To examine source confusion, we test whether and to what degree these thought reports are related to actual SWB levels. In the studies presented here, these thoughts are described in terms of content (life domains such as family and career) and in terms of valence as reported by the participants. These thoughts are likely closely related to what people think contributes to their SWB, but to avoid any confusion, we refer to these responses as “thoughts” or “thought reports” rather than as “self-reported sources”. However, it is important to note that this paradigm is not a direct assessment of people’s sources of SWB but it is merely a log of what people think about while answering SWB questions. In previous studies, this paradigm was used to assess the so-called self-reported sources of SWB ( Schimmack et al., 2002 Schimmack & Oishi, 2005). In the present research, we study this question by asking participants to report the things or events they had been thinking about when answering questions about their SWB (cf. What is much less known, however, is whether and to what degree people consider these variables when they think about their own SWB. Moreover, specific life circumstances such as being married ( Diener, Gohm, Suh, & Oishi, 2000), having a reasonable income ( Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010 Howell & Howell, 2008 Luhmann, Schimmack, & Eid, 2011), having a job ( Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2004 Luhmann & Eid, 2009) and having meaningful social connections ( Cacioppo et al., 2008) are associated with higher SWB levels. A large proportion of the variance in SWB can be explained with partially heritable personality traits such as emotional stability and extraversion ( Steel, Schmidt, & Shultz, 2008). Subjective well-being (SWB) comprises ratings of overall life satisfaction as well as the frequency of positive and negative affect ( Diener, 1984). In the present paper, we examine whether source confusion also occurs when people think about their subjective well-being. Source confusion is a common psychological phenomenon that occurs, for instance, when people try to explain why they are in a certain mood ( Wilson, Laser, & Stone, 1982), why they like someone ( Bornstein & D’Agostino, 1994), why they behave in certain ways ( Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996), and how they will feel in the future ( Wilson & Gilbert, 2005). 129) and, consequently, the tendency to misattribute the causes of how one is thinking, feeling, or behaving. Inaccurate attributions such as this one are often due to source confusion ( Wilson & Brekke, 1994) which describes the “inability to recognize the exact contribution of all of the influences on one’s judgment” (p. For instance, a wife might be convinced that she is angry because her husband did not clear the dishwasher when in fact her sour mood is due to a negative event at work. This explanation, however, can be inaccurate. How do you feel? Many people are able to answer this question without much effort and are quick in coming up with a plausible explanation for their response ( Nisbett & Wilson, 1977 Schimmack, Diener, & Oishi, 2002 Schimmack & Oishi, 2005 Wilson & Brekke, 1994). In sum, these findings provide insight into what people think contributes to their SWB beliefs that may guide them as they make important decisions. On average, people thought more about positive than about negative things, a result that is magnified for respondents high in extraversion or emotional stability. Some domains are predominantly mentioned in positive contexts (e.g., family) whereas others are predominantly mentioned in negative contexts (e.g., money). The domains mentioned most frequently (career, family, romantic life) were also the ones that were most strongly related to actual SWB, indicating that most of people think about things that actually contribute to their SWB. Most people focused on their life circumstances (e.g., career) rather than on dispositional predictors (e.g., personality) of SWB. These thought reports were analyzed with respect to life domain, valence, and how strongly they were related to actual levels of SWB. In two studies, participants reported what they had been thinking about while completing measures of subjective well-being (SWB).
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