In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented.

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Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales.

Human beings can be proactive and engaged or, alternatively, passive and alienated, largely as a function of the social conditions in which they develop and function. Accordingly, research guided by self-determination theo~ has focused on the social-contextual conditions that facilitate versus forestall the natural processes of self-motivation and healthy psychological development. Specifically, factors have been examined that enhance versus undermine intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and well-being. The findings have led to the postulate of three innate psychological needs--competence, autonomy, and relatednesswhich when satisfied yield enhanced self-motivation and mental health and when thwarted lead to diminished motivation and well-being. Also considered is the significance of these psychological needs and processes within domains such as health care, education, work, sport, religion, and psychotherapy. T he fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly. That most people show considerable effort, agency, and commitment in their lives appears, in fact, to be more normative than exceptional, suggesting some very positive and persistent features of human nature. Yet, it is also clear that the human spirit can be diminished or crushed and that individuals sometimes reject growth and responsibility. Regardless of social strata or cultural origin, examples of both children and adults who are apathetic, alienated, and irresponsible are abundant. Such non-optimal human functioning can be observed not only in our psychological clinics but also among the millions who, for hours a day, sit passively before their televisions, stare blankly from the back of their classrooms, or wait listlessly for the weekend as they go about their jobs. The persistent, proactive, and positive tendencies of human nature are clearly not invariantly apparent. The fact that human nature, phenotypically expressed, can be either active or passive, constructive or indolent, suggests more than mere dispositional differences and is a function of more than just biological endowments. It also bespeaks a wide range of reactions to social environments that is worthy of our most intense scientific investigation. Specifically, social contexts catalyze both within- and between-person differences in motivation and personal growth, resulting in people being more self-motivated, energized, and integrated in some situations, domains, and cultures than in others. Research on the conditions that foster versus undermine positive human potentials has both theoretical import and practical significance because it can contribute not only to formal knowledge of the causes of human behavior but also to the design of social environments that optimize people's development, performance, and well-being. Research guided by self-determination theory (SDT) has had an ongoing concern with precisely these

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Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being.

The literature on subjective well-being (SWB), including happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect, is reviewed in three areas: measurement, causal factors, and theory. Psychometric data on single-item and multi-item subjective well-being scales are presented, and the measures are compared. Measuring various components of subjective well-being is discussed. In terms of causal influences, research findings on the demographic correlates of SWB are evaluated, as well as the findings on other influences such as health, social contact, activity, and personality. A number of theoretical approaches to happiness are presented and discussed: telic theories, associationistic models, activity theories, judgment approaches, and top-down versus bottom-up conceptions.

Subjective Well-Being

W. Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness". A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB. E. Diener's (1984) review placed greater emphasis on theories that stressed psychological factors. In the current article, the authors review current evidence for Wilson's conclusions and discuss modern theories of SWB that stress dispositional influences, adaptation, goals, and coping strategies. The next steps in the evolution of the field are to comprehend the interaction of psychological factors with life circumstances in producing SWB, to understand the causal pathways leading to happiness, understand the processes underlying adaptation to events, and develop theories that explain why certain variables differentially influence the different components of SWV (life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect).

Subjective Well-Being: Three Decades of Progress

W Wilson's (1967) review of the area of subjective well-being (SWB) advanced several conclusions regarding those who report high levels of "happiness" A number of his conclusions have been overturned: youth and modest aspirations no longer are seen as prerequisites of SWB E Diener's (1984) review placed greater emphasis on theories that stressed psychological factors In the current article, the authors review current evidence for Wilson's conclusions and discuss modern theories of SWB that stress dispositional influences, adaptation, goals, and coping strategies The next steps in the evolution of the field are to comprehend the interaction of psychological factors with life circumstances in producing SWB, to understand the causal pathways leading to happiness, understand the processes underlying adaptation to events, and develop theories that explain why certain variables differentially influence the different components of SWB (life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect) In 1967, Warner Wilson presented a broad review of subjective well-being (SWB) research entitled, "Correlates of Avowed Happiness" Based on the limited data available at that time, Wilson concluded that the happy person is a "young, healthy, welleducated, 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) In the three decades since Wilson's review, investigations into SWB have evolved Although researchers now know a great deal more about the correlates of SWB, they are less interested in simply describing the demographic characteristics that correlate with it Instead, they focus their effort on understanding the processes that underlie happiness This trend represents a greater recognition of the central role played by people's goals, coping efforts, and dispositions In this article, we review research on several major theoretical approaches to well-being and then indicate how these theories clarify the findings on demographic correlates of SWB Throughout the review we suggest four directions that researchers should pursue in the decades ahead These are by no means the only questions left to answer, but we believe they are the most interesting issues left to resolve First, the causal direction of the correlates of happiness must be examined through more sophisticated methodologies Although the causal priority of demographic factors such as marriage and income is intuitively appealing, it is by no means certain Second, researchers must focus greater attention on the interaction between internal factors (such as personality traits) and external circumstances As we shall see, demographic factors have surprisingly small effects on SWB, but these effects may depend on the personalities of those individuals being studied Thus, future research must take Person X Situation interactions into account Third, researchers must strive to understand the processes underlying adaptation Considerable adaptation to both good and bad circumstances often occurs, yet the processes responsible for these effects are poorly understood Research that examines how habituation, coping strategies, and changing goals influence adaptation will shed much light on the processes responsible for SWB Finally, theories must be refined to make specific predictions about how input variables differentially influence the components of SWB In the past, many researchers have treated SWB as a monolithic entity, but it is now clear that there are separable components that exhibit unique patterns of relations with different variables In each section of this article we discuss progress and opportunities in these four areas

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Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress

Two studies of male manual workers are described, in which eight scales relevant to the quality of working life are introduced and assessed. The scales build upon previous work, but are designed to remedy certain conceptual and operational deficiencies. They cover work involvement, intrinsic job motivation, higher order need strength, perceived intrinsic job characteristics, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, happiness, and self-rated anxiety. In addition, components of job satisfaction and life satisfaction, derived through cluster analyses, are also identified. The scales are shown to have good internal reliability and to be factorially separate. Comprehensive psychometric data are provided as a base-line for future applications.

Scales for the measurement of some work attitudes and aspects of psychological well‐being

Here is a challenging study on the effects of work and unemployment on mental health. Examined in this comprehensive study are issues such as why some people are more harmed by unemployment than others; why certain job transitions are more difficult; and what we mean by "mental health" and how we can measure it. The author introduces nine characteristics of any environment and shows how they give rise to the harmful and beneficial consequences of work and unemployment. The book gathers integrates the extensive and widely-dissemenated research into the topic and places it in an original and logical conceptual framework.

Work, unemployment, and mental health

New instruments iire described for the measurement of both job-related and non-job int-nta! health. These cover two axes of affective well-being, based upon dimensions of pleasure and arousal, and aLso reported competence, aspiration and negative job carry-over. Baseline data are presented from a sample of I6S6 job-holders, and earlier uses ot the well-being scales are summarized. The instruments appear to be psychomertilally acceptable, and are associated with demographic and occupational features in i-xpected ways For example, older employees report greater job-relaced well-being; occupational level ispositivcly correlated with job depressiiin enthusiasm burnegatively ;issociated with job anxiety-contentment; deprL-,ssion-cnthusiasm is mure predictable Irom (ow-to-medium opportunity for skill use and task variety, wiiereas anxietyI ontentment is more a funcrinn {)i wcjrkload or iinccTtainty. Many studies have examined the impact of work and careers on job-related and non-job mental health. Nevertheless, there is still a shortage of instruments whose psychometric properties have been determined through data from large samples of employees of both genders and several occupational levels. In particular, there is a need for measures which can provide information about atiective well-being, SLibjective competence and aspiration, through scores which can be compared with known means and standard deviations from appropriate demographic groups. This paper aims to address those deficiencies, by describing new instruments and summarizing values obtained from a large sample of British job-holders. The approach to affective well-being is through two principal axes ('anxiety-contentment' and 'deprcssion-enrhusiasm') which have emerged us important m non-ocrupacionaJ research, and which will be examined through parallel measures in both job-related and non-job settings. No other instruments are currently available which cover the full range of those axes in both types ol setting. The approach taken is one which emphasizes practicality as well as psychometric acceptability. Many occupational researchers are deterred by the length and cumbersome language ot some previous instruments, and are tempted to introduce their own miidihcations or creare new scales for one-off application. Such cjevelopments prevent the accumulation (jt comparative data and encourage an over-extensive range of instruments which all purport to tap the same construct. It is hoped that the straightforward nature of the stales introduced in this paper will be of value in many occupational settings.

The measurement of well-being and other aspects of mental health

It is generally believed that job satisfaction increases linearly with age. However, there are persuasive arguments, and some empirical evidence, that the relationship is Ushaped, declining from a moderate level in the early years of employment and then increasing steadily up to retirement. This paper investigates that relationship, using survey responses from a large sample of British employees. For overall job satisfaction, satisfaction with pay, and satisfaction with the work itself, a strongly significant U-shape is observed. Ordered probit techniques, which take account of the ordinality of satisfaction data, are used to analyse the relationship between these forms of satisfaction and a large set of individual and job characteristics. Despite the inclusion of 80 control variables, significant coefficients persist for the age and age-squared variables (the latter representing the non-linear component). The paper thus provides strong evidence for a U-shaped relationship between age and job satisfaction. Furthermore, it is shown that a similar age pattern occurs for employees' context-free mental health, suggesting that both job satisfaction and context-free mental health are affected by non-job factors of life-stage and personal circumstances. The importance of changes in expectations with increasing age is emphasized. There have been many investigations into the relationship between age and different forms of job satisfaction. Significant variations across age are commonly found, with older employees tending to report higher satisfaction than younger ones (e.g. Doering, Rhodes & Schuster, 1983; Glenn, Taylor & Weaver, 1977; Warr, 1992), Observed age differences in overall job satisfaction are greater than those associated with gender, education, ethnic background or income (Clark, 1993;. Weaver, 1980). However, two questions remain unanswered. First, given that there is a positive relationship between age and job satisfaction, is it simply linear or does it contain a nonlinear component? And, second, what underlying variables can account for the pattern of job satisfaction differences between age groups?

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Is job satisfaction U-shaped in age?

Award-winning psychologist Peter Warr explores why some people at work are happier or unhappier than others. He evaluates different approaches to the definition and assessment of happiness, and combines environmental and person-based themes to explain differences in people’s experience. A framework of key job characteristics is linked to an account of primary mental processes, and those are set within a summary of demographic, cultural, and occupational patterns. Consequences of happiness or unhappiness for individuals and groups are also reviewed, as is recent literature on unemployment and retirement. Although primarily focusing on job situations, the book shows that processes of happiness are similar across settings of all kinds. It provides a uniquely comprehensive assessment of research published across the world. Initial chapters explore the several meanings of happiness and the ways in which those have been measured by psychologists. The construct includes pleasure, satisfaction and subjective well-being, and unhappiness has been studied in terms of dissatisfaction, strain, anxiety, and depression. The impacts of principal environmental features on these experiences are reviewed through an analogy with vitamins in relation to physical health—beneficial only up to a point. However, environmental effects are not fixed. Influences on happiness from within the person are examined in terms of principal thinking patterns, personality styles, and cultural backgrounds. Differences are explored between groups (men and women, older and younger people, employees who are full-time and part-time, and so on), and processes of person-environment fit are placed within an overall framework which emphasizes the impact of variations in personal salience. The book is written primarily for academic readers, including senior undergraduates, graduate students, teachers, and researchers in fields of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Management, Human Resources, and Labor Studies. However, the topic's centrality in many professions makes it important also to a wider readership.

Peter Warr

Papers

Scales for the measurement of some work attitudes and aspects of psychological well‐being

Work, unemployment, and mental health

The measurement of well-being and other aspects of mental health

Is job satisfaction U-shaped in age?

Work, Happiness, and Unhappiness