Examining the effect of affect on life satisfaction judgments: A within-person perspective

- One concern about the validity of life satisfaction reports is that individuals may rely on current affect as a heuristic.
- The question of whether life satisfaction is “contaminated” by current affect is fundamentally a within-person one.
- This “effect” is defined as the proportion of total variance in life satisfaction explained by changes in affect over time.
- We found that the effect of current affect on life satisfaction was relatively inconsequential.

While extant studies have examined between-person relationships between life satisfaction and current affect, the nature of this relationship is fundamentally a within-person question. We define this effect of affect on life satisfaction as the proportion of total variance in life satisfaction explained by changes in affect over time. In a study of life satisfaction judgments (N = 92 with 353 assessments), we found that the effect of current affect on life satisfaction was relatively inconsequential.