This chapter examines 10 methodological issues when assessing and analyzing societal well-being using self-reports. First, there are unitof-analysis issues: deciding the appropriate level of analysis, accounting for individual-level score variability in societal-level scores, testing isomorphism across levels, and finding ways of aggregating and accounting for score variability. Second, there are comparability issues: researchers have sought to homogenize well-being scales with different response scales or use translated measures to compare across nations. Furthermore, there is the concern of whether well-being measures can capture the full range of well-being (both positive and negative aspects). The final set of issues are prediction issues: well-being measures may be more sensitive to negative than positive events/experiences, societal well-being may not always be linearly related to variables of interest, and domain-specific measures may be more sensitive than general measures of well-being, especially when tracking specific changes in well-being or comparing subgroups.

The topic of well-being has been one of the perennial concerns in human history, although its definition and manifestations across time and cultures have varied (McMahon, 2006). In this day and age, individuals and governments continue to care deeply about well-being, and we have come to a consensus that, despite the different philosophical, cultural, and historical traditions concerning it, different psychological dimensions of well-being can be