Selected Publications

Selected Publications

Below is an index of a selected list of important publications by Dr. Ed Diener.

Index of Topics:

A. General Readings on Subjective Well-Being

B. Measuring Happiness

C. Culture and Subjective Well-Being

D. Outcomes of Happiness

E. Income and Subjective Well-Being

F. Personality and Subjective Well-Being

G. Other Theoretical Work on Subjective Well-Being

H. Additional Intriguing Findings

There are other topics covered in Diener’s publications, which are not included in this review, but which can be found in his vita: subjective well-being and age, sex, religion, and so forth.

A. General Readings on Subjective Well-Being

Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2008). The science of optimal happiness. Boston: Blackwell Publishing
	Popular book on the science of happiness.

Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542-575.
	An early review of the research literature and theoretical approaches to happiness
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. E. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 276-302.
	An updated review of the literature on happiness.
Myers, D. G., & Diener, E. (1995). Who is happy? Psychological Science, 6, 10-19.
	A very brief overview of the field of happiness for lay readers.
Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (1999). Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
	An edited volume with 28 chapters, which review various research literatures related to basic scientific findings on subjective well-being
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness, and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34-43.
	A broad overview of the field, with the recommendation that a national survey of well-being is instituted in the USA.

Diener, E., Lucas, R.E., & Schimmack, U. (2008). National Accounts of Well-Being. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
	Presents the case for national measures of subjective well-being to be used for policy purposes.

B. Measuring Happiness

Pavot, W., & Diener, (1993). Review of the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Personality Assessment, 5, 164-172.
	A review of the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and its validity and reliability
Diener, E., & Lucas, R. (in preparation). Well-being. In C. Spielberger (Ed.)., Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology
		A review of methods for measuring happiness
Larsen, R. J., Diener, E., and Lucas, R. (2002). Emotion: Models, measures, and individual differences. In R. Lord, R. Klimoski, and R. Kanfer (Eds.), Emotions at work (pp. 64-106). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
	A review of methods for measuring emotions
Pavot, W. & Diener, E. (2003). Well-being (Including life satisfaction). Encyclopedia of psychological assessment, Vol. 2 (pp. 1097-1101).
		A brief, practical review of methods for measuring subjective well-being
Diener, E., Tamir, M., Kim-Prieto, C., Scollon, C. N., & Diener, M. (2003). A time sequential theory of subjective well-being and ill-being. Submitted to Personality and Social Psychology Review
	Presents a temporal framework for subjective well-being that relates on-line experience sampling measures, to recall measures of affect, to global measures of satisfaction
Diener, E. (1994). Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities. Social Indicators Research, 31, 103-157.
		An overview of our successes, artifacts, and the challenges, in accurately measuring positive subjective states
Scollon, C. N., Kim-Prieto, C., & Diener, E. (in press). Strengths and weaknesses of the experience sampling technique. Journal of Happiness Studies
	Describes the benefits, and downsides, of using the experience sampling method to measure data on-line from respondents, for example using palm computers
Pavot, W., Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1998). The Temporal Satisfaction with Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 70, 340-354.
		Presents an alternative Satisfaction with Life Scale, with 15 items, which assesses respondents’ satisfaction with their past, present, and future
Sandvik, E., Diener, E., & Seidlitz, L. (1993). Subjective well-being: The convergence and stability of self-report and non-self-report measures. Journal of Personality, 61, 317-342.
		Presents evidence on the convergent validity of various methods of measuring subjective well-being.

C. Culture and Subjective Well-Being

Tov, W., & Diener, E. (2007; in press). The well-being of nations: Linking together trust, cooperation, and democracy. In B.A. Sullivan, M. Snyder, & J.L.Sullivan (Eds.) Cooperation: The psychology of effective human interaction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
	A chapter on well-being and cooperation.

Diener, E., & Tov, W. (in press). Happiness and peace. Journal of Social Issues.
	Presents evidence on how subjective well-being is related to peace.
Diener, E., & Tov, W. (in press). Culture and subjective well-being. In S. Kitayama & D. Cohen (Eds.). Handbook of cultural psychology. New York: Guilford
	A chapter on the relationship between culture and subjective well-being.

Diener, E., & Suh, E. M. (Eds.). (2000). Culture and subjective well-being Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
	An edited book with chapters on various aspects of subjective well-being across nations.
Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology, 2003, 54, 403-425.
	An overview of current findings on subjective well-being and culture, including average differences across nations and a description of how the correlates of subjective well-being can differ across societies
Eid. M. & Diener, E. (2001). Norms for experiencing emotions in different cultures: Inter- and intranational differences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 869-885.
	Presents a statistical method for looking at groups within cultures that may be similar of different across cultures. Presents data on the correlation between emotion norms and reports of those emotions.
Diener, E., & Diener, M. (1995). Cross-cultural correlates of life satisfaction and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 653-663
	Finds that the importance of self-esteem to life satisfaction varies across nations
Diener, E., Diener, M., & Diener, C. (1995). Factors predicting the subjective well-being of nations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 851-864
	Explores characteristics of nations such as wealth that correlate with the average subjective well-being of nations
Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2001). Goals, culture, and subjective well-being. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1674-1682.
	Shows that the types of goal pursuits that most increase happiness depend on one’s culture, suggesting that subjective well-being results from differing factors across societies
Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (in press). Culture and well-being: The cycle of action, evaluation, and decision. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
	Found that European Americans are more likely to select tasks they are good at, whereas Asians are more likely to emphasize mastering even tasks at which they are not proficient. This results in European Americans over time being more likely to enjoy tasks because they are more likely to select activities at which they excel.

D. Outcomes of Happiness

Oishi, S., Diener, E., & Lucas, R.E. (in press). The optimum level of well-being: Can people be too happy?. Perspectives on Psychological Science.

Examines the optimum level of subjective well-being.

Diener, E., Nickerson, C., Lucas, R. E., & Sandvik, E. (2002). Dispositional affect and job outcomes. Social Indicators Research, 59, 229-259.

Cheerfulness at age 18 related to successful outcomes when respondents are in their 30’s

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2002). Happiness is a good thing: A theory of the benefits of positive affect. To be submitted to Psychological Review.

A broad literature review and theory on the beneficial outcomes of positive emotions, and why chronic levels of these emotions lead to many successful life outcomes

Lucas, R. E., & Diener, E. (2003). The happy worker: Hypotheses about the role of positive affect in worker productivity. In A. M. Ryan and M. Barrick (Eds.) Personality and work (pp. 30-59). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Presents a model of the types of occupations in which chronic happiness will be most helpful

E. Income and Subjective Well-Being

Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective well-being? A literature review and guide to needed research. Social Indicators Research, 57, 119-169

A broad review on the effects of income on subjective well-being, and the needed future research directions

Diener, E., & Oishi, S. (2000). Money and happiness: Income and subjective well-being across nations. In E. Diener & E. M. Suh (Eds.). Culture and subjective well-being (pp. 185-218). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

A review of the literature on happiness and income

Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., Lucas, R. E., & Diener, E. (in press, 2004). Unemployment alters the set-point for life satisfaction. Psychological Science.

People do not completely adapt to the effects of unemployment on life dissatisfaction.

Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1995). The wealth of nations revisited: Income and quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 36, 275-286

Finds that wealthy nations surpass poor ones on virtually every measure of quality of life

Diener, E., Sandvik, E., Seidlitz, L., & Diener, M. (1993). The relationship between income and subjective well-being: Relative or absolute? Social Indicators Research, 28, 195-223.

Presents findings suggesting that the effects of income on happiness are not invariably relative to the income of others, as is often suggested

Diener, E., Horwitz, J., & Emmons, R. A. (1985). Happiness of the very wealthy. Social Indicators Research, 16, 263-274.

Explores the subjective well-being of extremely rich Americans, and finds that they are only slightly happier than average Americans

F. Personality and Subjective Well-Being

Diener, E., & Lucas, R. (1999). Personality, and subjective well-being. In Kahneman, D., Diener, E. & Schwarz, N. (Eds.) Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 213-229). New York: Russell Sage Foundation

A review of the literature on personality and subjective well-being

Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., Grob, A., Suh, E. M., & Shao, L. (2000). Cross-cultural evidence for the fundamental features of extraversion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 452-468.

Presents evidence from 39 nations that extraversion is related to happiness, and presents evidence that a predisposition to positive affect is viewed as the core component of extraversion

Larsen, R. J., & Diener, E. (1987). Affect intensity as an individual difference characteristic: A review. Journal of Research in Personality, 21, 1-39.

Reviews evidence on the individual difference of emotional intensity, and its relation to well-being.

G. Other Theoretical Work on Subjective Well-Being

Schimmack, U., Diener, E., & Oishi, S. (2002). Life-satisfaction is a momentary judgment and a stable personality characteristic: The use of chronically accessible and stable sources. Journal of Personality, 70, 345-384

Presents data showing that satisfaction judgments result from both chronically accessible information, and from situationally primed information, and reviews the types of information people are likely to consider when they make satisfaction judgments

Diener, E., & Lucas R. (2000). Explaining differences in societal levels of happiness: Relative standards, need fulfillment, culture, and evaluation theory. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Periodical on Subjective Well-Being, 1, 41-78.

Presents a theory of how needs and standards interrelate in terms of influencing subjective well-being

Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2001). Re-examining the general positivity model of subjective well-being: The discrepancy between specific and global domain satisfaction. Journal of Personality, 69, 641-666.

Shows that some individuals are more satisfied with global domains than with narrower, more concrete domains, suggesting a type of evaluative enhancement in which people with a positive disposition evaluate events as more positive when there is leeway to do so

H. Additional Intriguing Findings

Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Very happy people. Psychological Science, 13, 80 - 83.

Finds that social relationships and mental health are both necessary to high happiness. Also shows that very happy people have ups and downs in their moods, and are rarely at a "10" in happiness.

Lucas, R. E., Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., & Diener, E. (2003). Re-examining adaptation and the setpoint model of happiness: Reactions to changes in marital status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 527-539.

Explores marital status and life satisfaction in a longitudinal sample. Widows drop precipitously in life satisfaction when their husbands die, and after many years come back to near their former level. Married women are happier long before they get married than women who do not marry, and have a period of several years around the time of their marriage when they are happier than their previous baseline.

Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7, 181-185

Presents evidence that on average most people are happy; the majority of people are above the neutral point on subjective well-being

Diener, E., Biswas-Diener, R., & Vitterso, J. (2003). Most people are happy revisited: The Inughuit, the Amish, and the Maasai. Submitted, Psychological Science.

Presents data on the positive subjective well-being of three "exotic" cultures – the Inughuit (northern Greenland), the Maasai (East Africa), and the Amish (Illinois).

Diener, E., & Larsen, R. J. (1984). Temporal stability and cross-situational consistency of affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 871-883.

Reviews evidence showing that emotions are very unstable across time, and stable levels of positive and negative affect occur only when average levels over time are considered

Diener, E., Colvin, C. R., Pavot, W. G., & Allman, A. (1991). The psychic costs of intense positive affect. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 61, 492-503.

Suggests that intense positive emotions can have costs as well as benefits, and offers evidence on why this might be so.

Wirtz, D., Kruger, J., Scollon, C. N., & Diener, E. (2002). What to do on spring break? The role of predicted, online, and remembered experience in future choice. Under revision. Psychological Science.

Explores college students’ predictions of their emotions, their on-line emotions, and their recall of their emotions while on spring break vacation. One interesting finding is that recall of affect predicts desire to repeat the vacation more strongly than on-line emotions during the vacation itself.

Oishi, S., Diener, E., & Lucas, R.E. (in press). The optimum level of well-being: Can people be too happy?. Perspectives on Psychological Science.
	Examines the optimum level of subjective well-being.

Diener, E., Nickerson, C., Lucas, R. E., & Sandvik, E. (2002). Dispositional affect and job outcomes. Social Indicators Research, 59, 229-259.
	Cheerfulness at age 18 related to successful outcomes when respondents are in their 30’s
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2002). Happiness is a good thing: A theory of the benefits of positive affect. To be submitted to Psychological Review.
	A broad literature review and theory on the beneficial outcomes of positive emotions, and why chronic levels of these emotions lead to many successful life outcomes
Lucas, R. E., & Diener, E. (2003). The happy worker: Hypotheses about the role of positive affect in worker productivity. In A. M. Ryan and M. Barrick (Eds.) Personality and work (pp. 30-59). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
	Presents a model of the types of occupations in which chronic happiness will be most helpful

Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective well-being? A literature review and guide to needed research. Social Indicators Research, 57, 119-169
	A broad review on the effects of income on subjective well-being, and the needed future research directions
Diener, E., & Oishi, S. (2000). Money and happiness: Income and subjective well-being across nations. In E. Diener & E. M. Suh (Eds.). Culture and subjective well-being (pp. 185-218). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
	A review of the literature on happiness and income
Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., Lucas, R. E., & Diener, E. (in press, 2004). Unemployment alters the set-point for life satisfaction. Psychological Science.
	People do not completely adapt to the effects of unemployment on life dissatisfaction.
Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1995). The wealth of nations revisited: Income and quality of life. Social Indicators Research, 36, 275-286
	Finds that wealthy nations surpass poor ones on virtually every measure of quality of life
Diener, E., Sandvik, E., Seidlitz, L., & Diener, M. (1993). The relationship between income and subjective well-being: Relative or absolute? Social Indicators Research, 28, 195-223.
	Presents findings suggesting that the effects of income on happiness are not invariably relative to the income of others, as is often suggested
Diener, E., Horwitz, J., & Emmons, R. A. (1985). Happiness of the very wealthy. Social Indicators Research, 16, 263-274.
	Explores the subjective well-being of extremely rich Americans, and finds that they are only slightly happier than average Americans

Diener, E., & Lucas, R. (1999). Personality, and subjective well-being. In Kahneman, D., Diener, E. & Schwarz, N. (Eds.) Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 213-229). New York: Russell Sage Foundation
	A review of the literature on personality and subjective well-being
Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., Grob, A., Suh, E. M., & Shao, L. (2000). Cross-cultural evidence for the fundamental features of extraversion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 452-468.
	Presents evidence from 39 nations that extraversion is related to happiness, and presents evidence that a predisposition to positive affect is viewed as the core component of extraversion
Larsen, R. J., & Diener, E. (1987). Affect intensity as an individual difference characteristic: A review. Journal of Research in Personality, 21, 1-39.
	Reviews evidence on the individual difference of emotional intensity, and its relation to well-being.

Schimmack, U., Diener, E., & Oishi, S. (2002). Life-satisfaction is a momentary judgment and a stable personality characteristic: The use of chronically accessible and stable sources. Journal of Personality, 70, 345-384
	Presents data showing that satisfaction judgments result from both chronically accessible information, and from situationally primed information, and reviews the types of information people are likely to consider when they make satisfaction judgments
Diener, E., & Lucas R. (2000). Explaining differences in societal levels of happiness: Relative standards, need fulfillment, culture, and evaluation theory. Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Periodical on Subjective Well-Being, 1, 41-78.
	Presents a theory of how needs and standards interrelate in terms of influencing subjective well-being
Oishi, S., & Diener, E. (2001). Re-examining the general positivity model of subjective well-being: The discrepancy between specific and global domain satisfaction. Journal of Personality, 69, 641-666.
	Shows that some individuals are more satisfied with global domains than with narrower, more concrete domains, suggesting a type of evaluative enhancement in which people with a positive disposition evaluate events as more positive when there is leeway to do so

Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Very happy people. Psychological Science, 13, 80 - 83.
	Finds that social relationships and mental health are both necessary to high happiness. Also shows that very happy people have ups and downs in their moods, and are rarely at a "10" in happiness.
Lucas, R. E., Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., & Diener, E. (2003). Re-examining adaptation and the setpoint model of happiness: Reactions to changes in marital status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 527-539.
	Explores marital status and life satisfaction in a longitudinal sample. Widows drop precipitously in life satisfaction when their husbands die, and after many years come back to near their former level. Married women are happier long before they get married than women who do not marry, and have a period of several years around the time of their marriage when they are happier than their previous baseline.
Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7, 181-185
	Presents evidence that on average most people are happy; the majority of people are above the neutral point on subjective well-being
Diener, E., Biswas-Diener, R., & Vitterso, J. (2003). Most people are happy revisited: The Inughuit, the Amish, and the Maasai. Submitted, Psychological Science.
	Presents data on the positive subjective well-being of three "exotic" cultures – the Inughuit (northern Greenland), the Maasai (East Africa), and the Amish (Illinois).
Diener, E., & Larsen, R. J. (1984). Temporal stability and cross-situational consistency of affective, behavioral, and cognitive responses. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 871-883.
	Reviews evidence showing that emotions are very unstable across time, and stable levels of positive and negative affect occur only when average levels over time are considered
Diener, E., Colvin, C. R., Pavot, W. G., & Allman, A. (1991). The psychic costs of intense positive affect. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 61, 492-503.
	Suggests that intense positive emotions can have costs as well as benefits, and offers evidence on why this might be so.
Wirtz, D., Kruger, J., Scollon, C. N., & Diener, E. (2002). What to do on spring break? The role of predicted, online, and remembered experience in future choice. Under revision. Psychological Science.
	Explores college students’ predictions of their emotions, their on-line emotions, and their recall of their emotions while on spring break vacation. One interesting finding is that recall of affect predicts desire to repeat the vacation more strongly than on-line emotions during the vacation itself.