MYER + DIENER'S REASERACH

• METHODOLOGY/PROCEDURE

  The methodology used by Myers and Diener was a literature review using existing studies.  (an example of using secondary sources, as Myers and Diener did not conduct the research themselves). The studies selected used several research methods such as questionnaires and interviews to assess subjective well-being.
• NB: There aren’t any of the usual ‘procedures’ in this study – except that the researchers searched for articles related to their aim of finding out ‘who is happy?’
• Interviews and questionnaires:

  consider a person’s sense of happiness or well-being known as subjective well-being (SWB). This is done by interviewing people using a simple closed question: ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?’ – Are you very satisfied? /Not very satisfied? /Not at all satisfied?

  Alternatively, a multi-item scale (basically a questionnaire) can be used which includes several questions related to happiness.

  In both cases, a quantitative measure is produced to represent happiness.
• Observation:

  One way to discover what people are doing is by asking them to report what they are doing at selected times (a kind of observation of their behaviour). Researchers use beepers to

  remind participants to send a message saying what they are doing and/or thinking at a particular moment. This is a way to sample people’s behaviour.
• Correlations:

  Another way to understand happiness is to consider what factors co-vary with it. Some of these factors may contribute to a person's happiness whereas other factors are a consequence of being happy. It is not always clear which is the cause and which is the effect. eg, people with high SWB tend to have a positive appraisal of life events around them. However, it could be the other way around – if a person tends to see events around them in a rose-coloured way, this may create a higher SWB.
• Reviews:

  This study is a review of other research, and some of the research referred to is also

  based on multiple studies. Some of these are reviews and some are meta-analyses.