Papers by Kostadin Kushlev
Frontiers in Psychology
Do people who have more money feel happier during their daily activities? Some prior research has... more Do people who have more money feel happier during their daily activities? Some prior research has found no relationship between income and daily happiness when treating income as a continuous variable in OLS regressions, although results differ between studies. We re-analyzed existing data from the United States and Germany, treating household income as a categorical variable and using lowess and spline regressions to explore nonlinearities. Our analyses reveal that these methodological decisions change the results and conclusions about the relationship between income and happiness. In American and German diary data from 2010 to 2015, results for the continuous treatment of income showed a null relationship with happiness, whereas the categorization of income showed that some of those with higher incomes reported feeling less happy than some of those with lower incomes. Lowess and spline regressions suggested null results overall, and there was no evidence of a relationship between ...
Videoconference software such as Zoom has facilitated the recent pandemic-fueled explosion in onl... more Videoconference software such as Zoom has facilitated the recent pandemic-fueled explosion in online learning. In two field studies, we explored how students having their cameras on versus off affected their engagement during and their fatigue after a large online lecture-based class. In a longitudinal study (Study 1), we observed N = 65 students enrolled in two online university courses for several weeks (N obs = 319); we found that when students had their cameras on, they were more engaged-but not more fatigued-than when they had their cameras off. In a subsequent affective forecasting study (Study 2), conducted a year later when classes were back in-person, we asked 81 students across the same two university courses to predict how they would feel if they had their cameras on versus off during a particular class session. Consistent with students' actual experiences in Study 1, students in Study 2 expected to feel more engaged when their cameras were on than when they were off. Contrary to our findings in Study 1, students in Study 2 predicted that having their cameras on would increase their fatigue. In sum, our findings suggest that, at least in the context of large online lectures, students may overestimate the cost of having their cameras on, and that student camera usage can increase engagement without increasing fatigue.
Supplemental material, Kushlev_Transparency_Report for Does Happiness Improve Health? Evidence Fr... more Supplemental material, Kushlev_Transparency_Report for Does Happiness Improve Health? Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial by Kostadin Kushlev, Samantha J. Heintzelman, Lesley D. Lutes, Derrick Wirtz, Jacqueline M. Kanippayoor, Damian Leitner and Ed Diener in Psychological Science
Supplemental material, Kushlev_OpenPracticesDisclosure_rev for Does Happiness Improve Health? Evi... more Supplemental material, Kushlev_OpenPracticesDisclosure_rev for Does Happiness Improve Health? Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial by Kostadin Kushlev, Samantha J. Heintzelman, Lesley D. Lutes, Derrick Wirtz, Jacqueline M. Kanippayoor, Damian Leitner and Ed Diener in Psychological Science
Supplemental Material, jspr-17-111-File002 for Smartphones distract parents from cultivating feel... more Supplemental Material, jspr-17-111-File002 for Smartphones distract parents from cultivating feelings of connection when spending time with their children by Kostadin Kushlev and Elizabeth W. Dunn in Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
Media technology-from mass media to social media and from video gaming to computer-mediated commu... more Media technology-from mass media to social media and from video gaming to computer-mediated communication-plays an increasingly central role in people's lives. Due to exponential increases in computing power, people now carry incredibly powerful computers-their smartphones-everywhere they go. This ever-greater access to media technology is generating an ever-greater conflict between media activities and the unmediated activities critical for psychological well-being-from our face-to-face conversations and family time to our down time and work lives. What are the costs and benefits of people's modern media technology use for psychological well-being? Using a complementarity-interference (CI) framework, I review research to illuminate key psychological processes (i.e., mediators) and conditions (i.e., moderators) of the relationship between media technology and psychological well-being. Based on the existing evidence, I propose an initial theoretical CI model of the effects of media technology on psychological well-being. I use this CI model to outline important directions for future research, providing guidelines for an integrated, theoretically informed research on media technology.
Emphasizing scientific rigor in the development, testing, and implementation of positive psychological interventions
The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2020
ABSTRACT It is a critical period in the burgeoning field of positive psychological interventions ... more ABSTRACT It is a critical period in the burgeoning field of positive psychological interventions (PPIs) to establish best research practices for the area. In this piece, we outline key features of intervention research that we believe have been underutilized in PPI science and offer recommendations to attain and evaluate key objectives for study design and analyses, measurement, sampling, and research personnel. We review work with one PPI – ENHANCE – to provide concrete examples of both successes and shortcomings in each of these aspirational areas. Our goal is to offer actionable recommendations for PPI researchers and guidance for practitioners evaluating this research for application.
As smartphones become ever more integrated in people’s lives, a burgeoning new area of research h... more As smartphones become ever more integrated in people’s lives, a burgeoning new area of research has emerged on their well-being effects. We propose that disparate strands of research and apparently contradictory findings can be integrated under three basic hypotheses, positing that smartphones influence well-being by (1) replacing other activities (displacement hypothesis), (2) interfering with concurrent activities (interference hypothesis), and (3) affording access to information and activities that would otherwise be unavailable (complementarity hypothesis). Using this framework, we highlight methodological issues and go beyond net effects to examine how and when phones boost versus hurt well-being. We examine both psychological and contextual mediators and moderators of the effects, thus outlining an agenda for future research.
Journal of Research in Personality, 2018
Are people who spend more time with others always happier than those who spend less time in socia... more Are people who spend more time with others always happier than those who spend less time in social activities? Across four studies with more than 250,000 participants, we show that social time has declining marginal utility for subjective well-being. In Study 1 (N = 243,075), we use the Gallup World Poll with people from 166 countries, and in Study 2 (N = 10,387) the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), to show that social time has declining returns for well-being. In Study 3a (N = 168) and Study 3b (N = 174), we employ the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to provide initial evidence for both intra-domain (principle of diminishing satisfaction) and inter-domain mechanisms (principle of satisfaction limits). We discuss implications for theory, research methodology, and practice.
ENHANCE: Evidence for the efficacy of a comprehensive intervention program to promote subjective well-being
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2019
Building from the growing empirical science of happiness, or subjective well-being (SWB), we have... more Building from the growing empirical science of happiness, or subjective well-being (SWB), we have developed a 12-week comprehensive intervention program-Enduring Happiness and Continued Self-Enhancement (ENHANCE)-to increase SWB and enable a thorough examination of the mechanistic processes of program content and administrative structure for SWB change over time. In a randomized controlled trial, participants (N = 155; 55 using the in-person format, 100 online format) were randomly assigned to participate in ENHANCE or to a waitlist control condition. All participants completed assessments of SWB, including non-self-report measures, and process variables at baseline, posttest, and follow-up (3 months). We found evidence supporting the efficacy of ENHANCE for increasing SWB, whether administered in-person or online. Furthermore, development of the skills targeted in the program (e.g., gratitude, mindfulness) accounted for SWB improvements. This study provides initial evidence that ENHANCE can promote SWB and offers insights regarding the processes involved in these changes. To bolster these findings, we present additional data (n = 74) from a fourth assessment showing within-person maintenance of SWB gains over 6 months in the original treatment condition (n = 39) and a replication of the immediate ENHANCE treatment effects in the waitlist condition (n = 36). We discuss potential avenues for the utilization of ENHANCE in basic research and applied disseminations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
International Journal of Wellbeing, 2019
Although hospitality is a valued social and cultural phenomenon, it has been largely overlooked i... more Although hospitality is a valued social and cultural phenomenon, it has been largely overlooked in the psychology research literature. Our studies are designed to advance the understanding of hospitality by creating a brief measure of it that can be used across cultures. In Study 1, we employed a large sample of Americans to create and begin validation of a measure of hospitality: the Brief Hospitality Scale, or BHS. In all nations and both studies, the scale had a single strong factor and high internal consistency. In Study 2, we administered the measure to respondents from 11 nations and found that people in some countries (e.g., Iran) are significantly more hospitable than people in others (e.g., Singapore). The strongest personality correlates of hospitality were those associated with social characteristics such as extraversion, agreeableness, and feelings of group belonging. The very strongest association with hospitality was the ability to see the perspective of others. Thus, hospitality represents more than simple sociability, and seems to rest on feelings of togetherness with others, concern for their wellbeing, and positive feelings toward them. We found in both studies that hospitality is associated with higher levels of wellbeing, for example, optimism, psychosocial flourishing, and positive affect.
Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, 2019
Background: Happiness and health behavior are positively related, but most existing research does... more Background: Happiness and health behavior are positively related, but most existing research does not distinguish between conceptually and empirically distinct components of subjective well-being-satisfaction with life, positive affect, and negative affect. Method: We assessed the associations of each component of subjective well-being and health behavior, such as exercising and not smoking, in a broad, representative sample of nearly 2.5 million respondents from the USA in the Gallup Daily Poll. Results: We found that both life satisfaction and positive affect, but not negative affect, are unique predictors of health behavior, even after controlling for a wide range of variables, including demographics, chronic illness, daily stress and pain, and other relevant factors. Positive affect was linearly related to health behavior, while life satisfaction showed an association only for individuals relatively satisfied with their lives (but not for those dissatisfied with their lives). These associations were not moderated by various factors, occurring across gender and age, personal resources like time and money, and environmental affordances such as access to fresh food and safe places to exercise. Conclusions: The relationship between well-being and health behavior is robust and generalisable in a large cross-section of the US population.
Computers in Human Behavior, 2019
Every day, billions of us receive smartphone notifications. Designed to distract, these interrupt... more Every day, billions of us receive smartphone notifications. Designed to distract, these interruptions capture and monetize our time and attention. Though smartphones are incredibly helpful, their current notification systems impose underappreciated, yet considerable, mental costs; like a slot machine, they exploit our inherent psychological bias for variable rewards. With an app that we developed, we conducted a randomized field experiment (n = 237) to test whether batching notifications-delivering notifications in predictable intervals throughout the day-could improve psychological well-being. Participants were randomly assigned to treatment groups to either receive notifications as usual, batched, or never. Using daily diary surveys, we measured a range of psychological and health outcomes, and through our app system, we collected data on phone use behaviors. Compared to those in the control condition, participants whose notifications were batched three-times-a-day felt more attentive, productive, in a better mood, and in greater control of their phones. Participants in the batched group also reported lower stress, lower productivity, and fewer phone interruptions. In contrast, participants who did not receive notifications at all reaped few of those benefits, but experienced higher levels of anxiety and "fear of missing out" (FoMO). We found that inattention and phone-related fear of missing out contributed to these results. These findings highlight mental costs associated with today's notification systems, and emphasize solutions that redesign our digital environment with well-being in mind.
The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2019
Since ancient times, scholars, individuals, and societies have been preoccupied with the pursuit ... more Since ancient times, scholars, individuals, and societies have been preoccupied with the pursuit of happiness. But might individual happiness actually be bad for society and the world? A common concern-which we refer to as the Pollyanna hypothesis-is that happy people might be too happy to care enough about important current issues, thus being less likely to act on improving society and the world. In three studies, however, we found that feeling good predicted more, not less, action on current issues. We saw this pattern in the context of the 2017 far right rallies in Charlottesville, VA (Study 1), a wide range of social, political, and environmental issues chosen by participants (Study 2), and environmental action within a nationally representative sample (Study 3). These correlational findings speak against the Pollyanna hypothesis: Happiness does not seem to preclude caring about local and global issues.
Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2019
Smartphones provide people with a variety of benefits, but they may also impose subtle social cos... more Smartphones provide people with a variety of benefits, but they may also impose subtle social costs. We propose that being constantly connected undercuts the emotional benefits of face-to-face social interactions in two ways. First, smartphone use may diminish the emotional benefits of ongoing social interactions by preventing us from giving our full attention to friends and family in our immediate social environment. Second, smartphones may lead people to miss out on the emotional benefits of casual social interactions by supplanting such interactions altogether. Across field experiments and experience-sampling studies, we find that smartphones consistently interfere with the emotional benefits people could otherwise reap from their broader social environment. We also find that the costs of smartphone use are fairly subtle, contrary to proclamations in the popular press that smartphones are ruining our social lives. By highlighting how smartphones affect the benefits we derive from...
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2018
In the U.S., 95% of smartphone users admit to having used their smartphones during their latest s... more In the U.S., 95% of smartphone users admit to having used their smartphones during their latest social gathering. Although smartphones are designed to connect us with others, such smartphone use may create a source of distraction that disconnects us from the people in our immediate social environment. Focusing on one fundamental social relationship—between parents and their children—we examined whether smartphones made parents feel distracted, thereby undermining key benefits parents reap when spending time with their children. Ina field experiment at a science museum (Study 1), we randomly assigned parents to use their phones frequently or infrequently. Frequent phone use led parents to feel more distracted, which in turn impaired feelings of social connection and the meaning that parents derived when spending time with their children. In an additional weeklong diary study (Study 2), we found further evidence that smartphones can distract parents from reaping a sense of social conn...
Computers in Human Behavior, 2019
New developments in technology-from the printing press to television-have long facilitated our ca... more New developments in technology-from the printing press to television-have long facilitated our capacity for "absent presence," enabling us to escape the limits of our immediate environment. Does being constantly connected to other people and activities through our smartphones diminish the need to engage with others in the immediate social world, reducing the likelihood of approach behavior such as smiling? In a preregistered experiment, strangers waited together with or without their smartphones; their smiling was later coded by trained assistants. Compared to participants without smartphones, participants with smartphones exhibited significantly fewer smiles of any kind and fewer genuine (Duchenne) smiles. These findings are based on objective behavioral coding rather than self-report and provide clear evidence that being constantly connected to the digital world may undermine important approach behavior.
The American psychologist
Income inequality has become one of the more widely debated social issues today. The current arti... more Income inequality has become one of the more widely debated social issues today. The current article explores the role of progressive taxation in income inequality and happiness. Using historical data in the United States from 1962 to 2014, we found that income inequality was substantially smaller in years when the income tax was more progressive (i.e., a higher tax rate for higher income brackets), even when controlling for variables like stock market performance and unemployment rate. Time lag analyses further showed that higher progressive taxation predicted increasingly lower income inequality up to 5 years later. Data from the General Social Survey (1972-2014; N = 59,599) with U.S. residents (hereafter referred to as "Americans") showed that during years with higher progressive taxation rates, less wealthy Americans-those in the lowest 40% of the income distribution-tended to be happier, whereas the richest 20% were not significantly less happy. Mediational analyses c...
Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 2017
Recent decades have seen rapid growth in the science of subjective well-being (SWB), with 14,000 ... more Recent decades have seen rapid growth in the science of subjective well-being (SWB), with 14,000 publications a year now broaching the topic. The insights of this growing scholarly literature can be helpful to psychologists working both in research and applied areas. The authors describe 5 sets of recent findings on SWB: (a) the multidimensionality of SWB; (b) circumstances that influence long-term SWB; (c) cultural differences in SWB; (d) the beneficial effects of SWB on health and social relationships; and (e) interventions to increase SWB. In addition, they outline the implications of these findings for the helping professions, organizational psychology, and for researchers. Finally, they describe current developments in national accounts of well-being, which capture the quality of life in societies beyond economic indicators and point toward policies that can enhance societal well-being.
Income Reliably Predicts Daily Sadness, but Not Happiness
Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2016
Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015) found that income predicts less daily sadness—but not greater hap... more Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015) found that income predicts less daily sadness—but not greater happiness—among Americans. The present study used longitudinal data from an approximately representative German sample to replicate and extend these findings. Our results largely replicated Kushlev et al.’s results: Income predicted less daily sadness (albeit with a smaller effect size) but was unrelated to happiness. Moreover, the association between income and sadness could not be explained by demographics, stress, or daily time use. Extending Kushlev et al.’s findings, new analyses indicated that only between-persons variance in income (but not within-persons variance) predicted daily sadness—perhaps because there was relatively little within-persons variance in income. Finally, income predicted less daily sadness and worry, but not less anger or frustration—potentially suggesting that income predicts less “internalizing” but not less “externalizing” negative emotions. Together, our stud...
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Papers by Kostadin Kushlev