I'm not a psychology expert but from stuff I read I bet the reason they don't ask "How happy are you, on a scale of 0-10?" is they tried that and found the same person would give different answers from day to day and moment to moment based on what is going on this very minute.

I'd also bet that they found the above "convoluted" question was one that led to the same people giving more consistent answers from day to day and moment to moment.

Even if I'm wrong I hope you see this is a much thornier problem than just asking a question and assuming the answer tells us anything about the person taking the survey.

But it needs to be convoluted. The problem with the simpler version is the word happy needs to be translated both culturally and more literally.

What an interesting question. It would seem intuitively that a population with a limited band of socioeconomic mobility must answer 10 and one with a wide band of mobility must answer 0. I wonder whether that is true.

Happy have so many definition that I like the question better, it is much less ambiguous than "happy".

My happiness changes depending on many external factor and varies by hour and days, but the answer to the former question aren't going to change quite as often, would have probably provided the same answer over the entire year.

One possible flaw in this question - I really don't like heights, so the idea of being at the top of a ladder does NOT equate to being happy for me.

Now I know it's a metaphor and not a literal ladder, but it does make me wonder if that association skews the results at all..

I have to say, I don’t understand what ”for you” means in ”best/worst possible life for you”. At first I read it roughly as ”given the fundamental unchanging circumstances of your life, such as where and when you were born, who your parents are, and your basic health” but maybe they mean something like ”in your subjective perspective on what is good/bad”?

That's a necessary feature. The best translation of "happy" in different countries can have very different connotations.

>"How happy are you, on a scale of 0-10?"

Your question is likely to be interpreted as you asking the person's current MOOD hence different answers on different times are likely. While you are thinking of a less changing wider concept.

The social context is important too, there is a social stigma around admitting that you are not happy which will play into this question too.

I'm assuming part of this is it's not always asked in English...?

If I feel hopeless, I might think that I live best possible life for me (and answer 10) despite feeling deeply unhappy about it.

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