The Library
Historical analysis of national subjective wellbeing using millions of digitized books
Tools
Hills, Thomas Trenholm, Proto, Eugenio, Sgroi, Daniel and Illushka Seresinhe, Chanuki (2019) Historical analysis of national subjective wellbeing using millions of digitized books. Nature Human Behaviour, 3 . pp. 1271-1275. doi:10.1038/s41562-019-0750-z ISSN 2397-3374.
|
PDF
WRAP-historical-analysis-national-subjective-wellbeing-digitized-books-Hills-2019.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (883Kb) | Preview |
|
PDF
WRAP-historical-analysis-national-wellbeing-digitized-Proto-2019.pdf - Accepted Version Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (883Kb) |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0750-z
Abstract
In addition to improving quality of life, higher subjective wellbeing leads to fewer health problems and higher productivity, making subjective wellbeing a focal issue among researchers and governments. However, it is difficult to estimate how happy people were during previous centuries. Here we show that a method based on the quantitative analysis of natural language published over the past 200 years captures reliable patterns in historical subjective wellbeing. Using sentiment analysis on the basis of psychological valence norms, we compute a national valence index for the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Italy, indicating relative happiness in response to national and international wars and in comparison to historical trends in longevity and gross domestic product. We validate our method using Eurobarometer survey data from the 1970s and demonstrate robustness using words with stable historical meanings, diverse corpora (newspapers, magazines and books) and additional word norms. By providing a window on quantitative historical psychology, this approach could inform policy and economic history.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine |
||||||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology |
||||||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Well-being , Well-being -- Measurement, Quality of life, Health status indicators, Well-being -- Research -- Methodology | ||||||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Nature Human Behaviour | ||||||||||||
Publisher: | Springer Nature Group | ||||||||||||
ISSN: | 2397-3374 | ||||||||||||
Official Date: | December 2019 | ||||||||||||
Dates: |
|
||||||||||||
Volume: | 3 | ||||||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 1271-1275 | ||||||||||||
DOI: | 10.1038/s41562-019-0750-z | ||||||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||||||
Description: | An Author Correction to this article was published on 14 November 2019 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-019-0781-5 |
||||||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 25 June 2019 | ||||||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 27 January 2020 | ||||||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
|
||||||||||||
Related URLs: |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year