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).
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).