That's what the original paper is kind of about. The Scientific American piece is a little misleading to me, because it implies the paper is about lack of evidence, when I think the original paper is a bit deeper than that, and about definitional issues and so forth. I think the original authors might say that it's about the need to figure out what exactly is working when it does, and what works and what doesn't.

Self-reports of well-being are important, because self-perceived well-being is so important to the construct. I'm not saying other perspectives aren't important, but think of it this way: if you thought you were severely lacking in well-being, but others thought you weren't, would you want others to ignore your own perspective on that?