Flourishing Scale
FSPermission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no license fee. Cite the original publication.
An 8-item summary measure of perceived success in relationships, self-esteem, purpose, competence, optimism, and contribution to others' well-being.
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Reliability & validation
Response anchors
Strongly disagree · Disagree · Slightly disagree · Mixed or neither agree nor disagree · Slightly agree · Agree · Strongly agree
Known limitations
The scale provides a broad summary rather than separate domain scores and is not a clinical measure. The source appeared online in 2009 and in the 2010 journal volume; cite the 2010 issue year.
Original citation
Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97(2), 143-156.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9493-yQuestions researchers ask
What does the FS measure?
An 8-item summary measure of perceived success in relationships, self-esteem, purpose, competence, optimism, and contribution to others' well-being.
How many items does the FS have?
The Flourishing Scale (FS) has 8 items.
Is the FS free to use?
The FS is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.
Is the FS reliable?
Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.87, test–retest reliability of 0.71. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.
Who developed the FS, and how do I cite it?
Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: Short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97(2), 143-156. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9493-y
Related scales
Library entry verified August 2026. Metadata is provided for reference. Questionnaires are built in Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing, and can be taken to Qualtrics, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms, with their CSV responses brought back for scoring.