4 ms·

The happiness scale is arbitrary because it lacks reproducibility. The metric system is standardized such that every time you measure the length of something in

The happiness scale is arbitrary because it lacks reproducibility. The metric system is standardized such that every time you measure the length of something in the physical world that measurement is reproducible.

snet0 5y ago
The problem there is that subject well-being is time-variant. Of course when I ask you at 3 week intervals "how are you feeling?", I'm going to get different answers. If I ask you 3 seconds apart, though (ignoring you getting annoyed at the question), would you not expect consistent results?
- amirkdv 5y ago
  > The problem there is that subject well-being is time-variant. > If I ask you 3 seconds apart, though [...] would you not expect consistent results? I completely agree with your original comments about lazy writing by the OP. But these all seem besides the point. Our bodies and minds go through all sorts of states, some cognitively introspectable, some not. "Happiness", whatever it may be, is what it is and need not conform to your presumptions. That's the point of studying it. Nothing about its fluctuations or the way these are felt by an individual are a problem per se with the research. It just means it's hard to do, and we may not know a whole bunch about it.
- pedalpete 5y ago
  I think this points more to the issue. "How are you feeling" is subjective. As far as I am aware, there is no psychological measure/test which is not subjective. Please correct me if I'm wrong. To me, this is why neurology is hard science and psychology is soft science.
  - derbOac 5y ago
    Of course it's subjective -- this is the very point, to measure subjective experience. This point seems to slip through these types of discussions, because people want to keep changing the focus of the research. When you change the topic from subjective experience to, say, neural properties, you're not studying the same thing anymore. There are plenty of measures of subjective experience of happiness. We can debate the merits of these measures, but they exist. They're reproducible and you can scale them over time or across people. If someone says they are miserable, and rates themself a 1 on a scale of 1 to 5, this has to be subjective. Are they lying? Perhaps, but then too maybe that radio signal you obtained is a microwave next door. Units on many psychological measures could be obtained (see test equating) but there's not enough agreement on which measures to use, and in fact, use of multiple measures is encouraged because of variation in what might be an appropriate target of study (hedonic versus eudaimonic well-being for instance). Units in psychology are somewhat similar to where units of temperature were in the 18th or maybe 19th century.

snet0 5y ago

The problem there is that subject well-being is time-variant. Of course when I ask you at 3 week intervals "how are you feeling?", I'm going to get different answers. If I ask you 3 seconds apart, though (ignoring you getting annoyed at the question), would you not expect consistent results?

amirkdv 5y ago
> The problem there is that subject well-being is time-variant. > If I ask you 3 seconds apart, though [...] would you not expect consistent results? I completely agree with your original comments about lazy writing by the OP. But these all seem besides the point. Our bodies and minds go through all sorts of states, some cognitively introspectable, some not. "Happiness", whatever it may be, is what it is and need not conform to your presumptions. That's the point of studying it. Nothing about its fluctuations or the way these are felt by an individual are a problem per se with the research. It just means it's hard to do, and we may not know a whole bunch about it.
pedalpete 5y ago
I think this points more to the issue. "How are you feeling" is subjective. As far as I am aware, there is no psychological measure/test which is not subjective. Please correct me if I'm wrong. To me, this is why neurology is hard science and psychology is soft science.
- derbOac 5y ago
  Of course it's subjective -- this is the very point, to measure subjective experience. This point seems to slip through these types of discussions, because people want to keep changing the focus of the research. When you change the topic from subjective experience to, say, neural properties, you're not studying the same thing anymore. There are plenty of measures of subjective experience of happiness. We can debate the merits of these measures, but they exist. They're reproducible and you can scale them over time or across people. If someone says they are miserable, and rates themself a 1 on a scale of 1 to 5, this has to be subjective. Are they lying? Perhaps, but then too maybe that radio signal you obtained is a microwave next door. Units on many psychological measures could be obtained (see test equating) but there's not enough agreement on which measures to use, and in fact, use of multiple measures is encouraged because of variation in what might be an appropriate target of study (hedonic versus eudaimonic well-being for instance). Units in psychology are somewhat similar to where units of temperature were in the 18th or maybe 19th century.