Life satisfaction test (SWLS)
See what the scale measures, how it is scored, and how a result is read against the population that actually fits you.
The Satisfaction With Life Scale is the single most widely used measure of life satisfaction in the world. Developed by Ed Diener and colleagues in 1985, its five short statements do not ask about any one part of life - work, health, relationships - but about your overall, reflective judgment of how your life as a whole is going, the thinking side of well-being as distinct from passing moods.
The model
What it measures
The SWLS measures one thing: global life satisfaction, a person's considered judgment of their life as a whole against their own standards rather than anyone else's. It is deliberately unidimensional - there are no separate scored subscales, just a single total.
It captures the cognitive side of subjective well-being - an evaluation - which is distinct from the affective side of how much positive or negative emotion you feel day to day. The aspects below are illustrative angles of that overall judgment - closeness to your ideal, the conditions of your life, contentment, and having gotten the things that matter - not separately scored dimensions.
- LSLife Satisfaction
Your overall, reflective judgment of how satisfied you are with your life as a whole, measured against your own standards.
Facets: Closeness to your ideal life, Conditions of your life, Overall contentment, Having the things that matter to you.
The evidence
Science and validity
The SWLS is one of the most cited instruments in well-being research, with tens of thousands of uses. Internal consistency is strong - coefficient alpha typically about .79 to .89 (.87 in the original study) - and test-retest reliability is around .82 over two months, stable enough for a considered life judgment yet sensitive to real change (in one study scores rose from about 14 to 27 over roughly a month of therapy). It correlates with other well-being measures and, negatively, with clinical distress, and it is distinct from momentary affect, supporting the cognitive-versus-affective partition of subjective well-being.
You rate five statements on a 7-point agree-disagree scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). All five items are positively keyed, so none are reversed, and they are summed to a 5-35 total where higher means greater satisfaction. The author offers interpretive bands - around 20 is the neutral midpoint, the low 20s are slightly satisfied, the high 20s satisfied, and 31-35 extremely satisfied - but these are guides, not clinical cut-offs, and the result is read against a comparison group.
Where you stand
How a score becomes a percentile
A raw score only means something against a comparison group. For example, on the 5-35 metric a life-satisfaction total of 28 sits a little under one standard deviation above the typical adult average (where the mean is near 23-24), placing it around the 76th percentile - greater life satisfaction than roughly three in four adults. Drag the slider to see how a score maps to a percentile; your real result is matched to the population that fits you when you take the test.
The reference data
Benchmarked against the population that fits you
We benchmark your result against the population that actually resembles you, across 30 reference groups.
Each reference group is used as its own benchmark, not to rank one country against another.
How it works
What the questions feel like
Illustrative statements showing the style of the items. These are examples, not the official scored items.
In most respects my life is close to how I would want it to be.
Illustrative example in the style of the scale, not an official scored item.
The circumstances of my life are very good.
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
Taken as a whole, I am satisfied with my life.
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
So far I have achieved the things that matter most to me.
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
Honest strengths and limitations
Strengths
- The most widely used life-satisfaction measure in the world, with strong reliability and decades of validation across 30+ languages.
- Very short (about 2 minutes) and fully public domain, free to use without permission.
- A clear, single global score that is easy to interpret and to track over time, and that captures the cognitive side of well-being distinct from mood.
Limitations
- It is a single global judgment, not a profile - it tells you how satisfied you are with life overall, not which areas (work, health, relationships) are driving that.
- It is a reflective evaluation, so it can be coloured by current mood and by what comes to mind at the moment of answering, and it captures how life feels now rather than a fixed trait.
- Cross-country mean comparisons are confounded by response styles and cultural norms (some cultures score systematically lower), so percentiles are a guide, not a verdict.
See your full profile
A complete report, matched to the population that fits you, with plain-language interpretation of every trait.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Satisfaction With Life Scale measure?
It measures global life satisfaction - your overall, reflective judgment of how your life as a whole is going, against your own standards. It captures the thinking side of well-being and gives a single total score rather than separate subscales.
How is the SWLS scored?
Each of the five items is rated 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). All items are positively keyed - none are reversed - and they are summed to a 5-35 total, where higher means greater satisfaction. The author offers interpretive bands (around 20 is neutral, 31-35 extremely satisfied) but these are guides, not clinical cut-offs; the score is read against a comparison group.
Is life satisfaction the same as happiness?
Not quite. Life satisfaction is the cognitive, reflective side of well-being - your judgment of life as a whole - while happiness in the everyday sense is more about the emotions you feel from day to day. The SWLS measures the evaluation, which is distinct from, and only partly overlaps with, moment-to-moment mood.
Is the Satisfaction With Life Scale free to use?
Yes. The SWLS was placed in the public domain by Ed Diener and is free to use without permission, available on his lab site and in the original article. On Psychology.me, the free Snapshot gives you a quick read on life satisfaction alongside other measures.
Related tests
- Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71-75.
- Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (1993). Review of the Satisfaction With Life Scale. Psychological Assessment, 5(2), 164-172.
The Satisfaction With Life Scale is the work of Ed Diener and colleagues (Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin, 1985) and was placed in the public domain, free to use without permission; this independent informational page describes the instrument.