to just 39% in 1970.
Forbes rich list found 37% of people were less happy than the average American and that people who win the lottery only report brief increase in happiness.
from the findings, who is happy? (7 things)
High self esteem – typically agree they are fun to be around
Sense of personal control. – People who feel empowered rather than helpless do better in school and cope with stress better
Optimism – such people agree with a statements like ‘when I undertake something new I will be good at it’
Extraversion – People who are more outgoing are happier with other people and also when alone.
Married people happier than non married people.
People who are unemployed are less happy than those in work as work provides a person identity and a life on fulfilment
Religious people report higher levels of happiness than non-religious people.
Give the evaluative points of Myers and Diener
Methodology / Procedures:
Weaknesses: Self Report. Lit review, Correlations, Ungeneralizable.
Ethics:
Strength: No risk of psychological Harm
Weakness: BPS guidelines (questions abt R status and happiness could be distressing)
Social implication:
Weakness: socially sensitive research
One weakness of methodology / procedures study to do with self report
One weakness of Myers and Diener is the use of a self-report interview.
The data about subjective well-being is just that, subjective so when someone reports they are happy or not, there is no way of confirming or challenging that.
Additionally on questionnaires, people often do not tell the truth and instead give answers that are socially desirable.
However, there is research evidence where study’s have also found that when friends are asked to rate the happiness levels of the same people, their ratings usually correlate confirming the internal validity of the study.
Overall there is reason to believe we cannot completely trust subjective reports of happiness in its entirely. But we can assume from the research that it is mostly accurate.
give a weakness of the methodology / procedures of this research to do with using a litriture review
A literature review involves researchers selecting previous research from other people and pooling it together to draw overall conclusions on a specific topic.
However by using this method there is a strong possibility of researcher bias in selecting the studies, e.g only choosing studies that support the researchers hypothesis and interpreting the results, where the results are interpreted in a way that also align with the views held by the researcher.
Give a weakness of the methodology / procedures of the study to do with correlational research
Another weakness of Myers and Diener is that many of the findings of the study are correlational; meaning we cannot assume that one particular factor is the cause of happiness as it doesn’t account for important intervening variables.
For example the link between marriage and happiness may be due to other things in a marriage rather than relationship such as that married people may have more money than those who are single due to multiple income sources or the fact most married people also have children. This means the study also lacks cause and effect, does happiness cause marriage or does marriage cause happiness?.
Additionally this study Ignores alternative factors and explanations such as genetics. When serotonin levels have been directly linked to amount of happiness in examples such as anti-depressants.
Give a weakness of the methodology / procedures of the study to do with generalisability
A weakness of the procedures of this study is that many of the studies used were focused on Western cultures and used Western definitions of happiness when designing the questionnaires. This would suggest the study lacks generalizability and so the results cannot be applied globally.
Give one strength of the ethics of Myers and Diener to do with BPS Guidelines
One strength is that it has good ethics. This is because there is very little risk of harm to participants as no behaviour is being manipulated and it is simply participant self-reporting their own happiness scores.
However, it is possible that unhappy people may not appreciate being asked their happiness level therefore researchers must take steps to debrief them appropriately.
Give one weakness of the ethics of Myers and Diener to do with BPS Guidelines
Some of the studies Myers and Diener used in the review asked for personal information such as well-being, religion or relationship status.
Revealing this may have been uncomfortable for some participants and is a weakness of the ethics of this research
