RESEARCH ARTICLE

Measuring the frequency of emotions—

validation of the Scale of Positive and
Negative Experience (SPANE) in Germany
Tobias Rahm*, Elke Heise, Mirijam Schuldt

Institut für Pädagogische Psychologie, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

* t.rahm@tu-braunschweig.de

Abstract
a1111111111 The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE) measures the frequency of posi-
a1111111111 tive and negative affect. It consists of two subscales, one for positive and one for negative
a1111111111 affect with six adjectives each and assesses a broad range of emotions. In this study, the
a1111111111 psychometric properties of the German version of the scale were explored with reliability
a1111111111
and confirmatory factorial analysis by using a German sample of N = 498. To examine the
convergent validity of the SPANE we correlated its subscales with other well-being and hap-
piness measures. Retest-reliabilities were tested after four weeks, taking into account the
occurrence of emotionally significant life events. The scale was also applied to evaluate a
OPEN ACCESS training of subjective well-being and in a study on text comprehensibility. The results con-
Citation: Rahm T, Heise E, Schuldt M (2017) firmed the postulated two-factor structure of the SPANE and showed good psychometric
Measuring the frequency of emotions—validation
properties and convergent validity. In conclusion, the German version of the scale behaves
of the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience
(SPANE) in Germany. PLoS ONE 12(2): e0171288. in accordance with the original scale and may be used in future studies of well-being.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288

Editor: Pietro Cipresso, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico

Italiano, ITALY

Received: September 1, 2016 Introduction

Accepted: January 19, 2017 One of the aims of Positive Psychology is to analyze the conditions and consequences of well-
Published: February 8, 2017 being. High subjective well-being (SWB) is commonly defined as frequent positive affect,
infrequent negative affect, and a high level of satisfaction with life in general [1]. Various scales
Copyright: © 2017 Rahm et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the have been developed to assess positive and negative affect. One of the most widespread, the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) [2], is not entirely suitable for the measurement
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and of subjective well-being because of its focus on the intensity (not the frequency) of specific
reproduction in any medium, provided the original (instead of general) emotions. Diener et al. (2010) therefore developed the Scale of Positive
author and source are credited.
and Negative Experience (SPANE) consisting of two subscales. SPANE-P contains three gen-
Data Availability Statement: All relevant data can eral positive items and three specific positive items, SPANE-N contains three general negative
be found within the paper and its Supporting and three specific negative items [3]. In combination with a scale for life satisfaction (e.g. Satis-
Information files.
faction with Life Scale–SWLS [4]), the SPANE allows the measurement of SWB according to
Funding: The authors received no specific funding the above definition. For more details on background and reasons for the development of the
for this work. SPANE see the original study of Diener et al. (2010) or the validation of the Chinese version by
Competing Interests: The authors have declared Li et al. (2013) [3,5]. So far the homepage of Ed Diener provides the SPANE in nine languages
that no competing interests exist. (Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Iranian, Japanese, Polish and Turkish) and we know

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288 February 8, 2017 1 / 10

 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

of validation studies for the versions in Chinese (Li et al. 2013), Japanese (Sumi 2014), Portu-
guese (Silva and Caetano 2011) and Turkish (Telef 2015) [5–8]. Jovanović (2015) found that
the Serbian version of the SPANE used in schools better predicted well-being than the PANAS
[9]. With this study we add a validated German version of the SPANE.
Various studies report positive outcomes of high well-being. In an extensive meta-analysis,
Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) found that people with higher SWB are healthier, show more adap-
tive health behavior and are more productive at work [10]. Diener (2009) points out that after
conducting numerous and even large scale studies on SWB in the past decades, we now need
to ask more detailed questions and find out if effects are due to changes in life satisfaction, pos-
itive emotions or negative emotions and how these constructs interact with each other [11].
Therefore he requires studies that take into account all three subdomains of SWB using in-
struments that differentiate between them. As we know that high SWB is desirable in many
areas of people’s lives and the functioning of organizations, one central question is how to sus-
tainably increase SWB. Areas of special interest are for example health promotion, human
resources and organizational development, educational systems, and also politics (e.g. shown
in the OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being 2013, where the English version
of the SPANE is included) [12]. As educational psychologists we focus on teaching and learn-
ing processes. In Germany, as in many other countries, teachers’ health problems and their
negative consequences, such as decreasing work quality or high work-absence periods, have
been an ongoing topic. Increasing teachers’ subjective well-being might work as health promo-
tion as well as enhance the quality of work. Taking into account that happiness seems to be
contagious (e.g. social network study by Fowler and Christakis 2008), even students might
benefit from higher teachers’ SWB not only by the increase of teachers’ health and work quality
but also by an increase of students’ positive emotions [13]. In this context, a valid measure-
ment of SWB is important to evaluate the change and its sustainability. First results from SWB
trainings with teacher students (Rahm and Heise 2015) and non specific target groups (Blic-
khan 2015) are promising [14–15].
To validate the German version of the SPANE, the English version was translated and re-
translated. We compiled a pen and paper version and an online version of the questionnaire
and recruited participants in lectures and via e-mail. In order to test convergent validity, we
enclosed other measures of well-being.
In a series of studies Watson and Walker (1996) found trait affect scales–especially the
PANAS scales–to be substantially stable even across extended time spans [16]. On the other
hand there is variance left to be explained and we also have evidence that various interventions
sustainably affect positive and negative emotions (for an extensive example see the meditation/
emotion training developed and evaluated by Kemeney et al. 2012 [17]). Therefore, in addition
to measuring the retest-reliability after one month we were interested in the SPANE’s sensitiv-
ity to significant life events and training interventions. We expected positive life events, such
as a marriage, and negative life events, such as a serious illness of a close person, as well as posi-
tive activity interventions (Shin and Lyubomirsky, 2016) to have an impact on the frequency
of positive and negative emotions [18]. Therefore, higher differences in the SPANE scales from
Time 1 to Time 2 should occur if significant life events were reported or training interventions
were carried out.

Materials and methods

Ethics statement
Participants were informed that participation was voluntary and could be cancelled at any
time without any disadvantages. They were also informed that their data would be used for

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288 February 8, 2017 2 / 10

 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

scientific purposes only. The survey was carried out with adult volunteers. Data were analyzed
in aggregated and completely anonymous form. The study was approved by the Ethic Com-
mittee of Faculty 2 of the Technische Universität Braunschweig (FV-2016-07).

Translation process
First, the English version of the SPANE was translated into German by the authors. Minor dis-
crepancies were discussed and a preliminary version was created. This version was translated
back into English by a bilingual psychologist. Again, small discrepancies were discussed and
the final version was agreed upon. The translation of “angry” provoked the strongest contro-
versy concerning the alternatives “ärgerlich”, which seems to be rather passive and is closer to
“displeased”, and “wütend” which is more extraverted and closer to “rage”. As the other two
specific negative adjectives (“afraid” and “sad”) are more introverted we decided on “wütend”
as the best option.

Sample
Initially, 512 participants were assessed. 14 of them did not answer all 12 items of the SPANE
and had to be excluded from further analysis so that the total size of the sample was N = 498.
About one half of the sample was recruited in lectures at the University of Braunschweig
(n = 264). These participants were given time to fill in the pen and paper questionnaire right
away. The other half was recruited via mailing lists and the social media platform Facebook
(n = 234). These participants completed the online version of the questionnaire. 374 partici-
pants were female (75%), 338 were students (68%). About 89% had passed the “Abitur” which
is the highest form of graduation from school in Germany. 47% were aged between 20 and 29
years. All participants completed a demographic questionnaire and the measures described
later. Participants could voluntarily build a unique code and give their e-mail address for the
1-month follow-up. The paper version had an extra sheet for the e-mail address, which was
separated from the questionnaire before the data were transferred. In the online version the e-
mail addresses were separated from the data file right after downloading. After one month we
contacted all collected e-mail addresses and invited participants to fill in the online question-
naire again which was done by 105 participants.

Data analysis
A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to test the two factor structure found in
previous studies [3,5–7]. Convergent validity was tested using other measures of happiness,
SWB, and life satisfaction. Additionally, we tested retest-reliability after one month taking into
account reported significant life events within this time period. Finally, the SPANE was applied
to evaluate a training of subjective well-being. All analyses were computed with SPSS and
AMOS 23.

Measures
The following measures were applied to assess convergent validity.
SPANE–Scale Of Positive And Negative Experience [3]. The SPANE measures the fre-
quency of positive (SPANE-P) and negative (SPANE-N) emotions with two 6-item-subscales.
Both subscales consist of three adjectives describing rather general feelings (e.g. pleasant /
unpleasant) and three adjectives describing rather specific feelings (e.g. joyful / sad). Partici-
pants had to indicate how often they had felt this way during the last four weeks on a 5-point-
scale ranged from 1 (very rarely or never) to 5 (very often or always). Scores per subscale are

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288 February 8, 2017 3 / 10

 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

added so that both subscales range from 6 to 30. To reduce data complexity, Diener et al.
(2010) also combined both scales by subtracting the negative score from the positive score and
named this balanced score SPANE-B. As will be discussed later, we do not follow the idea of
this complexity reduction but we will nevertheless report data on SPANE-B for comparison
purposes. The German version of the scale can be found online in S1 File.
SWLS–Satisfaction With Life Scale [4,19]. The SWLS assesses the satisfaction with life in
general. It consists of five items (e.g. “I am satisfied with my life”) which have to be rated on a
7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). We used a German ver-
sion validated by Glaesmer et al. (2011) [19].
PANAS–Positive And Negative Affect Schedule [2,20]. The PANAS measures the inten-
sity of positive (PANAS-P) and negative (PANAS-N) emotions with a 10-item-scale each. Par-
ticipants have to indicate for all 20 adjectives (e.g. proud, attentive / upset, ashamed) to what
extent they had felt this way during a given time period (e.g. past few weeks) on a 5-point-scale
ranging from 1 (very slightly or not at all) to 5 (extremely). Scores per subscale are added so
that both subscales range from 10 to 50. We used a German version validated by Krohne et al.
(1998) [20].
SHS–Subjective Happiness Scale [21–22]. The SHS assesses global subjective happiness
with four items. Respondents are asked to rate both their absolute happiness and their happiness
relative to others. The last two items describe very happy and unhappy individuals, respectively,
and ask respondents to what extent the descriptions resemble them. The response formats are
7-point Likert scales. We used a German version validated by Swami et al. (2009) [22].
HSWBS–Habituelle Subjektive Wohlbefindensskala [23]. The HSWBS is an established
German instrument to measure subjective well-being. It consists of two subscales: HSWBS-LZ
asks for the general satisfaction with life while HSWBS-S assesses the emotional component of
subjective well-being (presence of positive and absence of negative emotions). We only used
the subscale HSWBS-S which consists of 6 items. Respondents have to rate each item on a
6-point Likert scale.
Additional information. Furthermore, participants were asked for information on age,
gender, level of education and occupation or study course. The retest-questionnaire addition-
ally asked if participants had experienced any significant positive or negative life events during
the last four weeks and to specify these. The entire questionnaire consisted of 52 items and
could be completed within less than 10 minutes.

Results
Factorial validity
We tested two models with confirmatory factor analysis. As can be seen in Table 1, the two-
factor structure fits the data better than the unidimensional model. Following Schermelleh-
Engel et al. (2003) NFI and GFI indicate an acceptable fit ( .90), as well as CFI ( .95) and
RMSEA ( .08) while AGFI indicates a good fit ( .90) [24]. The AIC is smaller in the two-fac-
tor structure, showing that this model fits the data better.
Descriptive analysis and internal consistency. Table 2 shows the means, standard devia-
tions and internal consistencies for the German, English, and Chinese versions [3,5]. As can be

Table 1. Goodness of fit statistics for tests of factorial validity.

Chi2 df chi2/df CFI GFI AGFI RMSEA NFI AIC
Single factor 434.642 54 8.048 .865 .839 .767 .119 .850 482.642
Two correlated factors 177.153 53 3.342 .956 .944 .918 .069 .939 227.153
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288.t001

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288 February 8, 2017 4 / 10

 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and internal consistencies of SPANE versions.

German (N = 498) English (N = 681) Chinese (N = 21322)
M SD α M SD α M SD α
SPANE-P 22.25 3.88 .88 22.05 3.73 .87 21.03 4.63 .92
SPANE-N 14.31 4.24 .82 15.36 3.95 .81 14.37 4.84 .91
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288.t002

seen, the mean of SPANE-P of the German version is close to the value of the American sample
while the one for SPANE-N is close to the Chinese sample. The standard deviations are
between the ones from the American and the Chinese sample. Internal consistencies for both
SPANE-P and SPANE-N are good. Table 3 also shows that only one item (namely “angry”)
would increase Cronbach’s alpha if deleted.
Retest-reliability. One month after the main data collection we invited all participants
who had given their consent to complete the SPANE again online. As can be seen in Table 4,
the retest-reliabilities of r = .62 for SPANE-P and r = .64 for SPANE-N are good. To further
assess the sensitivity of the measure we asked if participants had experienced significant nega-
tive life events such as illness, death of a close person or breakup of a relationship or significant
positive events such as marriage, birth of a child or begin of a relationship during this time
period. The results are shown in Table 4. For comparison purposes we also included the values
for SPANE-B.
Convergent validity. To assess construct validity we correlated the SPANE with other
measures of subjective well-being which were described above. The subscales SPANE-P and
SPANE-N are negatively correlated with r = -.65 which is close to the correlation of r = -.60
reported in the original study by Diener et al. (2010). The correlations between both SPANE
and PANAS and between SPANE and SWLS are quite similar to those within the American
sample. SHS displays stronger correlations within the German sample for both subscales and
SPANE-B (cf. Table 5).

Further validation
Training of subjective well-being. We also used the SPANE to evaluate a four-week-
training of subjective well-being for future teachers with one training day every two weeks

Table 3. Item communalities and variation in internal consistency.

Item (English) Item (German) Communalities Corrected item-total correlation Cronbach’s alpha, if item deleted
SPANE-P (Cronbach’s alpha = .88)
positive positiv .56 .74 .85
good gut .50 .68 .86
pleasant angenehm .38 .59 .87
happy glücklich .58 .74 .84
joyful von Freude erfüllt .46 .65 .86
contented zufrieden .51 .71 .85
SPANE-N (Cronbach’s alpha = .82)
negative negativ .59 .73 .76
bad schlecht .55 .69 .77
unpleasant unangenehm .35 .57 .79
sad traurig .48 .67 .77
afraid ängstlich .26 .49 .81
angry wütend .17 .39 .83
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288.t003

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 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

Table 4. Retest-reliability of the German SPANE.

SPANE-P N1 M1 SD1 N2 M2 SD2 r
sample total 498 22.25 3.88 105 22.37 4.01 .62**
without significant life events 64 23.41 3.18 64 23.44 3.29 .70**
with significant life events 41 22.37 3.63 41 20.71 4.49 .53**
SPANE-N N1 M1 SD1 N2 M2 SD2 r
sample total 498 14.31 4.24 105 13.56 4.27 .63**
without significant life events 64 13.17 4.07 64 12.39 3.76 .79**
with significant life events 41 14.61 3.76 41 15.39 4.42 .38*
SPANE-B N1 M1 SD1 N2 M2 SD2 r
sample total 498 7.93 7.37 105 8.81 7.66 .67**
without significant life events 64 10.23 6.53 64 11.05 6.39 .80**
with significant life events 41 7.76 6.34 41 5.32 8.24 .48*

** p < .001;
*p < .05.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288.t004

(Rahm and Heise 2015) [14]. Psycho-educational topics included happiness and well-being,
positive emotions, self-efficacy, attributions, gratitude, mindfulness, good deeds and flow as
well as rumination and social comparisons. Participants were asked to perform the exercise
Three Good Things (Seligman et al. 2005) [25], writing down three positive experiences of the
day as well as their contribution to these experiences every evening of the four weeks training
period. Additionally, they planned three activities (savoring experience, gratitude visit and
good deed day) to further develop well-being and chose one of these activities to realize. The
main focus of the training was to increase positive emotions while also trying to reduce nega-
tive emotions and increase life satisfaction. The training was evaluated with the German
SPANE and other instruments assessing subjective well-being which were applied as pen and
paper questionnaires before and after the training and as online questionnaires at one-, three-
and six-month-follow-up. The training was offered as a required elective course within the
teacher education program at Braunschweig University. The control group was recruited
within other courses, via mailing lists and a social media platform. Control participants did
not receive any intervention and filled in all questionnaires online.
As shown in Table 6 we found significant increases in self-reported positive experiences
(SPANE-P) with small to medium effect sizes from pre-test to post-test and all follow-ups in

Table 5. Construct validity: Convergence with other relevant scales.

German Sample American Sample [3]
SPANE-P SPANE-N SPANE-B SPANE-P SPANE-N SPANE-B
SPANE-N -.65** -.60**
SPANE-B .90** -.92** n.a. n.a.
PANAS-PA .61** -.46** .58** .61** -.46** .58**
PANAS-NA -.50** .77** -.70** -.46** .70** -.65**
SHS .66** -.60** .70** .56** -.48** .58**
SWLS .61** -.50** .61** .58** -.46** .57**
HSWBS-S .68** -.55** .67** n.a. n.a. n.a.

** p < .001;
n.a. not available

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288.t005

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 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

Table 6. SWB-Training-Evaluation with the SPANE.

SPANE-P
t1 t2 N Meant1 SDt1 Meant2 SDt2 T d
pre post TG 45 21.13 4.17 23.38 3.11 5.26 0.58*
CG 90 22.59 3.56 22.77 3.76 .45 0.05
pre 1Mfu TG 34 21.97 3.96 23.06 3.70 2.09 0.28*
CG 73 21.95 4.08 22.27 3.99 .76 0.08
pre 3Mfu TG 40 21.38 4.32 22.85 4.23 2.18 0.35*
CG 71 22.01 3.34 22.31 3.62 .67 0.09
pre 6Mfu TG 35 21.26 4.45 22.54 4.42 2.25 0.29*
CG 90 22.36 3.62 22.56 4.26 .48 0.05
SPANE-N
t1 t2 N Meant1 SDt1 Meant2 SDt2 T d
pre post TG 45 14.33 4.62 13.38 4.53 -1.89 -0.21
CG 90 13.84 4.34 13.58 4.21 -.59 -0.06
pre 1Mfu TG 34 13.85 4.77 13.32 4.60 -.92 -0.11
CG 74 14.09 4.53 13.36 4.14 -1.76 -0.17
pre 3Mfu TG 39 14.41 4.93 13.56 5.20 -1.08 -0.17
CG 71 14.00 4.29 13.41 3.89 -1.33 -0.14
pre 6Mfu TG 34 14.21 4.87 14.32 5.19 .18 0.02
CG 90 13.88 4.09 13.52 4.17 -.75 -0.09

* p < .05, pre: pre-test, post: post-test, 1Mfu: one-month-follow-up, 3Mfu: three-month-follow-up, 6Mfu: six-month-follow-up, TG: training group, CG: control
group, d: effect size Cohen’s d.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288.t006

the training group. Neither the changes in the control group nor those in self-reported nega-
tive experiences (SPANE-N) in both groups were significant. For SPANE-P also the group x
time interaction showed significantly greater changes in the training group than in the control
group but only from pre to post (t(133) = 3.24; p < .01; d = 0.59).

Discussion
The German SPANE may be considered an economical short scale that validly measures the
frequency of positive and negative affect with good internal consistencies. The two-factor
structure fits the data better than a single-factor model and both scales showed high correla-
tions with other relevant scales measuring convergent constructs. The results of our analyses
are comparable to those reported for the original SPANE as well as for the Chinese version
[3,5]. The scale also proved to be sensitive to emotionally significant life events and complex
interventions such as a training to increase subjective well-being. The evaluated training
aimed at the increase of positive emotions. From pre to post-testing and all follow-ups we
found significant small to medium effect sizes with SPANE-P and only a small but non-signifi-
cant effect with SPANE-N from pre to post. These results can thus be interpreted as further
evidence of the validity of the SPANE. Friedrich (2015) used the German SPANE to validate
his questionnaire measuring text comprehensibility [26]. The original instruction of the
SPANE, however, was reformulated in this study in order to assess the intensity of positive and
negative emotions while reading texts of high vs. low comprehensibility. The results showed
that the subscale “perceived comprehensibility” was positively correlated with the intensity of
positive emotions (r = .41) and negatively correlated with negative emotions (r = -.32) during

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 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

reading. This result not only confirms the validity of the scale but also encourages applying the
SPANE to various fields of research.
As mentioned above, one main reason for the development of the SPANE by Diener and
colleagues was to measure the frequency instead of the intensity of positive emotions [3]. This
aim could also have been reached by changing the instruction of the PANAS or other equiva-
lent instruments. Therefore we think that the main advantage of the SPANE item list is the
wider range of emotional states covered due to the well-developed mixture of specific and gen-
eral emotions.
Diener et al. (2010) computed the balance score SPANE-B by subtracting SPANE-N from
SPANE-P [3]. Replication studies, e.g. from China or Portugal, followed this procedure [5,7].
Of course the idea of having only one value to report and discuss is intriguing. The problem
that occurs, however, is that we cannot be sure how to interpret this resulting value. A princi-
pal axis factor analysis by Silva and Caetano (2013) on the complete item list of the SPANE
yielded two distinct factors [7]. CFAs in our and other studies [5–7] also showed the two-
dimensional structure of the SPANE. Therefore, the subscales need to be interpreted as two
dimensions and not as two poles of one continuum. Thus, subtracting one value from the
other leads to a loss of information. For example, a SPANE-B value of, for instance, 6 would
tell us that this individual reported more positive than negative affect (Diener and colleagues
report a mean of 6.69 with SD = 6.88) [3]. We cannot differentiate if he or she had high rates of
both positive and negative feelings (say 26 and 20) or felt almost nothing at all (say 8 and 2). In
these two cases, however, totally different interventions would be needed to become happier
and more satisfied with life. Therefore we do not recommend computing and interpreting
SPANE-B.
Our findings are limited to the specifications of our sample. Although we were also able to
recruit a number of non-student participants, the sample was not well-balanced with respect
to participants’ sex, age and educational level. Therefore, a replication with a more heteroge-
neous sample seems desirable. Also future research on discriminant validity of the German
SPANE may complement our findings on convergent validity. Another methodological issue
is the translation of the item “angry” into “wütend” which showed a factor loading less than
.50 and, if deleted, would increase the internal consistency of the scale. Since the German
adjective “wütend” refers to a stronger feeling than, for instance, the adjective “ärgerlich”, our
translation may have led to a higher item difficulty compared to the original version. This
could also explain the lower means of SPANE-N as compared to the American sample [3]. An
approach to deal with this difficulty could be to develop a short form of the SPANE consisting
of the six more general items, as Diener et al. suggested [3].
We also agree with Diener et al.’s suggestion that in a next validation step the SPANE
should be correlated with non-self report measures, such as ratings by family members, friends
or experts [3]. An even more extensive way to assess subjective well-being is the so called Expe-
rience-Sampling Methodology [1], where emotions are documented several times a day via
electronic devices or smartphone applications. Correlating ESM data with the SPANE might
provide deeper insight into the frequency and intensity of emotions and into processes of
accumulating positive and negative feelings over time.
Watson et al. (1988) correlated positive affect and negative affect with many other con-
structs such as social activity or perceived stress [2]. A question for further research is whether
these correlations can also be found with the SPANE. The differences between a frequency
instruction and an intensity instruction should also be systematically analyzed. Findings could
lead to better tailored interventions to enhance subjective well-being. Using the SPANE to
evaluate such interventions on a longer term and collect more data on sensitivity may also be a
fruitful contribution to the field of Positive Psychology.

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0171288 February 8, 2017 8 / 10

 German Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE)

Supporting information
S1 Dataset. SPANE German Validation.
(SAV)
S2 Dataset. SPANE German Training Evaluation.
(SAV)
S1 File. SPANE German Scale.
(DOCX)

Author contributions
Conceptualization: TR EH MS.
Data curation: MS TR.
Formal analysis: TR MS.
Funding acquisition: EH.
Investigation: TR MS.
Methodology: TR EH.
Project administration: TR EH.
Resources: EH.
Supervision: EH TR.
Validation: TR EH.
Visualization: TR.
Writing – original draft: TR EH.
Writing – review & editing: TR EH MS.

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