IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v14y2013i4p1309-1323.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Quantifying the Semantic Representations of Adolescents’ Memories of Positive and Negative Life Events

Author

Listed:
  • Danilo Garcia
  • Sverker Sikström

Abstract

We quantified the semantic content in adolescents’ descriptions of positive and negative life events and studied how these descriptions are related to the assessment subjective well-being (SWB) at two points in time. The semantic content of the descriptions was quantified by latent semantic analysis (LSA). LSA is a computational method based on algorithms stemming from computational linguistics, where a high dimensional semantic representation of words can be generated from co-occurrence of words in huge text corpora. We investigated if the semantic content of written autobiographical memories of positive and negative life events predicted traditionally ranked measures of SWB, i.e., self-reports of Positive and Negative Affect, and thus created semantic measures of SWB. Such measures can be used to investigate the relationship between semantic content and SWB, which could only indirectly be accomplished by the ranked data. Pupils wrote down positive or negative life events during the last 3 months and self-reported SWB. Four weeks later, participants were presented with their own description and asked to report current SWB. The results showed that the semantic representation predicted SWB and experimental conditions. The agreement between semantic and ranked measures supports the validity of the semantic scores. We argue that our proposed method for studying SWB provides new and essential information about well-being by the quantification of a richer set of information from adolescents’ own memories. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Danilo Garcia & Sverker Sikström, 2013. "Quantifying the Semantic Representations of Adolescents’ Memories of Positive and Negative Life Events," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 1309-1323, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:4:p:1309-1323
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-012-9385-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10902-012-9385-8
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-012-9385-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Danilo Garcia & Anver Siddiqui, 2009. "Adolescents’ Psychological Well-Being and Memory for Life Events: Influences on Life Satisfaction with Respect to Temperamental Dispositions," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 407-419, August.
    2. Chu Kim-Prieto & Ed Diener & Maya Tamir & Christie Scollon & Marissa Diener, 2005. "Integrating The Diverse Definitions of Happiness: A Time-Sequential Framework of Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 261-300, September.
    3. Shannon Suldo & E. Huebner, 2006. "Is Extremely High Life Satisfaction During Adolescence Advantageous?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 78(2), pages 179-203, September.
    4. Joar Vittersø & Hella Oelmann & Anita Wang, 2009. "Life Satisfaction is not a Balanced Estimator of the Good Life: Evidence from Reaction Time Measures and Self-Reported Emotions," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, March.
    5. Danilo Garcia & Arvid Erlandsson, 2011. "The Relationship Between Personality and Subjective Well-Being: Different Association Patterns When Measuring the Affective Component in Frequency and Intensity," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 12(6), pages 1023-1034, December.
    6. Danilo Garcia & Patricia Rosenberg & Arvid Erlandsson & Anver Siddiqui, 2010. "On Lions and Adolescents: Affective Temperaments and the Influence of Negative Stimuli on Memory," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 477-495, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. O. Kjell & D. Daukantaitė & K. Hefferon & S. Sikström, 2016. "The Harmony in Life Scale Complements the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Expanding the Conceptualization of the Cognitive Component of Subjective Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 893-919, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Danilo Garcia & Saleh Moradi, 2012. "Adolescents’ Temperament and Character: A Longitudinal Study on Happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(5), pages 931-946, October.
    2. Danilo Garcia, 2012. "The Affective Temperaments: Differences between Adolescents in the Big Five Model and Cloninger’s Psychobiological Model of Personality," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(6), pages 999-1017, December.
    3. Danilo Garcia, 2014. "La Vie en Rose: High Levels of Well-Being and Events Inside and Outside Autobiographical Memory," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 657-672, June.
    4. Danilo Garcia & Saleh Moradi, 2013. "The Affective Temperaments and Well-Being: Swedish and Iranian Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction and Psychological Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 689-707, April.
    5. Danilo Garcia & Arvid Erlandsson, 2011. "The Relationship Between Personality and Subjective Well-Being: Different Association Patterns When Measuring the Affective Component in Frequency and Intensity," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 12(6), pages 1023-1034, December.
    6. Michael Frisch, 2013. "Evidence-Based Well-Being/Positive Psychology Assessment and Intervention with Quality of Life Therapy and Coaching and the Quality of Life Inventory (QOLI)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 193-227, November.
    7. Sorek, Yoa, 2020. "Grandparental and overall social support as resilience factors in coping with parental conflict among children of divorce," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    8. Małgorzata Szcześniak & Iga Bajkowska & Anna Czaprowska & Aleksandra Sileńska, 2022. "Adolescents’ Self-Esteem and Life Satisfaction: Communication with Peers as a Mediator," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-13, March.
    9. Reuben D. Rusk, 2022. "An Adaptive Motivation Approach to Understanding the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of Wellbeing," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-24, October.
    10. Jordan A. Booker & Julie C. Dunsmore, 2019. "Testing Direct and Indirect Ties of Self-Compassion with Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(5), pages 1563-1585, June.
    11. Ali Eryilmaz, 2012. "A Model for Subjective Well-Being in Adolescence: Need Satisfaction and Reasons for Living," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 107(3), pages 561-574, July.
    12. Jorge J. Varela & Constanza González & Mónica Bravo-Sanzana & Roberto Melipillán & Fernando Reyes-Reyes & Daniela Pacheco-Olmedo, 2024. "School Violence, School Bonding and Adherence to School Norms and its Association with Life Satisfaction Among Chilean and Foreign Students," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 17(1), pages 31-56, February.
    13. Akansha Dwivedi & Renu Rastogi, 2016. "Future Time Perspective, Hope and Life Satisfaction: A Study on Emerging Adulthood," Jindal Journal of Business Research, , vol. 5(1), pages 17-25, June.
    14. Fanny Salignac & Myra Hamilton & Jack Noone & Axelle Marjolin & Kristy Muir, 2020. "Conceptualizing Financial Wellbeing: An Ecological Life-Course Approach," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 1581-1602, June.
    15. Maftei, Alexandra & Holman, Andrei-Corneliu & Cârlig, Elena-Roxana, 2020. "Does your child think you’re happy? Exploring the associations between children’s happiness and parenting styles," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    16. Adorée Durayappah, 2011. "The 3P Model: A General Theory of Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 681-716, August.
    17. Aylin Demirli & Mustafa Türkmen & Recep Arık, 2015. "Investigation of Dispositional and State Hope Levels’ Relations with Student Subjective Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 120(2), pages 601-613, January.
    18. Wenen Chen & Qian Zheng & Changyong Liang & Yuguang Xie & Dongxiao Gu, 2020. "Factors Influencing College Students’ Mental Health Promotion: The Mediating Effect of Online Mental Health Information Seeking," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(13), pages 1-17, July.
    19. Débora Godoy-Izquierdo & Raquel Lara Moreno & María Vázquez Pérez & Francisco Araque Serrano & Juan Godoy García, 2013. "Correlates of Happiness Among Older Spanish Institutionalised and Non-Institutionalised Adults," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 389-414, April.
    20. Stillman, Steven & Velamuri, Malathi, 2016. "If Life Throws You Lemons, Try To Make Lemonade: Does Locus of Control Help People Cope with Unexpected Shocks?," IZA Discussion Papers 10210, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:14:y:2013:i:4:p:1309-1323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.