Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE)

Abstract

The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) is a brief, 12-item instrument designed by Ed Diener and colleagues to provide a balanced assessment of affective subjective well-being. Unlike scales that focus solely on life satisfaction or specific emotions, SPANE measures the frequency and intensity of both positive and negative feelings experienced by an individual, typically over the past four weeks. The scale yields three primary scores: SPANE-P (Positive Feelings), SPANE-N (Negative Feelings), and SPANE-B (Affect Balance), which is the difference between the positive and negative scores. This structure allows researchers to analyze positive and negative affect as distinct, though related, dimensions of emotional experience.

Keywords

Scale of Positive and Negative Experience, SPANE, Ed Diener, Well-being, Positive Affect, Negative Affect, Affect Balance, Happiness, Emotional Assessment, Psychological Wealth.

Authors

Ed Diener, Derrick Wirtz, Wenceslao Tov, Christie Kim-Prieto, Dong-Won Choi, Shigehiro Oishi, Robert Biswas-Diener.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the SPANE is to offer a concise, psychometrically sound measure of global affective experience that captures the broad spectrum of feelings central to human well-being. It was developed to serve as a complement to cognitive measures of well-being, such as the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), ensuring a comprehensive measure of an individual’s overall quality of life.

By capturing both pleasant and unpleasant feelings across various emotional states (e.g., happy vs. sad, content vs. angry), the SPANE allows for the calculation of an Affect Balance score (SPANE-B), which is a robust indicator of overall emotional health and happiness. This balance score provides critical insight into the ratio of positive to negative experiences in a respondent’s life.

Construct

The SPANE measures the psychological construct of affective well-being, conceptualized as the balance between frequently experienced positive and negative emotions. The scale is based on the premise that positive and negative affect are not merely opposite ends of a single continuum but are instead two separate dimensions that contribute independently to overall well-being.

The 12 items are divided equally: six items measure positive feelings (e.g., joyful, contented) and six measure negative feelings (e.g., afraid, angry). Respondents rate how often they experienced each feeling over the reference period. This focus on global, overarching feelings, rather than specific situation-dependent moods, ensures the instrument captures a stable component of an individual’s emotional disposition.

Validity

The SPANE demonstrates strong evidence of validity across multiple studies. Construct validity is supported by its significant correlations with existing, established measures of well-being, such as the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Specifically, SPANE-P correlates positively with measures of life satisfaction and positive affect, while SPANE-N correlates positively with measures of negative affect and negatively with life satisfaction.

Discriminant validity is also confirmed, as the SPANE scores show appropriate differentiation from measures of psychological distress or specific clinical disorders, suggesting it measures well-being rather than merely the absence of psychopathology. Furthermore, cross-cultural studies have supported the scale’s structure and function, indicating its generalizability across diverse populations.

Reliability

The SPANE exhibits high levels of internal consistency, confirming its reliability as a measure of affective experience. Studies consistently report Cronbach’s alpha coefficients exceeding 0.80 for both the SPANE-P and SPANE-N subscales, indicating that the items within each subscale reliably measure their respective constructs. The Affect Balance score (SPANE-B) also shows acceptable reliability.

Additionally, the scale has demonstrated acceptable test-retest reliability over short intervals (e.g., four weeks), suggesting that the scores obtained are stable representations of an individual’s typical affective profile, rather than fleeting emotional states.

Factor Analysis

Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the SPANE typically support a clear two-factor structure. These two factors correspond precisely to the Positive Feelings (SPANE-P) and Negative Feelings (SPANE-N) subscales. Although these two factors are often inversely correlated, the correlation is usually moderate, confirming that they represent distinct, though related, dimensions of affect, consistent with prevailing models of emotional experience.

This distinct two-factor solution validates the creation of the Affect Balance score (SPANE-B), which relies on the assumption that positive and negative experiences contribute uniquely to overall well-being, rather than simply cancelling each other out on a single dimension.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire, Affective Well-being Scale

Format: 12 items, utilizing a 5-point Likert scale response format.

Language Available: English, with numerous validated translations available (e.g., Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese).

Population Group: General population, clinical populations, and cross-cultural samples.

Age Group: Adolescents (typically 14+) and Adults.

Population Details: The scale is designed for universal use, making it suitable for both large-scale epidemiological studies and individual psychological assessments.

Test Methodology: Respondents are asked to reflect on their feelings over a specified period (usually the past four weeks) and rate the frequency of each feeling based on the following scale:

• 1 = Very Rarely or Never
• 2 = Rarely
• 3 = Sometimes
• 4 = Often
• 5 = Very Often or Always

Scoring Methodology:

• Positive Feelings (SPANE-P): Sum of the scores for the six positive items (positive, good, pleasant, happy, joyful, contented). The score ranges from 6 (lowest possible) to 30 (highest positive feelings score).
• Negative Feelings (SPANE-N): Sum of the scores for the six negative items (negative, bad, unpleasant, sad, afraid, angry). The score ranges from 6 (lowest possible) to 30 (highest negative feelings score).
• Affect Balance (SPANE-B): Calculated by subtracting the SPANE-N score from the SPANE-P score. The resultant difference score can vary from -24 (unhappiest possible) to 24 (highest affect balance possible).

This instrument can be found at: https://internal.psychology.illinois.edu/~ediener/SPANE.html

Keywords

Affective state, Emotional balance, Psychological assessment, Psychometrics, Well-being measures, Quality of life, Happiness research.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not uniformly provided in the source material; typically requires external academic database search.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in the source material.

Correspondence Address: Correspondence is typically directed to Ed Diener, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois (Affiliation at time of publication).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The SPANE is generally considered an academic instrument intended for non-commercial research and educational use, often available freely online through the lead author’s institutional website. Users should consult the source website for specific permissions regarding commercial use or mandatory licensing fees. The primary development and publication year for the SPANE was 2009.

Reference’s

• Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi. D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2009). New measures of well-being: Flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 39, 247-266.
• Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2008) Happiness: unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, DW., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicator Research, 97, 143-156.

Items of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

• Positive _________
• Negative _________
• Good _________
• Bad _________
• Pleasant _________
• Unpleasant _________
• Happy _________
• Sad _________
• Afraid _________
• Joyful _________
• Angry _________
• Contented _________