Measuring Happiness: Pana's Scale

Today is a quick review of another happiness measurement tool: Panas Scale

As a little bit of review, these are the measurement tools I found for happiness and plan to explore. These came from the site: Pursuit of Happiness.

Existing Methods of Measuring Happiness

• Oxford Happiness Inventory (Already explored)
• Subjective Happiness Scale (Already explored)
• Satisfaction With Life Scale (Already explored)
• Ryff’s psychological wellbeing-scale (Already explored)
• Panas Scale (Today's Topic)

Pana's Scale

This tool aims to measure what the researchers call "affect" - which as I understand it just refers to your general emotions. So it doesn't claim to measure "happiness" specifically. That being the case I'm already a bit skeptical about this tool being useful for my purposes. Here it is either way! 

Indicate to what extent you GENERALLY feel the given emotion, that is how you feel ON AVERAGE 

 Scoring

 

The total score is calculated by finding the sum of the 10 positive items, and then the 10 negative items. Scores range from 10 – 50 for both sets of items. For the total positive score, a higher score indicates more of a positive affect. For the total negative score, a lower score indicates less of a negative affect. 

Here are my scores: 

	Very slightly or not at all (1)	A little (2)	Moderately (3)	Quite a bit (4)	Extremely (5)
Interested				4
Distressed		2
Excited			3
Upset		2
Strong			3
Guilty				4
Scared				4
Hostile	1
Enthusiastic			3
Proud		2
Irritable			3
Alert			3
Ashamed			3
Inspired		2
Nervous	1
Determined			3
Attentive			3
Jittery		2
Active				4
Afraid			3

Negative Affect Score: 26 

Positive Affect Score:  30

Look at that! I have a higher score for positive affect than negative! That's probably my best "happiness" score so far. I'll bet that if I went back to the other tools I would see an increase in my scores - because I do indeed feel happier lately! I made a few changes in my life and they seem to be working.

Summary:  

I love the fact that I scored a positive value on this test! That's a good sign for my progress on this happiness journey. That being said - I do not think this tool is the best for measuring happiness on a regular basis - for the same reasons as some of the other tools: it's a bit long-winded to complete, and it doesn't aim at "happiness" per-se but instead aims at "affect".