CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 417Psychological Well-being and Life SatisfactionQuality of Life MeasurementPsychometric Methodologies and Testing

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 152 of the 157 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

How Can Measures of Subjective Well-Being Be Used to Inform Public Policy?

Dolan, Paul, White, Mathew P.·2007·Perspectives on Psychological Science
DOI 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00030.x
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

The debate surrounding the use of subjective measures of well-being for policy purposes has intensified in recent years. Many social scientists are arguing that the time is right for policymakers to extend their traditional focus on material well-being and economic development to include the impact policies have on how people think and feel about their lives. However, policymakers may have many legitimate goals beyond making people happy. In this article, we begin by presenting three archetypal accounts of well-being that policymakers could use to guide policy (mental-state, objective-list, and desire-fulfillment accounts) and discussing some of the normative and methodological limitations of each. We discuss how a subjective (mental-state) approach could be used to aid the achievement of objective-list and desire-fulfillment policy goals. We then consider ways in which a subjective approach may benefit policymakers in its own right, such as by aiding the valuation of hard-to-quantify costs and benefits, providing a standard unit of measurement for comparisons of well-being across domains, and helping to set policy defaults. We conclude with a discussion of some of the remaining measurement issues and general policy implications.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00030.x

Cites

152 of 152 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Show all 157 references

Research works printed but not linked: 20

  1. 10.1037/0022-3514.36.8.917 · DOI
  2. Cowell F.A., 2000, Welfare weights
  3. Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2005, One future—different paths: The UK's shared framework for sustainable development
  4. 10.1037/0022-3514.47.3.580 · DOI
  5. Diener E., 1999, Psychological Review, 125, 276
  6. Dolan P., 2006, Review of research on the influences on personal well-being and application to policy making
  7. Halpern D., 2004, Personal responsibility and changing behaviour: The state of knowledge and its implications for public policy
  8. Harsanyi J.C., 1982, Utilitarianism and beyond, 39
  9. Huxley A., 1931, Brave new world
  10. Kahneman D., 1999, Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology, 3
  11. Kirkcaldy B., 2000, Studia Psychologica, 42, 97
  12. Lane R.E., 2002, Political psychology, 367
  13. Loewenstein G., 1999, Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology, 85
  14. Mill J.S., 1988, Utilitarianism, on liberty and considerations on representative government
  15. 10.1111/j.1468-0297.1997.tb00085.x · DOI
  16. Parfitt D., 1984, Reasons and persons
  17. Schwarz N., 1999, Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology, 61
  18. Ulrich R.S., 1991, Group Practice Journal, 40, 10
  19. van Praag B.M.S., 1999, Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology, 413
  20. Verkley H., 1989, How harmful is happiness?, 79

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 417

Related

Metadata

Authors
Dolan, P., & White, M. P.
Affiliations
  • Imperial College London (GB)
  • University of Plymouth (GB)
Corresponding author
Dolan, Paul
ORCID
Venue
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2007-03
Volume
2
Issue
1
Pages
71-85
ISSN
  • 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-6924
DOI
10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00030.x
OpenAlex
W2150551066
Cited by
416
References
157
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 29 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 28 · 2014: 34 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 21
FWCI
23.85
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Quality of Life Measurement
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
Keywords
subjective well-being, public policy, policy objectives, cost-benefit valuation, well-being measurement, material well-being

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review