Revisiting happiness: Frequency versus intensity

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Acta de Investigación Psicológica Psychological Research Records Acta de Investigación Psicológica 6 (2016) 2527–2533 www.psicologia.unam.mx/acta-de-investigacion-psicologica/ Original Revisiting happiness: Frequency versus intensity Redefiniendo la felicidad: frecuencia versus intensidad Pedro Wolfgang Velasco Matus a,∗ , Gerardo Benjamín Tonatiuh Villanueva Orozco a,b , Sofía Rivera Aragón b , Rolando Díaz Loving b a Facultad de Estudios Superiores Zaragoza, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico b Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico Received 29 March 2016; accepted 8 July 2016 Available online 14 December 2016 Abstract Mexico is consistently portrayed as a happy country. Research endeavors, both national and international, show that Mexico’s levels of happiness are favorable, although little has been done regarding specific measurement underpinnings. There is a constant debate on whether happiness should be measured in terms of frequency or intensity of positive affect over negative affect (Diener, Sandvik, & Pavot, 2009), although some consensus points toward frequency’s superiority over intensity of emotions. Some authors insist that frequency can me more easily and accurately measured than intensity, allowing for cross-person metric comparisons. This research put to test the frequency-intensity debate by providing several conceptual frameworsk that accentuated one over the other, allowing people to decide how they defined their own happiness. Two independent samples (n1 = 158, n2 = 583) of Mexican men and women provided insights on whether happiness in Mexico is defined in terms of frequency or intensity. Once it was defined, happiness levels were compared between two groups showing that those who define happiness as “frequency” present higher levels of joy. This research supports the premise that happiness could be defined as the sum of frequent events, congruent with bottom-up approaches to happiness and wellbeing. © 2016 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Psicología. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Keywords: Happiness; Wellbeing; Frequency; Intensity; Bottom-up Resumen México es consistentemente definido como un país feliz. Algunas investigaciones, tanto nacionales como internacionales, muestran que los niveles de felicidad de México son favorables, aunque poco se ha hecho respecto a algunos aspectos clave sobre la medición de la felicidad. Existe un constante debate sobre si la felicidad debe ser medida en términos de intensidad o de frecuencia de afecto positivo sobre afecto negativo (Diener, Sandvik y Pavot, 2009), aunque existe cierto acuerdo en torno a la superioridad de la frecuencia sobre la intensidad. Algunos insisten en que la frecuencia puede ser medida de manera fácil y precisa, permitiendo una métrica comparable entre individuos. Esta investigación tuvo como propósito poner a prueba el debate de frecuencia-intensidad al proveer diferentes esquemas en torno a la felicidad, permitiendo que la gente eligiera cómo se define esta. Dos muestras independientes (n1 = 158, n2 = 583) de hombres y mujeres mexicanos proveen información útil sobre cómo se define en México la felicidad. Una ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: (P.W. Velasco Matus). Peer Review under the responsibility of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aipprr.2016.07.002 2007-4719/© 2016 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Psicología. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 2528 P.W. Velasco Matus et al. / Acta de Investigación Psicológica 6 (2016) 2527–2533 vez definida, se compararon los niveles de felicidad de 2 grupos, obteniendo resultados que apuntan a mayores niveles de felicidad en aquellos que la definen en términos de «frecuencia». Estos hallazgos apoyan la premisa de que la felicidad puede ser entendida como la suma de componentes básicos que ocurren con relativa frecuencia, congruente con las posturas teóricas de «abajo-arriba» (sumativas) en torno al estudio del bienestar y la felicidad. © 2016 Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Psicología. Este es un artículo Open Access bajo la licencia CC BY-NC-ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Palabras clave: Felicidad; Bienestar; Frecuencia; Intensidad; Procesos sumativos The study of wellbeing started with researchers trying to assess happiness, which was considered for some as the goal of human life. Wilson’s (1967) and Diener, Suh, Lucas, and Smith’s (1999) reviews have been consistently used as conceptual and empirical frameworks toward research in the field. Wilson’s (1967) conclusions about who the person who is universally happy stated that the happy person is a “young, healthy, well-educated, well-paid, extroverted, optimistic, worry-free, religious, married person with high self-esteem, job morale, modest aspirations, of either sex and of a wide range of intelligence” (p. 294). Since then, extensive research has been made in the field (see Diener, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2009d) toward defining a happy person. Social behavioral sciences consider the study of Subjective Well Being (SWB) the field in which people’s evaluations of their lives are studied. It includes many of dimensions and assessments ranging from quickmomentary moods, feelings, and cognitive frameworks to global judgements of life satisfaction and overall feelings toward life (Diener, 2009a). Diener (2005) defines SWB as the various types of evaluations that people make of their own lives. These evaluations may be either positive or negative and include both cognitive evaluations of satisfaction toward life, and affective reactions to life events, such as feeling happy or sad. In Mexico, some of the most recent endeavors concerning the scientific study of SWB and happiness (Arita, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c; INEGI, 2015; Palomar, 2000, 2004, 2005; Velasco, 2015) have directed their efforts into trying to explain how the access to public services (water, electricity, gas, paved roads), sociodemographic data (age, sex, income), and personality traits determine self-reported levels of happiness/wellbeing. One of these efforts (INEGI, 2012, 2015), labeled as BIARE (Bienestar Auto-Reportado in Spanish, Self-Reported Wellbeing in English) was intended to obtain enough information in order to generate data equivalent to that of the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). The assessment involved a series of questions such as “On a scale of 0 to 10, how satisfied are you with your life?” (10 being the most satisfied), “How happy did you feel yesterday?”, “How happy would you consider yourself?” among others. With more than ten thousand participants, results showed the following: 36.5% of the Mexican (...truncated)