Myers and Diener Flashcards
(3 cards)
weaknesses of M+P
-self report eg, through questionnaires, could be some social desirability bias, and when someone reports high SWB, this is subjective so we have no way of confirming or challenging this. Research has found that social desirability scores correlate reasonably with happiness scores.
-correlational data, we cannot assume one factor is a cause of happiness when there can be various intervening variables eg, correlation of happiness and marriage may be due to other things within the marriage such as extra disposable income from 2 poeple, only need one house, etc. Dont know the direction of correlation either- happiness make marriage more likely or vice versa…
strength of M+P
+ cross cultural data, comparing collectivist with individualistic societies, found that individualistic are happier than collectivist, however this could just be because collectivists are equally as happy but dont express it as happiness.
Ethical and social
+ very little risk of psychological harm as behaviour is not being manipulated and the research is all collected from secondary sources, however, it is possible that in the research M&D collected that some people who are unhappy may feel more depressed after being asked to consider their sense of well being. So important in debrief under BPS guidelines to offer participants sources of professional help if necessary.
-Socially sensitive as the research drawed conclusions about the happiness of particular cultural groups such as Inglehart 10% Portugese happy compared to 40% Netherlands. May lead people to assume most portugese people they will meet are unhappy.
