Subjective Happiness Scale

SHS

psychologysocial sciencesFree for research use

Permission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no licence fee. Cite the original publication.

A 4-item global measure of whether respondents consider themselves happy, both absolutely and relative to peers.

Items

Response format

7-point item-specific scale

Version

Original 4-item SHS

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Global subjective happiness was assessed with the 4-item Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999), whose internal consistency ranged from α = .79 to .94 across 14 validation samples.

Citing this in a methods section? See the APA 7 guide (Author–date citations for psychology and the social sciences). Or compare all six citation styles.

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Reliability & validation

Validation population

Fourteen student, community, and older-adult samples in the United States and Russia (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999)

Test–retest

0.55-0.90 across 3 weeks to 1 year

Cronbach's α

0.79-0.94 across validation samples

Response anchors

1 (lower-happiness anchor varies by item) · 7 (higher-happiness anchor varies by item)

Known limitations

Response anchors are item-specific, so a generic repeated anchor set should not be substituted. The scale measures global subjective happiness rather than separate affective and cognitive well-being components.

Original citation

Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46(2), 137-155.

https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006824100041

Questions researchers ask

What does the SHS measure?

A 4-item global measure of whether respondents consider themselves happy, both absolutely and relative to peers.

How many items does the SHS have?

The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) has 4 items.

Is the SHS free to use?

The SHS is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Is the SHS reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.79-0.94 across validation samples, test–retest reliability of 0.55-0.90 across 3 weeks to 1 year. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the SHS, and how do I cite it?

Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46(2), 137-155. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006824100041

Or track new research mentioning SHS as it publishes

Library entry verified August 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.