Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS)

The average score on the Subjective Happiness Scale has been found to be from 4.5 to 5.5 depending on the respondent group in the study. College students tend to score lower (scores just below 5) whilst working adults and elderly respondents average 5.6.

So when an adult of working age scores less than 5.6, they can be considered as less happy than the average person. If the score is greater than 5.6 then the adult can be considered happier than the average person.

A B O U T   T H E   S H S

The Subjective Happiness Scale is a self-administered 4-question scale of global subjective happiness. The first two items ask the respondent to characterise themselves using an absolute rating and a rating relative to peers.

The second two items offer brief descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals and ask the respondents to evaluate to which extend each of the descriptions characterises them.

To score the SHS, the values from the first three items are scored as chosen by respondent whilst the 4th item is reverse scored (i.e. 7 is turned into 1, 6 into 2, 5 into 3, 3 into 5, 2 into 6 and 1 into 7), then all 4 items are summed then averaged, to offer the final score.

The SHS has been validated in 14 studies with a total of 2,732 participants. Data has been collected in the United States from:

• students on two college campuses;
• one high school campus;
• community adults in two California cities.

And in Moscow, Russia from:

• Students;
• Community adults;
• Older, retired adults.

Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research. 1999;46, 137-155. 

Lyubomirsky, S., & Ross, L. Changes in attractiveness of elected, rejected, and precluded alternatives: A comparison of happy and unhappy individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1999; 76, 988-1007. 

Schwartz, B., Ward, A., Monterosso, J., Lyubomirsky, S., White, K., & Lehman, D. R. Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2002;83, 1178-1197.