Computational Language Assessments of Harmony in Life — Not Satisfaction With Life or Rating Scales — Correlate With Cooperative Behaviors

Different types of well-being are likely to be associated with different kinds of behaviors. The first objective of this study was, from a subjective well-being perspective, to examine whether harmony in life and satisfaction with life are related differently to cooperative behaviors depending on individuals’ social value orientation. The second objective was, from a methodological perspective, to examine whether language-based assessments called computational language assessments (CLA), which enable respondents to answer with words that are analyzed using natural language processing, demonstrate stronger correlations with cooperation than traditional rating scales. Participants reported their harmony in life, satisfaction with life, and social value orientation before taking part in an online cooperative task. The results show that the CLA of overall harmony in life correlated with cooperation (all participants: r = 0.18, p < 0.05, n = 181) and that this was particularly true for prosocial participants (r = 0.35, p < 0.001, n = 96), whereas rating scales were not correlated (p > 0.05). No significant correlations (measured by the CLA or traditional rating scales) were found between satisfaction with life and cooperation. In conclusion, our study reveals an important behavioral difference between different types of subjective well-being. To our knowledge, this is the first study supporting the validity of self-reported CLA over traditional rating scales in relation to actual behaviors.