Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–4Cite as

Diener, Ed

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

Personal Life and Educational Background

Born 1946, Ed Diener grew up on a California tomato and cotton farm. In his youth he raised horses, cattle, cotton, and sugar beets. Diener dropped out of his agriculture major at California State University at Fresno when he found that psychology courses fascinated and enthused him, compared to the study of weeds and seeds. Professors such as Wayne Holder and Alan Button were both funny and very interesting. Although Diener attempted to study happiness for his undergraduate research project, the professor told him that measuring it is impossible. Thus, Diener studied aggression and deindividuation in his early career and only turned to the study of happiness after receiving tenure. Diener attended the University of Washington in Seattle for his doctoral degree, studying with Professors Ron Smith, Irwin Sarason, and Scott Fraser.

Diener and his wife, Carol, started dating at age 16 in high school and then married while attending college...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness, and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34–43.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2009a). The science of well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener (Social indicators research series, Vol. 37). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2009b). Culture and well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener (Social indicators research series, Vol. 38). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E. (2009c). Assessing well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener (Social indicators research series, Vol. 39). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Beyond money: Toward an economy of well-being. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 1–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 276–302.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D. W., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97, 143–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Inglehart, R., & Tay, L. (2013). Theory and validity of life satisfaction measures. Social Indicators Research, 112, 497–527.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Kanazawa, S., Suh, E. M., & Oishi, S. (2015a). Why people are in a generally good mood. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 19, 235–256.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2015b). National accounts of subjective well-being. American Psychologist, 70, 234–242.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diener, E., Pressman, S., Hunter, J., & Delgadillo-Chase, D. (2017). If, why, and when subjective well-being influences health, and future needed research. Applied Psychology. Health and Well-Being, 9(2), 133–167.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (1999). Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803–855.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

    Ed Diener

Authors
  1. Ed Diener
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ed Diener .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK, USA

    Alicia Limke-McLean

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Diener, E. (2019). Diener, Ed. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_426-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_426-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation