Money & Happiness Quizzes | Personality Tests

The scale you completed was the Beliefs about Well-being Scale, developed by Ethan A. McMahan and David Estes (2010).

This scale measures how you define happiness. Typically, definitions of happiness can be grouped into two categories:

Defining happiness as hedonism which is
- Experiences of pleasure (of both mind and body)
- Lack of negative and unpleasant experiences
- Life satisfaction

Defining happiness as eudaimonia which is
- Developing personal strengths
- Contribution to others
- Having a sense of meaning or purpose

The graph below shows how strongly you define happiness as experiencing pleasure and avoiding negativity (or hedonism) vs. self-development and contribution to others (or eudaimonia). Your beliefs about well-being are shown in green (1st bar). The beliefs of well-being of less-happy people are shown in red bars and the beliefs of well-being of happy people are shown in blue bars.

As the graph above shows, happy people define the good life as self-development and contribution to others.

Why are beliefs about well-being important for well-being? Research shows that defining happiness as eudaimonia, as opposed to the hedonic view, is more strongly related to the well-being people actually experience. Seeking pleasure directly may actually provide people less happiness than acquiring it through the search for self-development and selfless effort to improve the lives of others.

What can I do to change my scores? The simple recommendation is this: do not search for pleasure. Find something that makes you happy when are not directly pursuing happiness. Further, well-being is in part subjective. These views help shape how you view your own experiences-do you think they are contributing toward well-being or not?

How do I compare to my friends?

The graph below shows your score (in dark green) compared to your friends (in light green) , liberals (in blue) , conservatives (in red) , women (in pink) , and men (in light blue) .

Note: if not all bars are showing, click here to refresh graph - Share on Facebook
How do I compare to my friends?

The graph below shows your score (in dark green) compared to your friends (in light green) , liberals (in blue) , conservatives (in red) , women (in pink) , and men (in light blue) .

Note: if not all bars are showing, click here to refresh graph - Share on Facebook

Do you have ideas on improving this study? Or did you encounter any difficulties in answering the questions? Click here to send a message to the creators of this study.

Do you want to know about your other values, which are not related to happiness, and see how they compare to others? You might be interested in taking our Schwartz Values Scale.

Learn more about your happiness and spending habits!

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