IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ariqol/v14y2019i1d10.1007_s11482-017-9589-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Comparing the Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment (ACSA) to a Conventional Happiness Question Without Anchoring

Author

Listed:
  • Elsy Verhofstadt

    (Ghent University)

  • Brent Bleys

    (Ghent University)

  • Luc Van Ootegem

    (Ghent University
    KULeuven)

Abstract

The Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment (ACSA) uses a self-anchoring rating scale to measure subjective well-being. Because of its internal frame of reference, ACSA is argued to be less influenced by cultural relativities and psychological traits. We collect survey data in Flanders that contain both a conventional happiness question (CQ) and ACSA. It is the first time that ACSA data are collected in a developed country outside of a clinical setting. In line with previous research, we find that the mean score for ACSA is significantly lower than the mean CQ score and that both scores are positively correlated. Social life (family, relationships, and friends) is cited most when self-anchoring the best period in life, whereas health issues and personal events are most often linked to the worst period in life. These findings add to the idea that the anchors of the ACSA scale are universal. In a simple model, we find that ACSA is determined by two variables that can change over time: being employed and being in a relation. In an extended model, however, ACSA’s insensitivity to socio-demographic variables that are not amenable to change no longer holds and personality traits become important.

Suggested Citation

  • Elsy Verhofstadt & Brent Bleys & Luc Van Ootegem, 2019. "Comparing the Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment (ACSA) to a Conventional Happiness Question Without Anchoring," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 237-251, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:14:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11482-017-9589-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11482-017-9589-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11482-017-9589-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11482-017-9589-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2004. "Well-being over time in Britain and the USA," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1359-1386, July.
    2. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    3. Paul Dolan & Mathew White, 2006. "Dynamic Well-Being: Connecting Indicators of what People Anticipate with Indicators of what they Experience," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 75(2), pages 303-333, January.
    4. Jan Bernheim & Peter Theuns & Mehrdad Mazaheri & Joeri Hofmans & Herbert Fliege & Matthias Rose, 2006. "The Potential of Anamnestic Comparative Self-Assessment (ACSA) to Reduce Bias in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 227-250, June.
    5. Valerie Møller & Peter Theuns & Ida Erstad & Jan Bernheim, 2008. "The Best and Worst Times of Life: Narratives and Assessments of Subjective Well-Being by Anamnestic Comparative Self Assessment (ACSA) in the Eastern Cape, South Africa," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 1-22, October.
    6. Alex Michalos, 1985. "Multiple discrepancies theory (MDT)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 347-413, May.
    7. Elsy Verhofstadt & Brent Bleys & Luc Van Ootegem, 2015. "Reference-Dependency of Happiness Ratings," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(6), pages 1437-1454, December.
    8. Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, Tessa & White, Mathew, 2008. "Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 94-122, February.
    9. Helliwell, John & Layard, Richard & Sachs, Jeffrey, 2012. "World happiness report," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 47487, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. V. Møller & P. Theuns, 2013. "What are The Best and Worst Times in the Lives of South African Township Dwellers? A Content Analysis of the Self-Defined End-Anchors for Bernheim’s ACSA Scale of Subjective Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 611-640, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elsy Verhofstadt & Brent Bleys & Luc Van Ootegem, 2015. "Reference-Dependency of Happiness Ratings," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(6), pages 1437-1454, December.
    2. Valerie Møller & Benjamin J. Roberts, 2019. "The Best and Worst Times of Life for South Africans: Evidence of Universal Reference Standards in Evaluations of Personal Well-Being Using Bernheim’s ACSA," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(3), pages 1319-1347, June.
    3. Andrew E. Clark, 2018. "Four Decades of the Economics of Happiness: Where Next?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 64(2), pages 245-269, June.
    4. Wojtek Tomaszewski & Francisco Perales, 2014. "Who Settles for Less? Subjective Dispositions, Objective Circumstances, and Housing Satisfaction," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 181-203, August.
    5. Hania Wu & Tony Tam, 2015. "Economic Development and Socioeconomic Inequality of Well-Being: A Cross-Sectional Time-Series Analysis of Urban China, 2003–2011," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 401-425, November.
    6. Verhofstadt, E. & Van Ootegem, L. & Defloor, B. & Bleys, B., 2016. "Linking individuals' ecological footprint to their subjective well-being," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 80-89.
    7. Hajdu, Tamás & Hajdu, Gábor, 2011. "A hasznosság és a relatív jövedelem kapcsolatának vizsgálata magyar adatok segítségével [Examining the relation of utility and relative income using Hungarian data]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 56-73.
    8. Papageorgiou, Athanasios, 2018. "The Effect of Immigration on the Well-Being of Native Populations: Evidence from the United Kingdom," MPRA Paper 93045, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Fulvio Castellacci & Henrik Schwabe, 2020. "Internet, unmet aspirations and the U-shape of life," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-22, June.
    10. Alexandra Cristina Sãžrbu & Mircea Asandului, 2021. "Determinants Of Subjective Well-Being Among Romanian Older Adults," Review of Economic and Business Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, issue 28, pages 111-124, December.
    11. Mohamed A. Eltarkawe & Shelly L. Miller, 2018. "The Impact of Industrial Odors on the Subjective Well-Being of Communities in Colorado," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-24, May.
    12. Biermann, Philipp & Bitzer, Jürgen & Gören, Erkan, 2022. "The relationship between age and subjective well-being: Estimating within and between effects simultaneously," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    13. Sarracino, Francesco, 2013. "Determinants of subjective well-being in high and low income countries: Do happiness equations differ across countries?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 51-66.
    14. Junji Kageyama & Kazuma Sato, 2021. "Explaining the U-shaped life satisfaction: dissatisfaction as a driver of behavior," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 179-202, July.
    15. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn & Joan Maya Mazelis, 2017. "More Unequal in Income, More Unequal in Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 953-975, July.
    16. Fabio Sabatini & Francesco Sarracino, 2017. "Online Networks and Subjective Well-Being," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(3), pages 456-480, August.
    17. Biswajit Banerjee & Peter Tóth, 2025. "Life Satisfaction and Inequality in Slovakia: The Role of Income, Consumption and Wealth," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 177(1), pages 93-126, March.
    18. David Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald & Sarah Stewart-Brown, 2013. "Is Psychological Well-Being Linked to the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(3), pages 785-801, December.
    19. Feeny, Simon & McDonald, Lachlan & Posso, Alberto, 2014. "Are Poor People Less Happy? Findings from Melanesia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 448-459.
    20. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2016. "Antidepressants and age: A new form of evidence for U-shaped well-being through life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 46-58.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Well-being; Happiness; ACSA;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:ariqol:v:14:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11482-017-9589-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.