The absence of a 'gold standard' for subjective well-being has severel
y hampered the interpretation of data from empirical studies. This pap
er demonstrates a remarkable consistency among the results of 16 studi
es that have investigated 'life satisfaction' among large samples draw
n from the general population. It is concluded that a population stand
ard for 'life satisfaction' can be expressed as 75.0 +/- 2.5 percent o
f the measurement scale maximum score.