Closely related to psychologist George Kelly’s idea of “personal constructs”, the concept of interpretive filters was first coined by Harry Reis and Phillip Shaver’s interpersonal process model of intimacy. In the context of this study, an interpretive filter is a cognitive framework or quality that affects the way you perceive the world around you. For example, a logically minded person may see the world through a “logical” lens, perceiving the world through reasoning and structure rather than spontaneity and emotion. A deeply religious person may see the world through a spiritual lens, assigning divine judgement to events they encounter.

Given that individuals very greatly in the types of interpretive filters they have, it raises the possibility of differences in these filters having implications for life satisfaction and other metrics. Our research team decided to investigate to determine whether filters affect a person's overall life satisfaction.

Procedure

We utilized a survey-based format, investigating differing qualities and 6 aspects of those qualities. The 6 questions asked about each quality's strength, contribution toward goals, overall impact on life, willingness to change the quality, clarity of the quality’s origins, and whether the quality operates as an interpretive filter. Responses regarding different qualities were then compared against three variables of interest: intelligence, self-reflection, and life satisfaction.

To average out and reduce bias, we chose to use a dyad method, meaning we used both the main participant and an informant response. The main participant filled out the full-length survey, while the informant completed a brief survey only rating the main participant on certain measures.

As with other Think Tank research studies, University of Alabama students were recruited to collect study participants, with some students collecting well over 30 participants. Consequently, our study produced a sample with 840 total dyads, allowing us to state our results with strong confidence.

Results

Thus far, we have come to several major conclusions regarding our data.

First, interpretive filters have been established as both a personal quality and a predictor of life satisfaction. More importantly, an interpretive filter’s effect on life satisfaction mostly mirrored the effect of quality strength. So, for positive qualities, both higher strength of quality and operation as a filter increased life satisfaction.

However, there were two exceptions to the mirrored effect of quality strength and its operation as an interpretive filter. These were found in the poverty mindset and self-perception of attractiveness qualities. The poverty mindset is defined as a lens of scarcity, seeing all manner of things (including money, food, opportunities, and success) as limited and unobtainable.

As for self-perception of attractiveness, it simply being present is beneficial for life satisfaction, while its operation as an interpretive filter is detrimental. For example, someone who views themselves as physically attractive may have a higher life satisfaction, but if they view their entire world through that filter, it decreases their life satisfaction. This finding clearly distinguishes the function of quality strength and an interpretive filter, despite commonly mirrored effects in other qualities.

Permeability (the extent to which the filter may change or be bypassed) was found to be negatively correlated with life satisfaction. While being open to change is largely a positive trait, a desire to change inherently indicates a “problem state”. Therefore, willingness to change a quality indicated an undesirable effect from the quality and overall frustration from an inability to change.

As this study is still undergoing analysis, this is an incomplete list and is likely to grow.