Deck 5: Happiness and the Facts of Life

Question 1

Research shows that the objective features of people's lives, such as income, gender, age, and education account for about ___________ of the differences in people's self-reported level of happiness.

A) 50 to 60%
B) 25 to 35%
C) 8 to 20%
D) less than 1%

Answer 1

8 to 20%

Question 2

What stages of life do most people assume are the most unhappy and least rewarding?

A) adulthood and becoming parents
B) young adulthood and adulthood
C) middle age and old age
D) adolescence and old age

Answer 2

adolescence and old age

Question 3

As explanations for the impact bias, focalism refers to 1.___________ and immune neglect refers to 2._______________.

A) 1. a single-minded focus on the positive that ignores the negative 2. not taking good care of ourselves while anticipating a highly charged emotional event
B) 1. attention focused on the context and not the event itself 2. overestimating our own strength and resilience
C) 1. a restricted attention to the event that ignores the context of the event 2. underestimating our own resilience
D) 1. ignoring what might happen because of our belief about will happen 2. feelings of invulnerability and that lead to over confidence

Answer 3

1. a restricted attention to the event that ignores the context of the event 2. underestimating our own resilience

Question 4

The study by Schkade and Kahneman found that students living in California and the Midwest

A) showed no differences in their predicted and actual ratings of happiness and life satisfaction.
B) both predicted that the weather would not influence happiness, but in fact Californians showed higher overall life satisfaction than Midwesterners.
C) were most affected by winter weather, with Californians showing higher life satisfaction during the winter, but not for the spring, summer, and fall.
D) both predicted higher happiness for students living in sunny California, but in fact there were no differences in overall life satisfaction between the two groups.

Question 5

When people make a summary judgment abut an entire object or issue but only attend to a few features of the object or issue in question, this called the ___________ and helps explain the results of the Sckade & Kahneman study of Californians and Midwesterners.

A) biased processing
B) confirmation bias
C) the Gestalt illusion
D) the focusing illusion

Question 6

In the dorm room assignment study by Dunn and her colleagues, what was the basis for students' predicted happiness with their dorm assignment and what determined their actual dorm-life satisfaction?
1. Predicted_____________ 2. Actual____________

A) 1. Location 2. Services and room size
B) 1. Location 2. Social relationships
C) 1. Roommate 2. Dorm mates
D) 1. Social relationships 2. Location

Question 7

Studies of happiness across the life span, the mid-life crisis, and the empty nest syndrome suggest that

A) both men and women are less happy during middle age than at other times of their lives.
B) adolescence and old age are the least happy stages of life.
C) strong family connections buffer the challenges of each stage of life.
D) no age or stage of life seems to be happier or unhappier than any other.

Question 8

One explanation for the finding that teenagers and the elderly have quite different emotional lives, but similar levels of overall happiness and SWB, is that

A) the averaging out of teens' emotional highs and lows approximates the steady state emotional experiences of most elderly.
B) global measures of well-being are biased by age-related attitudes.
C) contrary to popular belief, the emotional experiences of teens are not that different than the elderly's.
D) the elderly tend to exaggerate both their good and their bad emotional experiences.

Question 9

Studies of negative affect across the life span consistently show that negative affect (emotion) __________________as we get older.

A) does not change
B) increases
C) decreases
D) decreases or increases depending on our coping skills

Question 10

Kunzman and his colleagues examined age-related differences in two types of positive emotions: pleasant affect and positive involvement. They also examined age differences in two lifestyles: a hedonic lifestyle and a more eudaimonic and growth-related lifestyle. Overall their findings suggest that the basis for positive emotions

A) remains constant across the life span.
B) shifts from pleasant affect and a hedonic lifestyle when young, to positive involvement and a growth-related lifestyle in older adulthood.
C) shifts from positive involvement and a growth-related lifestyle when young, to a pleasant affect and hedonic lifestyle in older adulthood.
D) the hedonism of youth gives way to the realism and tempered emotions of adulthood.

Question 11

Carstenson's socioeomotional selectivity theory predicts that older adults and the elderly shift their life priorities from the

A) future to the past.
B) future to the present.
C) present to the future.
D) present to the past.

Question 12

Consistent with Carstenson's socioemotional selectivity theory, research shows that older adults and the elderly

A) begin to withdraw from social life after retirement from work.
B) become more negative and less positive about their life and become more dependent on their family and friends.
C) try to avoid negative interactions, express fewer negative emotions, and establish stronger relations within a smaller social support circle.
D) do best when they keep active by trying new things, setting new goals for the future, and meeting new people.

Question 13

What is paradoxical about gender and happiness?

A) men and women are equally happy even though women experience more frequent negative emotions and show higher rates of depression.
B) women are happier than men even though women experience more frequent negative emotions and show higher rates of depression.
C) men are happier than women even though they are less emotionally expressive and show higher rates of externalizing disorders.
D) men and women are equally happy even though women still face sexist discrimination in our society.

Question 14

One explanation for the gender parado, suggested by Diener is that women are more "emotional," than men. This explanation suggests that

A) only experience sampling measures will accurately measure women's true level of happiness.
B) men's lack of emotional expressiveness biases their reports of how happy they are .
C) women's' high level of emotional expressiveness biases their actual level of happiness.
D) in a given sample, the "highs" of some women are balanced out by the "lows" of others.

Question 15

Gender stereotypes may be part of the paradox of gender as revealed in research showing that the "emotionality" of women may be more apparent than real. Research supporting this conclusion shows that

A) women are more confused than men about how they should react to emotional events.
B) "real-time" experience sampling measures show less gender differences in emotions than do delayed, retrospective, or global measures.
C) women vacillate back and forth about their actual feelings towards an emotional event.
D) men and women do not differ in their emotional reactions when they are talking with same-sexed friends or family members.

Question 16

From a eudaimonic perspective, the issue of who is happier, men or women,

A) is central to defining who is healthier, men or women.
B) misses the point of healthy functioning that is always a combination of strengths and weaknesses that co-occur within most individuals.
C) determines how society should think about preventative mental health programs.
D) is more of a paradox than for a hedonic perspective because women generally score higher on measures of positive mental health.

Question 17

The effects of marriage on individual happiness and well-being, as shown in large national sample surveys, is

A) about the same as the effect of how much money you make.
B) difficult to assess because of the dramatic rise in the number of unmarried cohabitating couples over the last 20 years.
C) lower than in the past because of our high divorce rate.
D) considerable stronger than most other demographic variables.

Question 18

Selection of effects in marriage refer to the possibility that

A) people may select the right or wrong person to marry.
B) people who marry are simply happier to begin with compared to people who don't marry.
C) evolution helps select the type of person that is right for us.
D) that arranged marriages or cases where others influence our decision of whom to marry generally lead to poor choices and unhappiness.

Question 19

Lucas, Clark, Georgellis & Diener (Focus on Research: Are we still happy after the honeymoon?) examined the effects of marriage in a longitudinal study of over 24,000 people in living in Germany. They found that the overall effect of marriage was

A) small and short-lived.
B) large and long-term.
C) dependent on the goodness of fit between couples and family support.
D) entirely a product of selection effects.

Question 20

In their study of 24,000 people living in Germany, Lucas, Clark, et al. (Focus on Research: Are we still happy after the honeymoon?) found in their analysis of individual variations in responses to marriage that

A) most of the initial gains in happiness were soon lost.
B) nearly everyone benefited from marriage.
C) about half were happier and half unhappier consistent with the idea of hedonic leveling where pre-marriage happiness determines how much a person benefits from marriage.
D) most couples were initially happier, but about half became disillusioned over time, consistent with the idea that romantic/passionate love "cools off."

Question 21

Research addressing the question of whether men or women benefit more from marriage shows that

A) men benefit more.
B) women benefit more.
C) the effects depend on personality and family support.
D) there are no clear gender differences in the effects of marriage.

Question 22

The relationship between more education and higher levels of happiness probably results from the fact that

A) more education makes you more competent and therefore happier.
B) more education leads to more satisfying and financially rewarding jobs.
C) intelligence is related to happiness and more education requires more intelligence.
D) more education means you are more self-aware, more in tune with the big picture of life, and more likely to sacrifice short-term rewards for long- term gains.

Question 23

Religion and spirituality have been show to have

A) no relation to happiness and well-being.
B) a negative relationship to happiness and well-being.
C) a small but consistently positive relationship to well-being.
D) a mixed relation with as many negative as positive effects.

Question 24

Does membership in a stigmatized group lower self-esteem and individual happiness? Research suggests that the answer is

A) generally yes.
B) generally no.
C) no for African Americans, but somewhat for Hispanics and Native Americans.
D) generally no for all groups, except African Americans.