Measuring Happiness in Surveys: A Test of the Subtraction Hypothesis

Abstract

Responses to an item on general happiness can change when that item follows one on marital happiness. Asking about marital happiness first sometimes reduces reported levels of overall happiness. This reduction may result from a change in the interpretation of the general happiness item. According to this hypothesis, when the general item follows the item on marital happiness, respondents take the item to ask about aspects of their lives other than their marriages-in effect, the respondents subtract their (mostly happy) marriages in answering the general item. The study reported here tests this hypothesis by asking versions of the general happiness item that correspond to the different interpretations. A version of the general item that asked about general happiness aside from your marriage yielded responses that were quite similar to those given to the standard item when it followed the item on marital happiness. Another version that asked about general happiness including your marriage elicited responses quite similar to those elicited by the standard item when it preceded the marital happiness item. However, reanalysis of the studies that originally demonstrated the impact of the order of the two happiness items casts doubt on the subtraction hypothesis and related models as explanations of the earlier findings. The literature on survey context effects suggests that earlier questions can affect answers to later ones through a number of distinct mechanisms (Schuman and Presser 1981; Smith 1982; Strack and Martin ROGER TOURANGEAU iS Vice President at CODA, Inc. KENNETH RASINSKI is a Survey Director at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and NORMAN BRADBURN iS NORC's Director. The authors thank Tom Smith and Howard Schuman, who carried out the reanalyses reported here. Their cooperation-and promptness-are greatly appreciated. The data collection described here was supported by a grant from the NORC