Translation and Validation of the Malay Subjective Happiness Scale

The Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky and Lepper, Social Indicators Research, 46, 137–155, 1999) is a brief measure for assessing subjective happiness. The reliability and validity of the Malay version of the Subjective Happiness Scale was investigated in a community sample of 290 Chinese and 227 Malays in Malaysia. Results showed that the Malay Subjective Happiness Scale has excellent internal consistency, a unitary structure, and stability over a 30-day period and across ethnic groups. Moreover, the Malay version of the scale exhibited good convergent validity with single-item happiness scales. The availability of the Malay Subjective Happiness Scale is expected to facilitate the examination of happiness in Malay-speaking populations.     

Does Wealth Enhance Life Satisfaction for People Who are Materially Deprived? Exploring the Association among the Orang asli of Peninsular Malaysia

Recent studies investigating need theory and the extent to which money can buy happiness have called for more research within culturally homogeneous samples from developing countries to explore this relationship. We examine wealth as a measure of possessions and savings and relate this to subjective well-being (SWB) among poor indigenous farmers in Peninsular Malaysia. With hierarchical multiple regression, we find that the association between wealth and life satisfaction, after controlling for demographic variables, is positive and significant, β = 0.24, p<0.001. This effect is similar to effect sizes reported for other poor samples around the globe and is larger than what has been normally found in Western samples. Our analysis of the Malay translation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) reveals rather low internal reliability and prompts us to explore the potential wealth-SWB relationship in the absence of measurement error. We find a larger effect size when measurement error is removed, r = 0.43. We discuss the use of latent variable analysis to better interpret wealth-SWB effect sizes and recommend its use for future studies that use SWLS translations. Finally, we find that age, education, family size, and recent illness, while weak zero-order correlates of SWB, become significant predictors of life satisfaction when included with wealth in the multiple regression model. Some explanations and implications of these findings are conjectured. Our study contributes a unique sample to the expanding literature in support of need theory, and may be one of the first to examine the relationship between wealth and life satisfaction among a country’s aboriginal people.     

Life Satisfaction in Brazil: Testing the Psychometric Properties of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) in Five Brazilian Samples

The aim of this paper was to validate the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS), presenting evidence of its reliability and construct and criterion-related validity. A large Brazilian sample (2,180 participants), from five different populations (undergraduate and high school students, general population, elementary school teachers, and physicians), was considered. The results confirmed the single factorial structure and reliability (0.77 < Cronbach’s α < 0.88, mean α = 0.81) of the SWLS. Supporting its criterion-related validity, the SWLS correlated positively with positive affect and negatively with both negative affect and psychological distress across all five samples. The findings indicate that the Brazilian-Portuguese version of the SWLS is a valid instrument to use with diverse Brazilian samples.     

Life satisfaction in persons with schizophrenia living in the community

Subjective well-being is an increasingly common indicator of adequacy of psychiatric services. An easy-to-administer assessment tool of subjective well-being that is conceptually sound, valid, and reliable is needed for use in persons with schizophrenia. The purpose of this paper was to validate the 5-item Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS)-Taiwan version for persons with schizophrenia living in the community. Specifically, the internal consistency reliability, construct validity and criterion-related validity were examined. Data were obtained from a total of 443 patients with schizophrenia at multiple areas of Taiwan. Item analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed. The results revealed that the SWLS had good international consistency reliability and suggested a single-factor structure in life satisfaction among this patient group. The SWLS has good criterion-related validity with the brief World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment (WHOQOL-BREF). It is concluded that the SWLS is a sound measurement to be used with persons with schizophrenia living in the community.     

Psychometric Evaluation of the Hebrew Language Version of the Satisfaction with Life Scale

The satisfaction with life scale (SWLS) is a widely accepted and widely used tool for measuring well-being. Although its potential as a cross-cultural index is recognized, an introduction and systematic validation of the Hebrew version is needed. Thus, the purpose of this study is: (1) to describe the process of developing the Hebrew version of the SWLS, and (2) to examine its construct validity as well as its internal consistency. Four hundred and eighty seven working adults completed the following self reported Hebrew language versions of the: (1) SWLS, (2) positive affect and negative affect scales (PANAS), and (3) the self-rated health (SRH) scale. In addition, as way of gathering additional evidence of validity, the SWLS was completed by proxy (i.e., each participant’s life partner or significant other). Confirmatory factor analysis supported a single-factor structure with significant correlations between the SWLS and the rest of the measures—PANAS scores, the SRH scores as well as the SWLS scores as measured by proxy. In addition, item-analysis supports the internal consistency of the scale. The Hebrew version of the SWLS is a valid and reliable scale and can be utilized in the Israeli context.     

Gratitude and Adolescent Athletes’ Well-Being

Two cross-sectional studies were conducted to examine the relationships between gratitude and athletes’ well-being. Study 1 examines the relationship between dispositional gratitude and well-being, while Study 2 investigates the relationship between sport-domain gratitude and well-being. In Study 1, 169 Taiwanese senior high school athletes (M = 16.43, SD = 0.7 years) were administered the Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ; McCullough et al. 2002, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(1), 112–127), Team Satisfaction Scale (Walling et al. 1993, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 15, 172–183), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985, Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75), and the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ; Raedeke and Smith, 2001, Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 23(4), 281–306). In Study 2, a separate sample of 265 adolescent athletes (M = 16.47 years, SD = 0.7) were administered the modified Sport-domain GQ, Team Satisfaction Scale, and ABQ. Study 1 results showed that dispositional gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and life satisfaction, and negatively predicts athlete burnout. Findings from Study 2 revealed that sport-domain gratitude positively predicts team satisfaction and negatively predicts athlete burnout. A stronger gratitude and well-being relationship was observed in Study 2. This research provides the initial verification that gratitude and adolescent athletes’ well-being are related. Possible mechanism of this relation, limitations, and practical implications are discussed.     

Investigating Validity Evidence of the Satisfaction with Life Scale Adapted for Children

This study introduces the Satisfaction with Life Scale adapted for Children (SWLS-C) and presents psychometric findings regarding its validation. The SWLS-C was adapted from the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. 1985), which is one of the most commonly used measures to assess satisfaction with life in adults. Three subject matter experts adapted the SWLS by changing the wording of the item stem and response format in order to make it more understandable for children. A stratified random sample of 1,233 students (48% girls) in grades 4–7 (mean age 11 years and 7 months) provided data on the SWLS-C and measures of optimism, self-concept, self-efficacy, depression, emphatic concern, and perspective taking. The SWLS-C demonstrated a unidimensional factor structure and high internal consistency. Furthermore, differential item functioning and differential scale functioning analyses indicated that the SWLS-C measures satisfaction with life in the same way for different groups of children (i.e., with regard to gender, first language learned at home—English vs. other language(s) than English—and across different grades) at the item and at the scale level. Associations between scores on the SWLS-C and demographic variables were statistically non-significant or of small effect size. In addition, the SWLS-C showed evidence of convergent and discriminant validity in relation to the other measures. Our results indicate that the SWLS-C is a psychometrically sound instrument that demonstrated evidence of construct validity for this age group. Limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Assessing Subjective Well-being in Chinese Older Adults: The Chinese Aging Well Profile

Subjective well-being has increasingly been used as a key indicator of quality of life in older people. Existing evidence shows that it is likely that eastern cultures carry different life values and so the Chinese Aging Well Profile was devised for measuring subjective well-being in Chinese adults (50+). Data was collected from 1,906 community-dwelling Chinese (50+) in Taiwan in six sequential stages, involving qualitative interviews and psychometric testing. Seven key dimensions of subjective well-being identified in the interviews provided an item bank for instrument construction. The 31-item Chinese Aging Well Profile comprised seven subscales–’physical’, ‘psychological’, ‘independence’, ‘learning & growth’, ‘material’, ‘environmental’, and ‘social’ well-being. The study indicated that elements of subjective well-being are common across western and eastern cultures but are interpreted and weighted differently. This new instrument has demonstrated preliminary evidence for reliability and validity and that it is suitable for use in the Chinese speaking older population.     

Quality of Life and Leisure Activities: How do Leisure Activities Contribute to Subjective Well-Being?

The quality of life is determined with objective factors and also with subjective perception of factors which influence human life. Leisure activities play a very important role in subjective well-being because they provide opportunities to meet life values and needs. Through participation in leisure activities people build social relationships, feel positive emotions, acquire additional skills and knowledge, and therefore improve their quality of life. In this report we will explore how leisure activities improve subjective well-being. We will try to distinguish among different types of leisure activities and find those which contribute more to the subjective well-being. Particularly, we will explore which leisure activities contribute to the subjective well-being of women and men of different age. Our study is based on data from a representative sample of Croatian citizens (N = 4,000), who estimated their subjective well-being and participation in various leisure activities. First, we will describe the subjective well-being of various groups of people who differ by gender and age. Afterward, we will identify important leisure activities which determine subjective well-being across age and gender groups. Overall, our results show that engagement in leisure activities contributes to subjective well being, while the pattern of important leisure activities somewhat varies across different age and gender groups.     

Individual- and Neighbourhood-Level Indicators of Subjective Well-Being in a Small and Poor Eastern Cape Township: The Effect of Health,Social Capital,Marital Status,and Income

Our study used multilevel regression analysis to identify individual- and neighbourhood-level factors that determine individual-level subjective well-being in Rhini, a deprived suburb of Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. The Townsend index and Gini coefficient were used to investigate whether contextual neighbourhood-level differences in socioeconomic status determined individual-level subjective well-being. Crime experience, health status, social capital, and demographic variables were assessed at the individual level. The indicators of subjective well-being were estimated with a two-level random-intercepts and fixed slopes model. Social capital, health and marital status (all p < .001), followed by income level (p < .01) and the Townsend score (p < .05) were significantly related to individual-level subjective well-being outcomes. Our findings showed that individual-level subjective well-being is influenced by neighbourhood-level socioeconomic status as measured by the Townsend deprivation score. Individuals reported higher levels of subjective well-being in less deprived neighbourhoods. Here we wish to highlight the role of context for subjective well-being, and to suggest that subjective well-being outcomes may also be defined in ecological terms. We hope the findings are useful for implementing programs and interventions designed to achieve greater subjective well-being for people living in deprived areas.     

The ‘What’, ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of Employee Well-Being: A New Model

This paper examines the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of employee well-being. Beginning with the ‘what’ of well-being, the construct of mental health was explored with the aim of building a model of employee well-being. It was proposed that employee well-being consists of three core components: (1) subjective well-being; (2) workplace well-being and (3) psychological well-being. Following this, the ‘why’ of employee well-being was investigated; that is, why employee well-being should be an important matter for organisations. It was argued that employee well-being is an important precursor to organisational well-being, as indicated by its links to employee turnover and performance. The next section was concerned with the ‘how’ of employee well-being; that is, how well-being can be reliably enhanced. Drawing on two models of strengths and a practice model of psychological assessment, it was asserted that strength-based development can reliably enhance employee well-being. A solid framework for understanding and measuring employee well-being is offered in the hope that it will foster a more integrated approach to assessing and optimising employee well-being.

Subjective Well-Being in Mental Health and Human Development Research Worldwide: An Introduction

In this introduction to a special issue, the author suggests that a third generation of research on subjective well-being has emerged that is focused on health and human development as the presence of well-being (i.e., health) and not merely the absence of illness, disease, and developmental deficiencies. In turn, this article describes the construct of subjective well-being, its historical ties to the aftermath of World War II and the creation of the National Institute of Mental Health, its conceptual foundations, and empirical evidence supporting the view that it consists of two theoretical traditions – hedonia and eudaimonia. The nearly 50 years of research on subjective well-being has yielded as many as 13 distinct dimensions of subjective well-being in the United States. Consequently, new directions in subjective well-being are emerging such as the study of mental health as a complete state, which suggest the need for greater scientific attention to the integration of hedonic and eudaimonic measures and theory.     

Subjective Well-Being and Social Capital in Belgian Communities. The Impact of Community Characteristics on Subjective Well-Being Indicators in Belgium

In this article, we investigate the effect of individual and community level characteristics on subjective well-being in Belgium. Various indicators for subjective well-being are being used in a multilevel analysis of the 2009 SCIF survey (n = 2,080) and the 2006 Belgian ESS sample (n = 1,798). On the individual level, most hypotheses on the determinants of subjective well-being were confirmed. Living with a partner and age were shown to have strong effects, but also social capital indicators had a significant positive effect on subjective well-being. All these effects remained significant controlling for optimism. On the community level, especially unemployment rate had a negative impact on subjective well-being. The analysis further demonstrates that in homogeneous regions, community characteristics have a far weaker impact on subjective well-being indicators than in economically more heterogeneous regions.     

Psychometric Properties of the Satisfaction with Life Scale among Turkish University Students,Correctional Officers,and Elderly Adults

This study aims to extensively examine the psychometric properties of adapted version of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) in different Turkish samples. In order to test the psychometric properties of the SWLS three separate and independent samples are utilized in this study, namely university students (n = 547), correctional officers (n = 166), and elderly adults (n = 123). Concerning the reliability of the scale, internal consistency and item-total correlation coefficients are found to be satisfactory for all three samples. As for the validity studies, concurrent validity of the scale is supported in all three samples by revealing the association of SWLS with conceptually related measures, which included depression, self-esteem, positive affect and negative affect, work stress, and monthly income measures. Discriminant validity is examined only in the sample of university students, and SWLS revealed a non-significant correlation with a conceptually unrelated construct (i.e., willingness to self-censor). Consistent with the original scale, a single-factor solution model reveals an adequate fit in all three different samples. Furthermore, confirmatory factor analysis with multi-group comparisons performed demonstrates that SWLS has the same theoretical structure for three different groups on the basis of a single-factor solution model. The theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.     

International Well-being Index: The Austrian Version

The International Well-being Index (IWI) measures both personal and national well-being. It comprises two subscales: the Personal Well-being Index (PWI) and the National Well-being Index (NWI). The aim of this paper is to test the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of the translated scale in Austria. Convergent validity is assessed using the Scales of Psychological Well-Being, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. In addition, a Visual–Analog Scales capturing “satisfaction with life as a whole” was applied. The participants were 581 students of the Medical University Innsbruck (female: 47.7%; age: 23.2 ± 3.7). Internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) of the IWI was for both scales > .70 (PWI: .85; NWI: .83). The exploratory factor analysis of the IWI identified a 2-factor-structure identical with the two scales of the IWI explaining 54.2% of the variance. The convergent validity hypotheses were confirmed, construct validity was partly confirmed for the PWI being a deconstruction of a first factor called “satisfaction with life” (38.1% explained variance). Happy participants scored higher on the PWI (84.3 ± 7.9 vs. 68.7 ± 13.7; p < .001) and NWI (64.3 ±  15.8 vs. 57.9 ±  15.1; p < .001) scores than unhappy participants. It is concluded that the Austrian version of the IWI is a reliable and valid instrument to assess personal and national well-being. Further studies including a representative sample should be carried out on a recurring basis to use the IWI as an indicator for social science research in Austria.     

Subjective well-being in later life: Issues concerning measurement and prediction

This paper reviews the research on the measurement and prediction of subjective well-being in later life. Psychometric data on several gerontological scales are presented in detail. Structural analyses of a variety of measures of subjective well-being are discussed and evidence for a one factor structural solution to subjective well-being is presented. Objective predictors of subjective well-being are discussed with respect to the strength of their relationships to subjective well-being. It is concluded that subjective well-being is the best predictor of itself. Evidence of temporal stability and corss-situational consistency, combined with the evidence of a one factor structural solution, suggests that subjective well-being has trait-like characteristics. Suggestions for future research are presented.     

Religion and Gender Equality Worldwide: A Country-Level Analysis

Conceptually, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49(1):71–75, 1985) emphasizes evaluations comparing actual and expected life circumstances. Contrastingly we developed the Harmony in Life Scale (HILS) emphasizing psychological balance and flexibility in life. Study 1 (476 participants) developed the HILS. In Study 2 participants (N = 787, T1; N = 545, T2) answered well-being related questionnaires and generated words/texts related to HIL/SWL. The HILS yields satisfactory statistical properties, correlates as expected to well-being related scales, whilst HIL/SWL form a two-factor model. Hierarchical regressions reveal that HILS explains considerably more unique variance than SWLS in most included measures. Quantitative semantic analyses (employing latent semantic analyses) on words related to HIL/SWL reveal that they differ significantly in their semantic content. Word frequency analyses show that harmony significantly relate to peace, balance, etc. and satisfaction with job, money, etc. The HILS demonstrates validity, reliability, and uniqueness complementing the SWLS in forming a more holistic understanding of subjective well-being.     

Social Capital: Does it Add to the Health Inequalities Debate?

The aim of this study is to assess the effective measurement range of Ryff’s Psychological Well-being scales (PWB). It applies normal ogive item response theory (IRT) methodology using factor analysis procedures for ordinal data based on a limited information estimation approach. The data come from a sample of 1,179 women participating in a midlife follow-up of a national birth cohort study in the UK. The PWB scales incorporate six dimensions: autonomy, positive relations with others, environmental mastery, personal growth, purpose in life and self-acceptance. Scale information functions were calculated to derive standard errors of measurement for estimated scores on each dimension. Construct variance was distinguished from method variance by inclusion of method factors from item wording (positive versus negative). Our IRT analysis revealed that the PWB measures well-being most accurately in the middle range of the score distribution, i.e. for women with average well-being. Score precision diminished at higher levels of well-being, and low well-being was measured more reliably than high well-being. A second-order well-being factor loaded by four of the dimensions achieved higher measurement precision and greater score accuracy across a wider range than any individual dimension. Future development of well-being scales should be designed to include items that are able to discriminate at high levels of well-being.     

The affective and cognitive context of self-reported measures of subjective well-being

Researchers attempting to understand the experience of subjective well-being have relied heavily on self-report measurement. Recent research focused on this method has demonstrated that a number of factors, such as the current mood of the respondent and the cognitive and social context surrounding the response, can significantly influence response to items inquiring about global subjective well-being or satisfaction with life. In the present study, several measurement strategies (e.g., single-item measures, multiple-item scales, and memory search tasks) were compared with regard to their susceptibility to such influences. Although some evidence for effects due to item-placement or transient mood were found, all of the global measures of subjective well-being and life satisfaction has significant convergence with peer-reports, and the single-item measures showed good temporal reliability across a one-month interval. The data provide evidence for a significant degree of stability in subjective well-being and life satisfaction.     

The Construct Validity of Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-Being (SPWB) and their Relationship to Measures of Subjective Well-Being

The factor structure of Ryff's Scales ofPsychological Well-Being (SPWB) and theirrelationship to standardized measures ofsubjective well-being (SWB) were investigated.Two hundred seventy-seven participants rangingin age from 18 to 48 years were administeredthe Memorial University of Newfoundland Scaleof Happiness (MUNSH), the Satisfaction WithLife Scale (SWLS), and the SPWB. Results failedto support either the hypothesis thatperforming factor analytic procedures on theitems of the SPWB should produce a six-factorsolution, with scale-specific items loadingmost highly on their respective factors or thehypothesis that subjecting the sub-scales ofthe SPWB to factor analytic procedures alongwith standardized measures of SWB would produceone higher-order well-being factor. Instead,item loadings clustered around three majorfactors that could not be identified with thesix scales proposed by Ryff. Moreover, thefactor analysis of SPWB and SWB scale totalsproduced three, instead of one, higher-orderfactors. Implications of findings are discussedwith respect to the relationship of the PWBconstruct to the SWB construct.