MODERATORS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EGO DEPLETION AND UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR:
THE ROLE OF GENDER AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING
Ivo Seinen January 2015
Ivo Seinen
Student number: s1992937 Email: i.seinen@hotmail.com
Address: Parkweg 99A, 9725 EE Groningen
Master Thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen
Abstract.
People do occasionally profit from dishonesty. This tendency to engage in unethical behavior is affected by a diminished self-control, also known as a state of ego depletion. However, this link may be moderated by subjective well-being as both positive emotions and a sense of belonging are believed to restore depleted resources. I designed a laboratory experiment to examine the moderation effect of subjective well-being on the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior. Participants were faced with an opportunity to cheat for monetary gain.
MODERATORS ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EGO DEPLETION AND UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR:
THE ROLE OF GENDER AND SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING
Introduction.
Suppose that you are a freelancer, toiling to make ends meet. You have set up a sole proprietorship a few months ago, after you quit your job as an HR-manager at a medium-size production company. As a consultant, you thought orders would be thrown towards you as former business connections gave you the false impression that they would take your consulting services once independent. Now, a few months later, you begin to delve into your savings account. According to your calculations, you would be effectively bankrupt in a week, when you are due for your income taxes over the last year. Also, you are in negotiation with a client over a major long-term assignment. The assignment could possibly pull you out of financial misery, but it also depends on some minor side assignments. If you are awarded the assignment, you are able to receive a bank loan to bridge the cash flow shortage. You really want to have this major contract of professional services assigned to you, and you are willing to cover up potential bankruptcy during the negotiations, risking prison time for financial deception. You feel exhausted by the dilemma of ethical conduct on the one hand, and higher chances of contract assignment on the other hand.
Imagine this situation in a way when you are moderately content with your life, having no family to take care of, and basically all your life revolves around your professional career. Now imagine this same situation but where you are reasonably happy with your life, having a partner you are in love with, and at dinner you face your 2-year old son. How likely are you in both situations to engage in unethical behavior (i.e., financial deception in the
negotiations)?
Ego depletion refers to a state where mental resources to execute self-control are diminished (Moss, 2008). In this situation that I just described, you are ego depleted, because the dilemma between ethical and unethical conduct drains your mental resources. Self-control is needed to suppress or control impulses that deviate from personal goals or social norms (Moss, 2011). De Ridder, Lensvelt-Mulders, Finkenauer and Baumeister (2013) assume that self-control is needed to override behaviors that attract immediate rewards but future adversities, such as lying and deceiving. Mead, Baumeister, Gino, Schweitzer and Ariely (2009) go even further and demonstrated that depleted participants misrepresent their performance for monetary gain to a greater extent than do non-depleted participants. In other words, they show that there is a positive relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior.
In the theoretical framework, I will first draw from literature to further detail the concepts that are touched upon in the introduction section. Also, I will present my hypotheses. Subsequently, in the method section, I will describe the conducted experiment to accept or reject my hypotheses. In the result section, the output of the experiment will be presented, followed by a discussion of the results.
Theoretical Framework.
Ego depletion and unethical behavior. According to Moss (2008) ego depletion refers to the idea that any activity that demands the execution of self-control, draws resources or energy from a single, limited supply.
Examples could be overriding or inhibiting impulses, regulating emotions, or reaching difficult choices and decisions (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). When individuals come to a situation where self-control is demanded, this supply diminishes, and a state called ego depletion prevails. This state impairs the capacity for individuals to enact other activities that demand self-control, such as cheating for monetary gain. This supply is restored after a period of recovery or some other interventions, at which point the capacity of individuals to demonstrate self-control is reinstated. Moss (2008) mentions several effects of ego depletion, such as reduced helping behavior, a stronger inclination to cheat for monetary gain, a stronger inclination to forgive people for minor offences, impaired cognitive performance, and a stronger inclination to overestimate one’s own abilities. These effects occur because self-control is impaired, which is needed to prevent the effects to prevail.
According the Boyle et al. (2015), there are three main factors that lead to unethical behavior. Those factors are opportunity, incentive/pressure, and rationalization. Opportunity refers to the absence of control mechanisms or ineffective control mechanisms. Incentive refers to the motivation to act unethically, and rationalization refers to the individual justification to engage in unethical behavior. The main weakness with the theory is that the last
component of the model, rationalization, includes conscious rationalizations (e.g., weighing of arguments why a certain unethical conduct wouldn’t be that unethical. A thief could argue that stealing from a rich man is a form of welfare leveling) and neglects subconscious decision processes that may lead to decision-making, such as impaired self-control mechanisms.
Previous studies have linked self-control to unethical behavior, such as crime and aggression. According to the general theory of crime (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), individuals with a limited capacity to regulate their behavior engage in acts that offer immediate rewards, providing a potential explanation for why people cheat or commit fraud despite the negative consequences that follow. Pratt and Cullen (2000) demonstrated through empirical research that self-control is a robust predictor of a wide variety of criminal offenses under an equally wide variety of methodological conditions.
in his meta study on ego depletion, several factors that restore depleted resources. One factor that restores depleted resources is the ingestion of glucose (Gailliot, Baumeister, DeWall, Maner, Plant, Tice, et al., 2007) More recently Mead and colleagues (2008) demonstrated several manifestations connected to ego depletion. They found that depleted individuals are more dishonest. Also, they found that depleted individuals are more likely to expose themselves to the temptation to cheat, which aggravates the effect of depletion on cheating. In their first experiment, they divided their subjects randomly into 4 conditions (depleted and non-depleted individuals in either a self-score or experimenter score condition). Participants were asked to perform a task, in which they face an opportunity to cheat only in the self-score condition. The remuneration for participation, was linearly dependent on the performance of the task they executed. The results of the study showed that depleted individuals cheat more than non-depleted individuals. In their second experiment, which has a similar setup and performance pay, all participants filled out their answers of a quiz on a bubble sheet. However, one of the two bubble sheets they could choose from, had the correct answers lightly marked on it. Depleted individuals chose the pre-marked bubble sheet more than their non-depleted counterparts, which suggests that depleted individuals expose themselves to situations in which they have an opportunity to cheat, relatively more than non-depleted individuals.
Thus, in sum, there is empirical support that ego depletion affects unethical behavior.
Subjective well-being, ego depletion, and unethical behavior. I propose that subjective well-being, a state that engenders positive affect, will reduce the effects of ego depletion on unethical behavior. Positive emotions and a sense of belonging, both of which engender positive affect, are believed to restore depleted resources (Moss 2008, Moss 2011). According to Moss (2011), happy individuals demonstrate more self-control. Furthermore, according to Guven (2012), happy people are oriented on future needs instead of responding to immediate temptations. An experiment done by Tice, Baumeister, Shmueli, and Muraven (2007) demonstrates that positive affect can replenish depleted resources. In their study, participants were instructed to inhibit a specific impulse or thought for five minutes. Specifically, they were told to abstain from any thoughts about a white bear, thereby depleting their regulatory resources. Participants were then granted a five-minute break. Some participants watched a comedic movie clip during the break. Other participants either sat quietly or watched a sad movie clip. Participants were then instructed to squeeze a handgrip. In the situation where participants had watched no movie clip or a sad movie clip during the break, their capacity to maintain this grip deteriorated after being depleted (a baseline ability was measured prior to the experimental manipulation), whereas the physical capacity of those participants who had watched a comedic movie during the break remained intact. This study of Tice et al. (2007) shows that positive emotions reduce the impact of ego depletion.
From this reasoning, I hypothesize the following:
Gender and unethical behavior. According to Betz, O’Connell and Shepard (1989), gender generates differences in proclivity for unethical behavior. In their work, in which they examined possible gender differences in work-related values and willingness to engage in unethical conduct, they found that men are more interested in money and advancement, whereas woman are more interested in helping people and relationships. In response to the researchers’ questions, males indicated to be twice more likely to engage in unethical conduct such as insider trading and embezzling money via the computer.
Babalola (2009) found in his survey study among owner-managers, that gender differences are relevant when it comes to ethical conduct. Males supposedly are more likely to engage in unethical behavior, are more receptive to questionable ethical responses, and less critical towards ethical issues.
Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) argue in their general theory of crime, that people lacking in self-control are predisposed towards criminal and deviant behavior. As woman are significantly less involved in criminal behavior than men are (burton, Cullen, Evans, Alarid and Dunaway, 1998), what could explain the “gender gap” in this general theory of crime? According to Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990), there is a ‘substantial self-control difference between the sexes’ (p 148).
Johnson, Mitchell, Bean, Richeson and Shelton (2010) found that gender moderates the self-regulatory consequences of suppressing emotional reactions to sexism. In their factorial design study, 2(participant gender: male versus female) x 2(condition: control versus suppression), they asked participants to cooperate in an interview, in which the confederate interviewer (an blatantly sexist) confronts them with sexist questions and theories. In the suppression condition, participants were told “It is important that you maintain a neutral facial expression while you listen to your partner’s comments”. In the control conditions participants were told “It is important that during the interview you behave naturally while you listen to your partner’s responses”. Afterwards the participants were instructed to perform the stroop task (i.e., a cognitive test task, as designed by Richeson & Trawalter, 2005), supposedly as part of a different study. The study showed that men have more difficulty performing the stroop task in the suppressing condition than women do.
From this reasoning, I hypothesize the following:
Conceptual model.
Figure 1 displays the conceptual model for hypotheses 1 and 2. In the model as well as in further calculations, females are coded -1, and males are coded 1.
Figure 1.
The Current Research
I conducted a laboratory experiment to manipulate participants’ ego depletion. I then let participants perform a task in which they could cheat for monetary gain. I checked whether or not they cheated and to what extent they cheated. Participants also filled out a questionnaire in which they indicate their subjective well-being.
Methods
Participants. Initially, the laboratory experiment generated 112 participants. First, I excluded six participants
who failed to complete the experiment. Then all those who missed attention checks (n=12) and those who filled in worrisome answers (n=10) were also excluded. After filtering, the dataset produced 84 valid participants on which to perform the analyses. All participants were students at the University of Groningen (75% European ethnicity; 63.1% female; Mage = 22.06, SD = 2.8). At the end of the laboratory experiment, the participant indicated to either receive €12.50 without university credit points, or €8.50 combined with university credit points.
Research design. Participants were randomly assigned to two conditions (i.e., ego depleted or not ego
depleted) in a between-subjects design. All participants also completed a measure of their subjective well-being.
Procedures. Participants entered the laboratory, located in the economics department of the University of
computer and some pieces of paper, which provide them instructions for later on in the session. Before closing the cubicle door, the instructor told them to start the study by following the instructions on the computer screen. In the first task they were asked to write a story, in which I manipulated their ego depletion. Afterwards, they completed a workbook with 30 questions, in which I embedded my measure of unethical behavior. Next, participants chose to either let the instructor check the score or to check the answers themselves. If the participant chose to self-score, he/she then indicated the achieved score on the payment slip and handed it to the experimenter, allowing him or her to behave unethically by overstating the number of correct responses on the payment slip. Finally, participants completed the exit survey, in which they completed questions measuring their subjective well-being. When finished, the participant received the maximum pay (12,5€ or 8,5€ combined with university credit points), and read the debriefing.
Manipulation of ego depletion. To manipulate a state of ego depletion, I had participants write a story
about themselves, in which they were not allowed to use the words “I” or “me” (Schmeigel and Vohs, 2009). The participants were instructed to write at least half a page within 7 minutes. In the control condition, the participants were asked to write a story about themselves without such restrictions. See Appendix A for the precise text the individuals faced.
Unethical behavior. Upfront, the respondent was informed that the pay was dependent on their
performance during the study. To measure unethical behavior, participants performed a task in which they faced an opportunity to cheat for personal monetary gain. The participants were given a workbook containing 30
coordination questions (i.e., questions in which participants are asked to answer as they expect a plurality of peers to answer it), on which respondents guess the most common answers given by other participants of the study. The questions and answers (see Appendix B) are adopted from the questionnaire of a similar experiment conducted by John, Loewenstein and Rick (2013). Participants received a point if they correctly guessed the most common
response. With each correct answer, the financial reward for participation in the experiment increased by €0.15. An example question was: “name a specific kind of whale”. The correct answer here is “killer whale”, which will be awarded 1 point, and every other answer zero points.
As mentioned above, participants could either choose to have the experimenter score their answers or to score the answers themselves. Participants could only cheat if they chose to self-score. Thus, a participant cheated if they both chose the self-score option and overstated their correct answers.
For informational purposes, I will also provide analyses for how many participants chose to self-score versus let the experimenter score for them based on both their gender, and based on their condition (i.e., ego depleted or not)
Subjective well-being. At the end of the laboratory experiment, an exit survey was conducted, in which the
because I thought the aspect of parental love was not captured in it. The question I added (number 30 in the Appendix C) reads: ’I feel my parents love me’. According to Myers (1995), people tend to be happy when they have the perception they are loved by their parents. I analyzed this questionnaire both with and without this question included.
As all the questions have answer options ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree), the scores were averaged, representing a subjective well-being score that ranged from 1 to 6. The average score for the Oxford Inventory was 4.45 (SD = 0.56) and was 4.48 (SD = 0.55) for the version with my single question added.
Data analyses. I tested two regression models. Specifically, in the first model, using a logistic regression, I
regressed people’s cheating (yes/no) on their ego depletion condition (categorical variable) and their subjective well-being (continuous variable). In the second model, using a linear regression, I regressed people’s extent of cheating (i.e., overstatement of the answers they had correct) on their ego depletion condition (categorical variable) and their subjective well-being (continuous variable). I ran both models using the original 29-item subjective well-being questionnaire and the adapted 30-item version.
I did not include any control variables, such as age, as they deteriorate the statistical power of the models.
Result Section.
I will first assess all relevant variables in a correlation table (table 1), which shows a few significant
relationships. The relationship between ego depletion and cheating (continuous) is positive and significant at the p < 0.10-level, suggesting that depleted individuals engaged in more cheating behavior. As can be expected, the two cheating variables (dichotomous and continuous) are correlated at the p < 0.01-level. Also, as one would expect, the Oxford Subjective Well-being Inventory and adapted version are correlated at the p < 0.01-level.
Table 1: Correlations for Relevant Study Variables.
EGO DEPLETION CHEAT
(dichotomous) CHEAT (continuous) SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING (30 questions) Oxford inventory (29 questions) GENDER EGO DEPLETION .16 .19* .09 .09 .01 CHEAT (categorical) .74** -.02 -.02 .11 CHEAT (interval) .05 .06 .17 SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING (30 questions) .99** -.09 Oxford inventory (29 questions) -.09
I also checked whether or not depleted participants were more inclined to use either one of the scoring options. The results are represented in Table 2. The Chi-square test indicated no statistically significant inclination for either condition or gender, to have a preference for one of the scoring options.
Table 2: Gender, condition and scoring options.
Self-score Experimenter score
Depleted 21 19 40 Non-depleted 21 23 44 Male 16 15 31 Female 26 27 53 42 42
Hypothesis 1: Subjective well-being as a moderator.
In my first hypothesis, I propose that the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior is moderated by subjective well-being. To test this prediction, I run both linear and binary logistic regression analyses. In the linear regression models, the total amount of cheated points is the dependent variable. In the binary regression models, the dependent variable indicates either cheating behavior, or no cheating behavior (i.e., whether a participant cheated on one item or on all items, both cases are equivalent in the binary regression model). Individuals engaging in cheating behavior are coded “1”, and those who do not are coded “0”.
Moreover, I perform my analyses both with the 30-questions SWB survey output (my questionnaire), and with the 29-questions SWB survey output (the oxford inventory). Although with that many questions items, multicollinearity is bound to occur, the question I added has a VIF-value higher than 3 only to three other question items. Although any other question item has multicollinearity occurring with at least one other question item, I will run my analyses with both the 29-question and the 30-question survey.
For further analyses, individuals in the depleted condition are coded “1”, and those who are not depleted are coded “-1”.
Table 3: Linear regression output, 29 question survey
B SE T-value P-value R² (adjusted)
Model 1 (Constant) .11 4.10 .03 .98 .04 (.01) Ego depletion .85 .49 1.72 .09 SWB .29 .90 .32 .75 Model 2 (Constant) -.72 4.12 -.18 .86 .06 (.03) Ego depletion -4.86 4.12 -1.18 .24 SWB .46 .91 .51 .61 SWB x Ego depletion 1.27 .91 1.40 .17
Table 4: Linear regression output, 30 question survey
B SE T-value P-value R² (adjusted)
Table 5: Binary logistic regression output, 29 question survey
B S.E. P-value R² nagelkerke
Model 1 (Constant) -1.08 2.56 .67 .045 Ego depletion .47 .33 .16 SWB -.17 .56 .77 Model 2 (Constant) -.77 2.62 .77 .057 Ego depletion -1.51 2.68 .57 SWB -.26 .60 .67 SWB x Ego depletion .45 .61 .46
Table 6: Binary logistic regression output, 30 question survey.
B S.E. P-value R² nagelkerke
Hypothesis 2: Gender as a moderator.
In my second hypothesis, I propose that the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior is
moderated by gender. As with previous calculations, I run both linear and binary logistic regression analyses. For the gender variable, females are coded “-1”, and males are coded “1”.
Table 7: Linear regression output.
B S.E. T-value P-value R² (adjusted)
Model 1 (Constant) 1.61 .50 3.20 .00 .06 (.04) Ego depletion .86 .49 1.76 .08 Gender .77 .50 1.53 .13 Model 2 (Constant) .16 .51 3.20 .00 .07 (.04) Ego depletion .98 .51 1.95 .06 Gender .79 .51 1.57 .12 Gender x Ego depletion .48 .51 .96 .34
Table 8: Binary logistic regression output.
B S.E. P-value R² nagelkerke
Discussion.
Results and theoretical implications. According to previous studies of Mead et al. (2009) and Moss (2008),
ego depletion is linked to unethical conduct. Although I can reconfirm this link, with linear regression output as shown in tables 3,4 and 7, the main objective of this thesis was to examine the moderating factors subjective well-being and gender.
Mead et al. (2009) demonstrated that depleted individuals are more likely to expose themselves to the temptation to cheat. Following that line of thought, depleted participants of this study should have chosen the self-score option more often than the experimenter self-score option. Although this may be true in absolute terms, see table 2, the Chi-square test could not prove this to be significant, probably on account of sample size.
The first hypothesis, which was about the moderating factor subjective well-being on the relationship between ego depletion and unethical conduct, could not be supported. Both for the linear regression and for the binary regression, the interaction effect did not show significant results. There was also no main effect found for subjective well-being on unethical behavior. Although Blackhart et al. (2012) found that when people experience a sense of belonging in a group, or feel accepted by other individuals, they are more likely to exert self-control. Could it be that these concepts do not correlate with a general sense of well-being? Also Moss (2011) states that happy individuals demonstrate more self-control.
Lets have a look at the questionnaire. There are small changes in results when the oxford inventory (29 questions) rather than the derivative I made (30 questions) is used. One possible factor is that the average is so slightly altered with just 1 question more to 29. The added question does have a higher average than the oxford inventory’s average, which is the reason why my questionnaire has a average score of 4.48, versus the 4.45 average of the oxford inventory. The subjective well-being score (in comparison with the oxford inventory) produces mixed significance changes: it seems to enhance the linear regression models. While at the same time it seems to
deteriorate the binary regression models.
Possibly the questionnaire I used is no accurate measure for subjective well-being. Or the “Happy” Moss (2011) talks about is very different than the subjective well-being I measure. Possibly, there should be made a distinction between temporarily happy, where one might laugh, and a label “happy” when people assess their long term contentment with life. For example: a random participant with an average subjective well-being score, could demonstrate much control in a state where he/she is very happy and laughs, and demonstrate far less self-control in a neutral temporary state.
The second hypothesis, where I predicted gender to moderate the effect of ego depletion on unethical behavior, could not be confirmed. There is also no main effect found for gender on unethical behavior. This in contrary to the findings of Babalola (2009) and Betz et al. (1989). Possibly the sample Babalola used, owner-managers in Nigeria, differ too much from the predominantly students who participated in my study.
I hope this study initiates further research on this topic, where the factors gender and subjective well-being might be linked to the relationship between ego depletion and unethical behavior, possibly under different
Strengths, limitations, and future directions. This study contained several strengths. First, this study did not
use a proxy or a survey, which resembles a hypothetical situation. This study was done under real conditions, where participants thought they faced a real opportunity to cheat and make more money. Also, all participants came to be part in this study out of own initiated choice. They were not asked or obligated to take part in the study, which increases the chances that the participants do not display behavior that they think is sought for.
However, like most investigations, it also contained some weaknesses that warrant acknowledgment. First, participants completed the subjective well-being questionnaire at the end of the experiment. This placement could have produced biased answers, as a state of ego depletion might influence participants’ mood and ultimately, their perceived level of subjective well-being. For example, it is possible that participants were disappointed by their perceived score on the task, and as a result also scored lower on the subjective well-being questionnaire. Thus, future research might be wise to have the participants fill out the questionnaire in advance.
Furthermore, the participants completed several other surveys for other researchers during the same session. This also contributed to the total duration of the experiment that the participants had to go through. I would argue that a participant becomes tired after such a long study, and fills out questionnaires with random yet modal scores. This could impair result given at the ending survey, and adds to my argumentation to start with the subjective well-being survey, and leave out surveys of other researchers.
Other limitations of this study could be the sample size. For example, many of the regression results showed to be close to significant. Possibly, with a larger sample size with minimal 200 participants, this could be proven to be significant. The adjusted R-square statistic is in most linear models are nearly half of the R-square statistic, which is due to a less than optimal sample size. Survey studies such as that of Babalola (2009) usually have more than 200 respondents.
Then, it is important to know that this study has been done by primarily students in their twenties. It could be possible that students react different to the manipulation task than people of different age or educational background. One could argue that a story telling task is not that depleting for an educated individual, compared to someone not as educated, as students practice their minds, while not-as-educated-people might be working with their hands.
Practical implications. The study did not confirm gender or subjective well-being to be a factor regarding ego
depletion and unethical behavior. However, Moss (2011) states that happy individuals demonstrate more self-control. Also, Moss (2008) shows that ego depletion impede helping behavior and altruism. As a manager, it is therefore important to prevent employees to descend to a state of ego depletion, and take measures that employees are happy doing their job. Individuals can take some measures to get out of a state of ego depletion. Moss (2008) provides us with a few directions to look at such as the ingestions of glucoses, rinsing the mouth with carbohydrates, abstinence from smart phones at night.
positive emotions and optimism are factors that restore depleted resources (Moss, 2008).
Conclusion. In the situation as portrayed in the introduction, a state of ego depletion does increase chances
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Appendix A1: Manipulation task ego - depletion condition.
―This task is about yourself. Please write a story about something you recently did or something that you have recently experienced. The grammar and style are not so important but you must write at least half a page of text. You have 7 minutes for this task, after which you will be automatically directed to the next page. When writing this story, you are NOT allowed to use the words "I" or "me". It is mandatory that you observe these instructions. Begin whenever you are ready by clicking on ">>" to start the writing task. The timer will begin as soon as you go to the next page.
Appendix A2: Manipulation task – non-ego depletion condition.
Appendix B: Coordination questions.
Question Answer
1 Name something you eat that starts with the word "Corn". (corn) bread 2 Name a country in which there seems to be never-ending violence. Israel
3 Name a source of energy that people used before oil. Coal
4 Name a word used to describe people who are overweight (other than 'big'). Fat
5 Name something you eat by the slice. Pizza
6 Name a sport that requires a net Tennis
7 Something that melts easily. Butter
8 Name a country that was involved in World War II. Germany
9 Name a specific kind of whale. Killer whale
10 Name a quiet animal. Cat
11 Name something that starts with the word "French". French fries 12 Name someone famous whose last name is "Marx". Karl Marx
13 Name a bird that has long legs. Ostrich
14 What board game do you play best? Monopoly
15 Name something that gives off heat. Fire
16 Name a fruit you might buy and let ripen in your home. Banana
17 Name a country that's an island or islands. Australia
18 Name the one household appliance you would hate to be without. Microwave
19 Name something you measure in measuring cups Flour
20 Name something you wear that has holes in it that you don't want seen. Underwear
21 Name a food that's terrible when consumed cold. Soup
22 Name a holiday or occasion when parents let their kids eat lots of sweets. Halloween 23 Write down a word that begins with "under______". Underwear
24 Past or present, name a famous artist. Picasso
25 Name a composer of classical Music Mozart
26 Name something in a grocery store whose price stays pretty much the same Milk
27 Name a kind of seed that people eat. Sunflower
28 Name something with holes in it. Cheese
29 Name a food that you buy more than one of at a time Eggs
Appendix C: The subjective well-being questionnaire.
This questionnaire was presented to the participants. The questionnaire consists of 30 questions. The participants were given the option to agree or disagree on a 6-point scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = moderately disagree, 3 = slightly disagree, 4 = slightly agree, 5 = moderately agree, 6 = strongly agree
1 I feel particularly pleased with the way I am. 2 I am intensely interested in other people. 3 I feel that life is very rewarding.
4 I have very warm feelings towards almost everyone. 5 I wake up feeling rested.
6 I am particularly optimistic about the future. 7 I find most things amusing.
8 I am always committed and involved. 9 Life is good.
10 I think that the world is a good place. 11 I laugh a lot.
12 I am well satisfied about everything in my life. 13 I think I look attractive.
14 There is a no gap between what I would like to do and what I have done. 15 I am very happy.
16 I find beauty in some things.
17 I always have a cheerful effect on others. 18 I can fit in (find time for) everything I want to. 19 I feel that I am in control of my life.
20 I feel able to take anything on. 21 I feel fully mentally alert.
22 I often experience joy and elation. 23 I find it easy to make decisions.
24 I have a particular sense of meaning and purpose in my life. 25 I feel I have a great deal of energy.
26 I usually have a good influence on events. 27 I have fun with other people.
28 I feel particularly healthy.
29 I have particularly happy memories of the past. 30 I feel my parents love me. *
