Felicia Huppert
Measuring well-being
Why and how to measure well-being
If something is worth measuring, it is worth measuring well.
As Lord Gus O’Donnell, former head of the UK Treasury so eloquently put it: “If you treasure it, measure it.”
Subjective well-being is worth measuring because it indicates how people experience their lives. It can be defined as the combination of feeling good and functioning well – or the combination of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being.
To measure it well, we need a tool that measures both feeling and functioning, and since functioning is a multi-dimensional construct, we need a multi-dimensional tool.
Developing a multidimensional measure of well-being
Some years ago, Huppert & So approached the task of identifying the multiple dimensions of well-being by defining well-being as the opposite of ill-being, specifically, the common mental disorders of depression and anxiety. This approach has the advantage that although there is no current consensus on the components of well-being, there is international agreement on the components (symptoms) of ill-being. All psychological symptoms of major depression and generalised anxiety in the ICD and DSM classifications of mental disorders were listed, and the opposite of each symptom was defined. This resulted in the following ten components of well-being:
- Competence
- Emotional Stability
- Engagement
- Meaning
- Optimism
- Positive emotions
- Positive relationships
- Resilience
- Self-esteem
- Vitality
This framework was applied to data from the European Social Survey. We derived a cut point about which people were regarded as flourishing, and also examined cross national differences in profiles of scores on the ten components of well-being. We found that countries with virtually identical scores on a standard measure of life satisfaction had very different well-being profiles and suggested that this has important implications for policies to improve well-being. This was further developed in Huppert & Ruggeri.
In 2020 Marsh et al., extended the Huppert & So framework, creating a new well-being scale – the WB-Pro, which identifies 15 components of well-being. The full professional version of the WB-Pro comprises 48-items and is recommend for in-depth research. Machine learning algorithm has also produced a 15-item version (WB-Pro15) and a 5-item version (WB-Pro5) which can be utilized where is it not practical to use the full version.
Who can use the WB-Pro
This scale is in the public domain and no specific permission is required. It may be freely used as long as proper citation is given. Full details of the scale can be found here.
To date the WB-Pro has been validated on a Western population, but further research is required to ensure that the tool is appropriate across cultures and across nations. This work is essential if we want to understand well-being and maximise the potential for improving well-being across populations.
The WB-Pro has already been translated into a number of languages. If you are planning to undertake a further translation, we would appreciate receiving information about your proposed translation and how you plan to use the survey. Our recommendation is that anyone making a translation should follow the WHO translation guidelines.