Thanks so much for replying, I learned a lot from your response and its clarity helped me update my thinking.
My claim is, I suspect that cultural factors cause people to choose different numbers for reasons orthogonal to what they actually want.
Thanks, the specificity here helped me understand your view better. I suppose with the examples you give—I would expect these to be exceptions rather than norms (because if e.g. wanting to have a career was the norm, over enough time, that would tend to become culturally normative and even in the process of it becoming a more normative view the difference with a SWB measure should diminish). And more broadly, interventions that have large samples and aim for generalizability should be reasonably representative and also diminish this as a concern.
I suppose I’m also thinking about the potential difference in specific SWB scales. Something like the SWLS scale or the single item measures would not be very domain specific but scales based around the e.g. Wheel of Life tradition tell you a lot more different facets of your life (e.g. you can see high overall scale but low for job satisfaction), so it seems to me that with the right scales and enough items you can address culture or other variance even further.
I’m guessing you are not talking about things like, how much free time you would exchange for an additional $1? Because that’s consistent with constant preferences? So, Alice has $5 and Bob has $10, they are asked to choose between X and Y, and they have predictably different preferences despite the fact that post-X-Alice has the same wealth (and other circumstances) and post-X-Bob and the same for Y? And this despite somehow controlling for confounders are correlated both with the causes for Alice’s and Bob’s wealth and with their preferences?
Thanks again for responding with such precision. What I was unable to articulate well is that your individual preferences are not stable (or I suppose: per person, rather than across people), i.e. Alice when she has $5 will exchange a different amount of free time for an extra $1 then when Alice has $10.
I agree with everything else you’ve said and especially with:
I would still rely more on asking people directly how much this intervention helped them / how much their life improved over this period (as opposed to comparing numbers reported at different points of time)
I think this is a hugely underappreciated point. I think some of the SWB measures target this issue somewhat but in a limited fashion. I’d love to see more qualitative interviews and participatory / or co-production interventions. I am always surprised by how many interventions say they cannot ascertain a causal mechanism quantitatively and so do not attempt to… well, ask people what worked and didn’t.
Thanks so much for replying, I learned a lot from your response and its clarity helped me update my thinking.
You’re very welcome, I’m glad it was useful!
I would expect these to be exceptions rather than norms (because if e.g. wanting to have a career was the norm, over enough time, that would tend to become culturally normative and even in the process of it becoming a more normative view the difference with a SWB measure should diminish).
I’m much more pessimistic. The processes that determine what is culturally normative are complicated, there are many examples of norms that discriminate against certain groups or curtail freedoms lasting over time, and if you’re optimizing for the near future then “over enough time” is not a satisfactory solution.
I suppose I’m also thinking about the potential difference in specific SWB scales. Something like the SWLS scale or the single item measures would not be very domain specific but scales based around the e.g. Wheel of Life tradition tell you a lot more different facets of your life (e.g. you can see high overall scale but low for job satisfaction), so it seems to me that with the right scales and enough items you can address culture or other variance even further.
I don’t know how those scales work, but (as I wrote in my reply to Joel), I would be much more optimistic about scales that are relative i.e. ask you to compare your well-being in situation A to situation B (whether these situations are familiar or hypothetical) rather than absolute (in which case it’s not clear what’s the reference frame).
What I was unable to articulate well is that your individual preferences are not stable (or I suppose: per person, rather than across people), i.e. Alice when she has $5 will exchange a different amount of free time for an extra $1 then when Alice has $10.
This is considered a consistent preference in standard (VNM) decision theory. It is entirely consistent that U(6$ and X free time) > U(5$ and Y free time) but U(11$ and X free time) < U(10$ and Y free time).
Thanks so much for replying, I learned a lot from your response and its clarity helped me update my thinking.
Thanks, the specificity here helped me understand your view better. I suppose with the examples you give—I would expect these to be exceptions rather than norms (because if e.g. wanting to have a career was the norm, over enough time, that would tend to become culturally normative and even in the process of it becoming a more normative view the difference with a SWB measure should diminish). And more broadly, interventions that have large samples and aim for generalizability should be reasonably representative and also diminish this as a concern.
I suppose I’m also thinking about the potential difference in specific SWB scales. Something like the SWLS scale or the single item measures would not be very domain specific but scales based around the e.g. Wheel of Life tradition tell you a lot more different facets of your life (e.g. you can see high overall scale but low for job satisfaction), so it seems to me that with the right scales and enough items you can address culture or other variance even further.
Thanks again for responding with such precision. What I was unable to articulate well is that your individual preferences are not stable (or I suppose: per person, rather than across people), i.e. Alice when she has $5 will exchange a different amount of free time for an extra $1 then when Alice has $10.
I agree with everything else you’ve said and especially with:
I think this is a hugely underappreciated point. I think some of the SWB measures target this issue somewhat but in a limited fashion. I’d love to see more qualitative interviews and participatory / or co-production interventions. I am always surprised by how many interventions say they cannot ascertain a causal mechanism quantitatively and so do not attempt to… well, ask people what worked and didn’t.
You’re very welcome, I’m glad it was useful!
I’m much more pessimistic. The processes that determine what is culturally normative are complicated, there are many examples of norms that discriminate against certain groups or curtail freedoms lasting over time, and if you’re optimizing for the near future then “over enough time” is not a satisfactory solution.
I don’t know how those scales work, but (as I wrote in my reply to Joel), I would be much more optimistic about scales that are relative i.e. ask you to compare your well-being in situation A to situation B (whether these situations are familiar or hypothetical) rather than absolute (in which case it’s not clear what’s the reference frame).
This is considered a consistent preference in standard (VNM) decision theory. It is entirely consistent that U(6$ and X free time) > U(5$ and Y free time) but U(11$ and X free time) < U(10$ and Y free time).