Subjective well-being (SWB) in 55 nations, reported in probability surveys and a large college student sample, was correlated with social, economic, and cultural characteristics of the nations. The SWB surveys, representing nations that include three fourths of the earth's population, showed strong convergence. Separate measures of the predictor variables also converged and formed scales with high reliability, with the exception of the comparison variables. High income, individualism, human rights, and societal equality correlated strongly with each other, and with SWB across surveys. Income correlated with SWB even after basic need fulfillment was controlled. Only individualism persistently correlated with SWB when other predictors were controlled. Cultural homogeneity, income growth, and income comparison showed either low or inconsistent relations with SWB.

Helpless children show marked performance decrements under failure, whereas mastery-oriented children often show enhanced performance. Current theories emphasize differences in the nature of the attributions following failure as determinants of response to failure. The present studies explored helpless versus mastery-oriented differences in the nature, timing, and relative frequency of a variety of achievement-related cognitions by continuously monitoring verbalizations following failure. The results revealed that helpless children made the expected attributions for failure to lack of ability; mastery-oriented children made surprisingly few attributions but instead engaged in self-monitoring and selfinstructions. That is, helpless children focused on the cause of failure, whereas the mastery-oriented children focused on remedies for failure. These differences were accompanied by striking differences in strategy change under failure. The results suggest that in addition to the nature of the attribution one makes, the timing or even occurrence of attributions may be a critical individual difference. Past research has linked deterioration in performance following failure to learned helplessness-the perceived inability to surmount failure (Dweck, 197S; Dweck & Bush, 1976; This study is based on a master's thesis submitted by the first author to the

Myers alld Dieller (/995) asked "Who is happy?" hilt examined the question ofwho is more and who is less happy. III fact, most people report a positive le~'el ofsubjective well-beillg (SWB), and say that they are satisfied with domains such as marriage, work, and leisure. People ill disadvantaged groups Oil average report positive well-beillg, alld measurement methods ill additiol! to self-report indicate that most people's affect is primarily pleasant. Cross-national data suggest that there is a positive level of SWB throughout the world, with the possible exceptioll of very poor societies. II! 86% of the 43 nations for which Ilationally represelltati~'e samples are available, the mean SWB response was above neutral. Several hypotheses to explain the positive levels of SWB are discussed.Many thinkers characterize life as a tragedy. Sophocles (1959) wrote, "Not to be born surpasses thought and speech. The second best is to have seen the light and then to go back quickly whence we came" (p. 134). Many behavioral scientists also believe that humans are predominantly dissatisfied and unhappy. Extensive evidence, however, suggests otherwise.Subjective well-being (SWB), referred to colloquially as "happiness," is a person's evaluation of his or her life. This evaluation is both cognitive (e.g., life satisfaction judgments) and affective (pleasant and unpleasant emotional reactions). Most life satisfaction scales have a neutral point at which the person reports equal amounts of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Above this point, response alternatives are labeled with varying degrees of satisfaction, and below this point, the options indicate dissatisfaction. For moods and emotions, the neutral point refers to that place at which the individual experiences equal amounts of pleasant and unpleasant affect. A positive hedonic level refers to experiencing positive affect more of the time than negative affect.

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Helpless children attribute their failures to lack of ability and view them as insurmountable. Mastery-oriented children, in contrast, tend to emphasize motivational factors and to view failure as surmountable. Although the performance of the two groups is usually identical during success of prior to failure, past research suggests that these groups may well differ in the degree to which they perceive that their successes are replicable and hence that their failures are avoidable. The present study was concerned with the nature of such differences. Children performed a task on which they encountered success and then failure. Half were asked a series of questions about their performance after success and half after failure. Striking differences emerged: Compared to mastery-oriented children, helpless children underestimated the number of success (and overestimated the number of failures), did not view successes as indicative of ability, and did not expect the successes to continue. subsequent failure led them to devalue ;their performance but left the mastery-oriented children undaunted. Thus, for helpless children, successes are less salient, less predictive, and less enduring--less successful.