What is the main difference between "emotional well-being" and "life evaluation" as discussed below? A new study from Princeton economist Angus Deaton and psychologist Daniel Kahneman suggests that number depends on how you define happiness. The authors draw a distinction between emotional well-being, “the quality of a person’s everyday experience such as joy, fascination, anxiety, sadness, anger, and affection,” and life evaluation, “a person’s thoughts about his or her life (on a longer time scale).”