  Emotional volatility is a human universal. Yet there has been no large-scale
scientific study of predictors of that phenomenon. Building from previous
works, which had been ad hoc and based on tiny samples, this paper reports the
first large-scale estimation of volatility in human emotional experiences. Our
study draws from a large sample of intrapersonal variation in moment-to-moment
happiness from over three million observations by 41,023 UK individuals.
Holding other things constant, we show that emotional volatility is highest
among women with children, the separated, the poor, and the young. Women
without children report substantially greater emotional volatility than men
with and without children. For any given rate of volatility, women with
children also experience more frequent extreme emotional lows than any other
socio-demographic group. Our results, which are robust to different
specification tests, enable researchers and policymakers to quantify and
prioritise different determinants of intrapersonal variability in human
emotions.
