Measures of psychological well-being
[New page 6 November 2012: last updated 1 October 2017; transferred 16 Dec 2019]
This page will list scales to measure psychological well-being, tried and tested in the field on general populations. Scales tested on students will not be listed, unless thay have also been used on general populations. Links to scales used in the SSRC Survey Unit Quality of Life in Britain surveys are on page Abstracts, data and documentation
Recent publications include:
Felicia A Huppert
Measurement Matters
(Paper 2, Measuring Well-being Series, Sep 2017)
Liu and Cernat
Item-by-item versus Matrix Questions: A Web Survey Experiment
Social Science Computer Review 2016
[https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/itembyitem-versus-matrix-questions-a-web-survey-experiment(4d24c4a2-5eaf-452d-b238-17d9780f097b).html]
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
A new paper of mine is:
John F Hall
Patterns of individual responses on 0-10 scales used to measure satisfaction and other well-being constructs: a comparison of usage in different surveys
(2018, pdf, 27pp)
[https://www.academia.edu/30026872/Item-by-item_Versus_Matrix_Questions_A_Web_Survey_Experiment?auto=download&campaign=weekly_digest]
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
. . which examines the use of (mostly) 0—10 scales in selected surveys and demonstrates wide variations in individual response patterns. Data sources used are:
SSRC Quality of Life in Britain (1971-1975)
ONS Well-being survey, Unrestricted Access Teaching Data Set (April 2011)
ONS Well-being survey (merged data set April – August 2011)
British Social Attitudes (2008 and 2013)
European Social Survey (Wave 6, 2012)
Linton, Dieppe & Medina-Lara
Review of 99 self-report measures for assessing well-being in adults: exploring dimensions of well-being and developments over time (BMJ Open, July 2016)
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
[https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/7/e010641.full]
. . is an excellent paper which reviews many instruments and lists many references new to me. However it does not include some sources listed below and on other pages on this site for early development work in the UK, USA and elsewhere during the 1970s and 1980s.
Himmelweit & Turner (1982)
Social and Psychological Antecedents of Depression: A Longitudinal Study from Adolescence to Early Adulthood of a Non-clinical Population.
Life-Span Development and Behaviour, Vol 4, 316-344, Academic Press 1982
[http://dragon.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/turner/OldPDFs/Himmelweit_Turner.pdf]
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegan, A. (1988).
Development and validation of brief measures of positive and
negative affect: The PANAS scales.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070.
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
(PANAS; Watson et al., 1988)
Worksheet 3.1 The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS;
[ http://www.cnbc.pt/jpmatos/28.Watson.pdf]
http://booksite.elsevier.com/Chapter_3_Worksheet_3.1.pdf
Page not found/ No longer available
John R. Crawford* and Julie D. Henry
The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS):
Construct validity, measurement properties and normative data in a large non-clinical sample
https://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/j.crawford/pages/dept/pdfs/BJCP_2004_PANAS.pdf
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
David Watson and Lee Anna Clark
THE PANAS-X Manual for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - Expanded Form
https://psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/clark/panas-x.pdf
Page not found/ No longer available
Ed Diener
The Satisfaction with Life Scale
https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/lifesatisfactionscale.pdf
Page not found/ No longer available
William Pavot and Ed Diener
Review of the Satisfaction with Life scale
Psychological Assessment, 1993, Vol , No 2, 164-172
Permission needed
Tennant R, Joseph S, Stewart-Brown S. (2007)
The Affectometer 2: a measure of positive mental health in UK populations
Qual Life Res. 2007 May;16(4):687-95. Epub 2007 Feb 1.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17268934?dopt=Abstract
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
Bond L, Kearns A, Mason P, Tannahill C, Egan M, Whitely E.
Exploring the relationships between housing, neighbourhoods and mental wellbeing for residents of deprived areas.
BMC Public Health 2012;12:48.
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-12-48
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
Duane F Alwin
Feeling Thermometers Versus 7-point Scales
Sociological Methods and Research, 25, 3, 1997
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/68989/10.1177_0049124197025003003.pdf;jsessionid=2517703174B76975E1B9A4643E4538A8?sequence=2
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
There’s a particularly interesting article The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS):
development and UK validation which lists that and other scales used in the measurement of
mental health. This scale has recently been used in Scotland (details on Measuring Mental Well-being). To date I have not found a single site listing the contents of all the different scales together with their statistical properties, and certainly none with any operational or critical assessments. Part of the problem is that academics and others tend not (or do not have time) to read outside their own narrow specialisms, so there is overlapping of work in mental health, clinical and social psychology, sociology, political science, econometrics etc which never seems to be compared or co-ordinated. In any case, the questionnaires I developed with the late Dr Mark Abrams in the early 1970s anticipate most of this stuff by 40 years or so, albeit with much smaller samples. Some of our items were taken from even earlier work by Allister Macmillan, initiator of the so-called Stirling County Studies, who conducted the first general population survey to have simultaneous psychiatric assessments in a mobile clinic.
Allister M Macmillan
Health Opinion Survey
Technique for estimating prevalence of psychoneurotic and related types of disorder in communities
(Monograph Supplement 7, Psychological Reports, 1957, 3, 325-339, Southern Universities Press)
http://journeysinsidesurveyresearch.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/9/8/2998485/health_opinion_survey.pdf
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
The Health Opinion Survey Scale
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
See also Schwarz, S A Proposal for Measuring Value Orientations across Nations
This page will list scales to measure psychological well-being, tried and tested in the field on general populations. Scales tested on students will not be listed, unless thay have also been used on general populations. Links to scales used in the SSRC Survey Unit Quality of Life in Britain surveys are on page Abstracts, data and documentation
Recent publications include:
Felicia A Huppert
Measurement Matters
(Paper 2, Measuring Well-being Series, Sep 2017)
Liu and Cernat
Item-by-item versus Matrix Questions: A Web Survey Experiment
Social Science Computer Review 2016
[https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/itembyitem-versus-matrix-questions-a-web-survey-experiment(4d24c4a2-5eaf-452d-b238-17d9780f097b).html]
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
A new paper of mine is:
John F Hall
Patterns of individual responses on 0-10 scales used to measure satisfaction and other well-being constructs: a comparison of usage in different surveys
(2018, pdf, 27pp)
[https://www.academia.edu/30026872/Item-by-item_Versus_Matrix_Questions_A_Web_Survey_Experiment?auto=download&campaign=weekly_digest]
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
. . which examines the use of (mostly) 0—10 scales in selected surveys and demonstrates wide variations in individual response patterns. Data sources used are:
SSRC Quality of Life in Britain (1971-1975)
ONS Well-being survey, Unrestricted Access Teaching Data Set (April 2011)
ONS Well-being survey (merged data set April – August 2011)
British Social Attitudes (2008 and 2013)
European Social Survey (Wave 6, 2012)
Linton, Dieppe & Medina-Lara
Review of 99 self-report measures for assessing well-being in adults: exploring dimensions of well-being and developments over time (BMJ Open, July 2016)
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
[https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/7/e010641.full]
. . is an excellent paper which reviews many instruments and lists many references new to me. However it does not include some sources listed below and on other pages on this site for early development work in the UK, USA and elsewhere during the 1970s and 1980s.
Himmelweit & Turner (1982)
Social and Psychological Antecedents of Depression: A Longitudinal Study from Adolescence to Early Adulthood of a Non-clinical Population.
Life-Span Development and Behaviour, Vol 4, 316-344, Academic Press 1982
[http://dragon.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/turner/OldPDFs/Himmelweit_Turner.pdf]
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegan, A. (1988).
Development and validation of brief measures of positive and
negative affect: The PANAS scales.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070.
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
(PANAS; Watson et al., 1988)
Worksheet 3.1 The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS;
[ http://www.cnbc.pt/jpmatos/28.Watson.pdf]
http://booksite.elsevier.com/Chapter_3_Worksheet_3.1.pdf
Page not found/ No longer available
John R. Crawford* and Julie D. Henry
The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS):
Construct validity, measurement properties and normative data in a large non-clinical sample
https://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/j.crawford/pages/dept/pdfs/BJCP_2004_PANAS.pdf
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
David Watson and Lee Anna Clark
THE PANAS-X Manual for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - Expanded Form
https://psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/clark/panas-x.pdf
Page not found/ No longer available
Ed Diener
The Satisfaction with Life Scale
https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/lifesatisfactionscale.pdf
Page not found/ No longer available
William Pavot and Ed Diener
Review of the Satisfaction with Life scale
Psychological Assessment, 1993, Vol , No 2, 164-172
Permission needed
Tennant R, Joseph S, Stewart-Brown S. (2007)
The Affectometer 2: a measure of positive mental health in UK populations
Qual Life Res. 2007 May;16(4):687-95. Epub 2007 Feb 1.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17268934?dopt=Abstract
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
Bond L, Kearns A, Mason P, Tannahill C, Egan M, Whitely E.
Exploring the relationships between housing, neighbourhoods and mental wellbeing for residents of deprived areas.
BMC Public Health 2012;12:48.
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-12-48
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
Duane F Alwin
Feeling Thermometers Versus 7-point Scales
Sociological Methods and Research, 25, 3, 1997
https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/68989/10.1177_0049124197025003003.pdf;jsessionid=2517703174B76975E1B9A4643E4538A8?sequence=2
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
There’s a particularly interesting article The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS):
development and UK validation which lists that and other scales used in the measurement of
mental health. This scale has recently been used in Scotland (details on Measuring Mental Well-being). To date I have not found a single site listing the contents of all the different scales together with their statistical properties, and certainly none with any operational or critical assessments. Part of the problem is that academics and others tend not (or do not have time) to read outside their own narrow specialisms, so there is overlapping of work in mental health, clinical and social psychology, sociology, political science, econometrics etc which never seems to be compared or co-ordinated. In any case, the questionnaires I developed with the late Dr Mark Abrams in the early 1970s anticipate most of this stuff by 40 years or so, albeit with much smaller samples. Some of our items were taken from even earlier work by Allister Macmillan, initiator of the so-called Stirling County Studies, who conducted the first general population survey to have simultaneous psychiatric assessments in a mobile clinic.
Allister M Macmillan
Health Opinion Survey
Technique for estimating prevalence of psychoneurotic and related types of disorder in communities
(Monograph Supplement 7, Psychological Reports, 1957, 3, 325-339, Southern Universities Press)
http://journeysinsidesurveyresearch.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/9/8/2998485/health_opinion_survey.pdf
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
The Health Opinion Survey Scale
[Right click > Open link in new tab/window]
See also Schwarz, S A Proposal for Measuring Value Orientations across Nations