The Cantril Ladder elicits thoughts about power and wealth
The Cantril Ladder is among the most widely administered subjective well-being measures; every year, it is collected in 140+ countries in the Gallup World Poll and reported in the World Happiness Report . The measure asks respondents to evaluate their lives on a ladder from worst (bottom) to best (t...
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Published in | Scientific reports Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 2642 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
London
Nature Publishing Group UK
01.02.2024
Nature Publishing Group Nature Portfolio |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The
Cantril Ladder
is among the most widely administered subjective well-being measures; every year, it is collected in 140+ countries in the
Gallup World Poll
and reported in the
World Happiness Report
. The measure asks respondents to evaluate their lives on a ladder from
worst
(bottom) to
best
(top). Prior work found Cantril Ladder scores sensitive to social comparison and to reflect one’s relative position in the income distribution. To understand this, we explored how respondents interpret the Cantril Ladder. We analyzed word responses from 1581 UK adults and tested the impact of the (a) ladder imagery, (b) scale anchors of
worst
to
best
possible life, and c)
bottom
to
top
. Using three language analysis techniques (dictionary, topic, and word embeddings), we found that the Cantril Ladder framing emphasizes power and wealth over broader well-being and relationship concepts in comparison to the other study conditions. Further, altering the framings increased preferred scale levels from 8.4 to 8.9 (Cohen’s
d
= 0.36). Introducing
harmony
as an anchor yielded the strongest divergence from the Cantril Ladder, reducing mentions of power and wealth topics the most (Cohen’s
d
= −0.76). Our findings refine the understanding of historical Cantril Ladder data and may help guide the future evolution of well-being metrics and guidelines. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 2045-2322 2045-2322 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-024-52939-y |