Three studies conducted by NORC in the 1960s, sometimes referred to as the Happiness Studies (446 in 1962, 458 in 1963, and 458-S in 1962), resulted in the publications Reports on Happiness by Norman M. Bradburn and David Caplovitz (1965) and The Structure of Psychological Well-Being by Bradburn (1969). Five samples were used for these studies: two from Detroit, one from Chicago, one from Washington, D.C., and a fifth from the ten largest metropolitan areas in the country. Sampling and interviewing procedures are detailed in both books, while the latter contains a description of the Affect Balance Scale, a 10-point measure of psychological well-being developed by Bradburn in the 1960s. The studies were sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health.

*Note: You must have Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these PDF documents. If you need a copy of Reader, go to Adobe's site and download it. For optimal viewing, use Reader 3.0 or higher.

The Structure of Psychological Well-Being

Full-text chapters are available as PDF files. If you have any difficulty viewing these files, please contact NORC at norcinfo@norcmail
.uchicago.edu directly. The hardcover book is available for $15.00 from NORC, or you may request hardcopy sections on a fee (.10 cents) per page basis. Handling charges are additional.

Affect Balance Scale

The ABS is discussed at length in Chap. 4 (1MB PDF), "Two Dimensions of Psychological Well-Being: Positive and Negative Affect," of The Structure of Psychological Well-Being.

Happiness over Time

Table 3.1 (55KB PDF), p. 40 of The Structure of Psychological Well-Being, shows the distribution of avowed happiness in selected studies.

Related Publications

---

Affect Balance Scale

The Affect Balance Scale was developed by Norman M. Bradburn as part of surveys conducted by him at NORC during the 1960s to measure psychological well-being. The ABS is described at length and reproduced in Chap. 4 of The Structure of Psychological Well-Being (1969).

Since its development in 1963, the ABS has been used extensively in a wide variety of settings and with a wide variety of populations. The Affect Balance Scale is a 10-item rating scale containing five statements reflecting positive feelings and five statements reflecting negative feelings, which is administered to determine overall psychological well-being at a given point in time. The questions are presented in a yes or no format. Respondents are asked by an interviewer to focus on feelings during the past few weeks and indicate a positive (yes) or negative (no) response to each of the scale items. The set of ten questions can be administered in less than 5 to 10 minutes.

The questions reflecting positive feelings are:

• Did you feel particularly excited or interested in something?


• Proud because someone complimented you on something you had done?


• Pleased about having accomplished something?


• On top of the world?


• That things were going your way?

The questions reflecting negative feelings are:

• Did you feel so restless that you couldn't sit long in a chair?


• Very lonely or remote from other people?


• Bored?


• Depressed or very unhappy?


• Upset because someone criticized you?

Positive affect questions receive a rating of 1 for yes and 0 for no. A Positive Affect Scale score is obtained by summing ratings for the five positive affect questions. Scores range from 0 to 5. A Negative Affect Scale score is obtained by summing the ratings for the five negative affect questions. Scores range from 0 to 5.

The Affect Balance Scale score is computed by subtracting Negative Affect Scale scores from Positive Affect Scale scores and adding a constant of 5 to avoid negative scores.

Scores range from 0 (lowest affect balance) to 10 (highest affect balance).

Happiness over Time

The studies cited above resulted in measures of individual happiness over time which are frequently cited. Table 3.1 (p. 40) in The Structure of Psychological Well-Being reports "Distribution of Avowed Happiness in Selected Studies," including a study by Gerald Gurin (1957). Percentages of respondents reporting themselves "very happy," "pretty happy," and "not too happy" are as follows:

1957

• Very happy 35%
• Pretty happy 54%
• Not too happy 11%

1962

• Very happy 24% (in 4 Illinois towns)
• Pretty happy 59%
• Not too happy 17%

The question "Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?" has been included in the General Social Survey. Results over time can be viewed at GSSDIRS by searching the codebook indexes for the subject "happiness."

Related Publications

Bradburn, Norman M., and David Caplovitz. Reports on Happiness: A Pilot Study of Behavior Related to Mental Health. Chicago: Aldine, 1965. Positive feelings and social interaction table, p. 43.

Bradburn, Norman M. The Structure of Psychological Well-Being. Chicago: Aldine, 1969. Table: The distribution of avowed happiness in selected studies, p. 40. Table: Coefficients of association among indicators of social participation, p. 126.

Burt, Ronald S., "A note on strangers, friends and happiness," Social Networks, v. 9, no. 4 (December 1987): 311-331. [Originally appeared as GSS Technical Report no. 72, and GSS Topical Report no. 14: "Strangers, Friends, and Happiness".]

Burt, Ronald S., and James A. Wiley, Michael J. Minor and James R. Murray, "Structure of well-being: form, content and stability over time," Sociological Methods and Research, v. 6, no. 3 (February 1978): 365-407. [Study 5047]

Gurin, Gerald, Joseph Veroff, and Sheila Field, Americans View Their Mental Health. New York: Arno Press, 1960. Pages 22-23 on 1957 study.

Hodge, Robert W., "Social integration, psychological well-being, and their socioeconomic correlates," Sociological Inquiry, v. 40, no. 2 (Spring 1970): 182-206. [Studies 502, 458 I]

Kempen GIJM. "Psychometric properties of Bradburn's Affect Balance Scale among elderly persons." Psychological Reports 1992; 70: 638.

Robinson JP, Shaver PR, Wrightsman LS, editors. Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes. San Diego: Academic Press, 1991.

McDowell, I., Praught, E. "On the measurement of happiness: an examination of the Bradburn scale in the Canada Health Survey." American Journal of Epidemiology, 1982 (116, 6):949-958.

McDowell, I., Praught, E. "Survey measurements of emotional well-being: The Health Opinion Survey and the Bradburn Scale compared." Canadian Journal of Public Health. 1985. 76: 250-254.

Smith, Tom W., "Happiness: time trends, seasonal variations, inter-survey differences and other mysteries." Social Psychology Quarterly, v. 42, no. 1 (March 1979): 18-30. [Originally GSS Technical Report no. 6]

Stacey CA, Gatz M. "Cross-sectional age differences and longitudinal change on the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale." Journal of Gerontology, 1991; 46(2): 76-78.