Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) Test

Introduction

The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) is a four-item self-report measure of global subjective happiness, developed by Sonja Lyubomirsky and Heidi Lepper (1999). It asks you to describe yourself in both absolute terms (how happy you are in general) and relative terms (how happy you are compared with most peers).

The scale is deliberately short. It does not try to measure every component of well-being, such as life satisfaction, meaning, or positive emotion. Instead, it captures a broad, self-defined sense of whether you see yourself as a happy or unhappy person.

This page gives you the four items, scores them in the standard way, and explains how to read the result without treating it as a diagnosis.

What the SHS measures

The SHS measures global subjective happiness: your own overall judgment of how happy you are, rather than a count of good or bad events. It is often used in well-being research because it is brief, easy to translate, and widely cited.

It overlaps with related ideas such as subjective well-being and life satisfaction, but it is not identical to them. The SHS asks how happy you see yourself as being; the Satisfaction With Life Scale, for example, asks how satisfied you are with your life as a whole.

How the SHS is scored

Each of the four items is answered on a 1–7 scale. For items 1–3, higher numbers mean greater happiness. Item 4 is worded in the opposite direction and is reverse-scored: a response of 1 becomes 7, 2 becomes 6, and so on.

Add the four scores after reverse-scoring item 4, then divide by 4. The result is a mean score between 1.0 and 7.0. Higher values indicate greater subjective happiness.

The SHS has no official clinical cutoffs. The bands shown in this tool are descriptive aids, not diagnostic thresholds, and average scores vary across samples, cultures, and time points.

How to read your score

A single SHS score is a snapshot, not a fixed label. Mood, sleep, workload, health, relationships, and recent events can all move the number. If you want to compare over time, repeat the scale under similar conditions and look at the trend rather than one reading.

Higher scores are generally associated with greater self-reported happiness, but very high scores can partly reflect a general tendency to answer positively. A low score is not a diagnosis of depression or any other condition; it simply suggests that, right now, you are describing yourself as less happy than most published samples.

What the SHS does not tell you

The SHS does not measure life satisfaction, meaning in life, positive and negative affect, or clinical symptoms. It also cannot tell you why you scored the way you did. If you are concerned about your mental health, or if a low score has persisted for weeks, consider speaking with a qualified professional.

Learn more and compare

• Well-being: the broader psychology hub
• Life satisfaction: the cognitive side of well-being
• Sonja Lyubomirsky and the science of happiness
• How 7-point Likert scales are built and scored
• Happiness vs. well-being: what is the difference?
• Happiness Calculator: a broader self-reflection check

References

• Lyubomirsky, S., & Lepper, H. S. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation. Social Indicators Research, 46, 137–155. doi: 10.1023/A:1006824100041