What does a life satisfaction score actually measure?
Ed Diener, Robert Emmons, Randy Larsen and Sharon Griffin · The Satisfaction With Life Scale, Journal of Personality Assessment 49 · 1985
B · Replicated, size uncertain
Five items asking for a global cognitive judgement of one's life against one's own standard. It is stable, brief, and widely used. It measures a judgement made at the moment of answering, not mood, not functioning, and not whether the standard is reasonable. Scores are sensitive to question order and current mood.
ProbeAnswer the five items now, then again in two weeks. A change of more than a few points is more likely to be about the week than about the life.