Recently, researchers in the quantitative, questionnaire tradition have been increasingly interested in the impact of emotion language and the measurement of this. Some of these researchers measure emotion-words within a meaning-giving sentence, others measure them in isolation. Based on semantic theory, we argue that emotion-words presented in isolation should mean less to a participant than emotion-words combined with other words forming a sentence as in natural language. Reflecting this, we demonstrated in our study that emotion-words are rated with great intensity when an emotion-word is placed within a sentence than when presented in isolation. As a result, we suggest that questionnaire research is better off measuring emotion-words within a meaning-giving sentence.

Although there are several philosophical theories about what constitutes 'good life', few focuses on which type of desires pay off for those who entertain them. We therefore investigate empirically how people prioritize among desires through a global assessment of what lives they most want to live. In the current study (N = 154), we presented them with 26 questions about the type of life they could find desirable. Structural Equation Modeling revealed systematic differences in how a hedonistic attitude and an attitude of moral integrity differently predicted desires towards life. And as older participants tended to be less supportive of hedonistic attitudes, our results argue against hedonism.