Academic

Hsee & Tang on Modulus-Based Happiness Measurement

By Lawrence Solum

Christopher K. Hsee and Ningyu Tang (University of Chicago - Graduate School of Business) have posted Sun and Water: On a Modulus-Based Measurement of Happiness (Emotion, Vol. 7, pp. 213-218, 2007) on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Most happiness researchers use semantic differential or Likert scales to assess happiness. Such conventionally used scales are susceptible to scale renorming (interpretation of scales differently in different contexts) and can produce a specious relativism effect (e.g., rating a low-income person happier than a high-income person in situations where the low-income person is not happier). Building on related psychophysical measurements, the authors propose a simple, survey-friendly, modulus-based scale of happiness and show that it is less susceptible to specious relativism than conventional rating scales but can still catch genuine relativism (e.g., rating a low-income person to be happier than a high-income person in situations where the low-income person is indeed happier).

And from the paper:

In this section, first we describe our scale, then we review related literature, and finally we specify the criteria for the scale. To use the scale, respondents are first asked to rate having no feeling as 0 and to rate their happiness with a particular positive event (e.g., drinking a cup of water after having traveled for half a day without water and feeling thirsty) as 10. The event is called a modulus. Then they are asked to rate their feelings with other events relative to their feeling toward the modulus. These other events are what the researcher is interested in studying and are called targets. If a target makes the respondents as happy as the modulus does, they should rate it 10. If a target makes them half as happy, they should rate it 5. If a target makes them twice as happy, they should rate it 20, and so forth. If a target makes the respondents unhappy, they should give it a negative rating; negative ratings are symmetrical in meaning to positive ratings.

Because our scale uses a modulus as a common yardstick and does not allow respondents to make arbitrary interpretations of the scale, we expect it to be less vulnerable to scale renorming than conventional rating scales.

Very interesting.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on June 03, 2008 (boomark / email).