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Quantifying the Semantic Representations of Adolescents’ Memories of Positive and Negative Life Events

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  • Danilo Garcia
  • Sverker Sikström

Abstract

We quantified the semantic content in adolescents’ descriptions of positive and negative life events and studied how these descriptions are related to the assessment subjective well-being (SWB) at two points in time. The semantic content of the descriptions was quantified by latent semantic analysis (LSA). LSA is a computational method based on algorithms stemming from computational linguistics, where a high dimensional semantic representation of words can be generated from co-occurrence of words in huge text corpora. We investigated if the semantic content of written autobiographical memories of positive and negative life events predicted traditionally ranked measures of SWB, i.e., self-reports of Positive and Negative Affect, and thus created semantic measures of SWB. Such measures can be used to investigate the relationship between semantic content and SWB, which could only indirectly be accomplished by the ranked data. Pupils wrote down positive or negative life events during the last 3 months and self-reported SWB. Four weeks later, participants were presented with their own description and asked to report current SWB. The results showed that the semantic representation predicted SWB and experimental conditions. The agreement between semantic and ranked measures supports the validity of the semantic scores. We argue that our proposed method for studying SWB provides new and essential information about well-being by the quantification of a richer set of information from adolescents’ own memories. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

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  • Danilo Garcia & Sverker Sikström, 2013. "Quantifying the Semantic Representations of Adolescents’ Memories of Positive and Negative Life Events," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 1309-1323, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:4:p:1309-1323
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-012-9385-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Joar Vittersø & Hella Oelmann & Anita Wang, 2009. "Life Satisfaction is not a Balanced Estimator of the Good Life: Evidence from Reaction Time Measures and Self-Reported Emotions," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Danilo Garcia & Arvid Erlandsson, 2011. "The Relationship Between Personality and Subjective Well-Being: Different Association Patterns When Measuring the Affective Component in Frequency and Intensity," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 12(6), pages 1023-1034, December.
    3. Danilo Garcia & Patricia Rosenberg & Arvid Erlandsson & Anver Siddiqui, 2010. "On Lions and Adolescents: Affective Temperaments and the Influence of Negative Stimuli on Memory," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 477-495, August.
    4. Chu Kim-Prieto & Ed Diener & Maya Tamir & Christie Scollon & Marissa Diener, 2005. "Integrating The Diverse Definitions of Happiness: A Time-Sequential Framework of Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 261-300, September.
    5. Shannon Suldo & E. Huebner, 2006. "Is Extremely High Life Satisfaction During Adolescence Advantageous?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 78(2), pages 179-203, September.
    6. Danilo Garcia & Anver Siddiqui, 2009. "Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being and Memory for Life Events: Influences on Life Satisfaction with Respect to Temperamental Dispositions," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 407-419, August.
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    1. O. Kjell & D. Daukantaitė & K. Hefferon & S. Sikström, 2016. "The Harmony in Life Scale Complements the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Expanding the Conceptualization of the Cognitive Component of Subjective Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 893-919, March.

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