Experienced wellbeing | Sustainability Language

Definition

Experienced wellbeing is the affective dimension of subjective wellbeing: the quality of a person's momentary emotional experience, including positive states (happiness, joy, calm) and negative states (worry, sadness, stress, pain). It is measured with experience-sampling methods (ESM), which ping people during daily life, or with the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) developed by Kahneman and colleagues (2004), which rebuilds the previous day as episodes and rates feelings for each — an approach validated against ESM in the original study of 909 employed women. It corresponds to what Kahneman calls experienced utility, distinct from the reflective life evaluation of evaluative wellbeing.

References

Arab Psychology (scale documentation, summarising Kahneman et al. 2004)

DRM design, 2004 study of 909 employed women, equivalence with experience sampling, experienced utility

Overview

What it means

Income and life evaluation correlate strongly, but experienced wellbeing saturates sooner and responds more to daily circumstances — health, commuting, relationships, time use. Measuring feelings as they happen (or as recently reconstructed) avoids the recall and self-presentation biases of global retrospective questions.

How it is used

Used in wellbeing economics, health research (quality-adjusted life experience), time-use surveys and policy evaluation of everyday quality of life, such as the effect of green space or working conditions on daily affect.

Why it matters

Policy aimed at wellbeing rather than output needs measures of lived experience; experienced wellbeing is the closest quantitative proxy and complements satisfaction-based indicators.

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Definition

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Experienced wellbeing is the affective dimension of subjective wellbeing: the quality of a person's momentary emotional experience, including positive states (happiness, joy, calm) and negative states (worry, sadness, stress, pain). It is measured with experience-sampling methods (ESM), which ping people during daily life, or with the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) developed by Kahneman and colleagues (2004), which rebuilds the previous day as episodes and rates feelings for each — an approach validated against ESM in the original study of 909 employed women. It corresponds to what Kahneman calls experienced utility, distinct from the reflective life evaluation of evaluative wellbeing.

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