MEMORY-EXPERIENCE GAP IN EARLY ADOLESCENTS HAPPINESS REPORTS
Maja Tadic, Huub Braam, Katja VanVliet, Ruut Veenhoven
In: Child Indicator Research, DOI 10.1007/s12187-013-9194-6
Accepted: 7 April 2013 ISSN 1874-8988
ABSTRACT
Studies among adult populations show that estimates of how happy one has felt in the past tend
to be more positive than average happiness as assessed using time sampling techniques. This‘memory-experience gap’ is attributed to cognitive biases, among which fading affect bias. In
this paper we report a study among 352 pupils of a secondary school in the Netherlands. These
youngsters reported subsequently: 1) how happy they had felt yesterday, 2) how happy they had
felt during the last month, 3) what they had done the previous day and 4) how they had felt
during each of these activities. Unlike earlier studies, the average rating of happiness in the last
month appeared to be lower than average happiness of the previous day. In accordance with
earlier research, the global rating of happiness during the previous day was higher than the
average of reported affect during separate activities during that day. A further multilevel
analysis suggest that in estimating how they have felt on the whole yesterday, youngsters
overestimated short pleasant episodes and underestimated unpleasant episodes, especially when
such episodes lasted long.
Keywords: Happiness measurement, Day Reconstruction Method (DRM), Adolescents,
Retrospection
Full text