Socio-demographic Correlates of Subjective Well-being in Urban India

This study aimed to explore subjective well-being (SWB) in an urban Indian sample. Adults (n = 1099) belonging to two wards in the city of Bangalore in South India, responded to a study-specific questionnaire. This paper is based on data generated as part of an ongoing larger study looking at correlates of SWB. Almost equal number of men and women responded to the study and their age ranged from 20 to 81 years (mean age 37 years). Majority of them were married, Hindus, from middle socio-economic status, had studied above pre-university level and more than half were earning. The mean scores on positive affect (40.9), negative affect (27.6) and life satisfaction (24) suggested above average levels of SWB. Higher age, being married, having higher education, higher income and working in a full time job seemed to improve life satisfaction and decrease negative affect. Religion was also significantly associated with negative affect. Step-wise regression analysis suggested that only education and income were important predictors of positive affect, while negative affect was better predicted by age, income, work status and religion. Life satisfaction was predicted by income, age and education. The important correlates of SWB for men and women were somewhat different. Overall, sociodemographic variables have minimal effect on SWB in urban India and research needs to explore other predictors of SWB.     

Could the EQ-5D be Used to Predict Mortality and Hospitalization Over a Long Term Period?

Although numerous studies have demonstrated that social support affects a range of life experiences, only a few have examined the moderators and mediators such as self-esteem. According to self-control theory, self-control represents one’s ability to override or change one’s inner responses, and to interrupt undesired behavioral tendencies and refrain from acting on them. A high level of self-control may help individuals to mediate or moderate negative affect and thus weaken any adverse effects, contributing to their subjective well-being (SWB) in the long run. The current study explored how this interaction may affect the subjective well-being of the Chinese elderly, for whom self-control and social support are especially important life management issues. The study examined whether self-control mediates and moderates the relationship between social support and SWB among the elderly Chinese population. The data were collected from 335 elderly Chinese people (162 females and 173 males) from ten cities in central China, who completed the Chinese Social Support Scale, Trait Self-control Scale, Life Satisfaction Scale and Positive and Negative Affect Scale. The results showed that self-control, social support and SWB were strongly and significantly related. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that self-control partially mediated the influence of social support on SWB. Moreover, self-control moderated the relationship between social support and positive affect, but not life satisfaction and negative affect. These findings imply that self-control is a critical indicator of SWB and can serve as a basis for differentiating between intervention strategies that promote SWB among the elderly by helping them manage positive and negative affect. Future studies should further examine the internal mechanisms by which self-control influences SWB.     

Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities

Subjective well-being (SWB) comprises people's longer-term levels of pleasant affect, lack of unpleasant affect, and life satisfaction. It displays moderately high levels of cross-situational consistency and temporal stability. Self-report measures of SWB show adequate validity, reliability, factor invariance, and sensitivity to change. Despite the success of the measures to date, more sophisticated approaches to defining and measuring SWB are now possible. Affect includes facial, physiological, motivational, behavioral, and cognitive components. Self-reports assess primarily the cognitive component of affect, and thus are unlikely to yield a complete picture of respondents' emotional lives. For example, denial may influence self-reports of SWB more than other components. Additionally, emotions are responses which vary on a number of dimensions such as intensity, suggesting that mean levels of affect as captured by existing measures do not give a complete account of SWB. Advances in cognitive psychology indicate that differences in memory retrieval, mood as information, and scaling processes can influence self-reports of SWB. Finally, theories of communication alert us to the types of information that are likely to be given in self-reports of SWB. These advances from psychology suggest that a multimethod approach to assessing SWB will create a more comprehensive depiction of the phenomenon. Not only will a multifaceted test battery yield more credible data, but inconsistencies between various measurement methods and between the various components of well-being will both help us better understand SWB indictors and group differences in well-being. Knowledge of cognition, personality, and emotion will also aid in the development of sophisticated theoretical definitions of subjective well-being. For example, life satisfaction is theorized to be a judgment that respondents construct based on currently salient information. Finally, it is concluded that measuring negative reactions such as depression or anxiety give an incomplete picture of people's well-being, and that it is imperative to measure life satisfaction and positive emotions as well.     

Sense of Community and the Perception of the Socio-Physical Environment: A Comparison Between Urban Centers of Different Sizes Across Europe

Measures of subjective well-being, and especially life evaluations, or judgments about how happy people are with their lives as a whole, enrich and empower social indicators research. They do this by requiring other social indicators as explanatory variables and providing a coherent encompassing framework within which the relative importance of other social indicators can be established.     

Religion and Subjective Well-Being in Ghana

Using 2008 Afrobarometer survey data, we examine the relationship between religion and subjective well-being (SWB) in Ghana, as well as religious group differences in their experiences of SWB. Two measures of religion—religious affiliation and religious importance, and two measures of SWB—absolute SWB (own perceived living conditions) and relative SWB (own living conditions compared to those of other Ghanaians) are employed in this study. Results show that religious affiliation is significantly related to both measures of SWB although associations depicted for such relationships were not strong. Religious importance significantly related to relative SWB only (with a weak-to-moderate association). Significant religious affiliation and religious importance group differences are found on both SWB outcomes via non-parametric test procedures (Kruskal–Wallis H test, followed by post hoc tests). On balance, the None/Traditional religious group experienced less favorable SWB than Other Christian, Evangelical/Pentecostal, and Muslim groups, especially for absolute SWB, while the None/Traditional group experienced particularly less favorable relative SWB than the Protestant group. Religious importance groups also significantly differed in such a way that the group that considered religion very important had more favorable experiences of both types of SWB than the group that considered religion not at all/not very important. Other significant differences on both outcomes are found among ethnic, educational, and regional groups. In view of the findings, the study contributes to SWB research and suggests policy implications.     

Subjective well-being as a function of age and gender: A multivariate look for differentiated trends

Studies on subjective well-being (SWB) suggest that its cognitive aspect, or life satisfaction, is positively correlated with age, whereas its affective aspect, often separated into positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA), is negatively correlated with age. Gender differences in SWB are usually small. The present study attempted to explore these trends in an Israeli sample of 447 community-dwelling people aged 21 to 87, with special reference to relatively unattended issues as the effect of control variables on the affective aspect and the feasible age by gender interaction in SWB. The results showed that Cantril's Self-Anchoring Scale (SAS), Bradburn's Affect Balance Scale (ABS), and Neugarten et al.'s Life Satisfaction Index A (LSIA) were all significantly and negatively correlated with age. No significant gender differences emerged, but a significant age by gender interaction was found in SAS and LSIA. Controlling for personal variables (education, health, place of birth, and marital status) could wipe out the age effects on SAS and LSIA, but not on ABS. By the same procedure, the age by gender interaction could be wiped out in SAS, and substantially reduced in LSIA. The age effect on ABS was mainly due to PA, rather than NA. The results indicate the differential impact of personal variables on the aspects of SWB. Refering to the Israeli context, it seems that both cohort- and aging-related variables account for the decline of life satisfaction in the older subjects. Age-associated decline of affect is apparently connected to some other adaptive mechanisms, which regulate both positive and negative affect in old age.     

Varieties of Transgender/Transsexual Lives and Their Relationship with Transphobia

The conceptualization of gender variant populations within studies have consisted of imposed labels and a diversity of individual identities that preclude any attempt at examining the variations found among gender variant populations, while at the same time creating artificial distinctions between groups that may not actually exist. Data were collected from 90 transgender/transsexual people using confidential, self-administered questionnaires. Factors like age of transition, being out to others, and participant's race and class were associated with experiences of transphobic life events. Discrimination can have profound impact on transgender/transsexual people's lives, but different factors can influence one's experience of transphobia. Further studies are needed to examine how transphobia manifests, and how gender characteristics impact people's lives.     

A Hybrid Model for Research on Subjective Well-being: Examining Common- and Component-specific Sources of Variance in Life Satisfaction,Positive Affect,and Negative Affect

The primary components of subjective well-being (SWB) include life satisfaction (LS), positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA). There is little consensus, however, concerning how these components form a model of SWB. In this paper, six longitudinal studies varying in demographic characteristics, length of time between assessment periods, number of assessment periods, and type of measures employed were used to test a hybrid model of SWB comprising both common and component-specific sources of variance. The majority of explained variance in LS was attributable to temporally consistent common variance, rather than component-specific sources. For PA and NA, both common and component-specific sources were substantive and consistent over time. Implications for the conceptualization and operationalizations of SWB are discussed.     

The Metrics of Societal Happiness

Growing interest in the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) has also been accompanied by scientific debate on the optimal method for measuring SWB. The momentary perspective, which is represented by the ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and day reconstruction method (DRM), emphasizes the momentary experiences and aims to measure SWB in an objective manner via the aggregation of happiness levels over time and activities. The global reporting perspective emphasizes the subjective evaluation of life experiences and aims to capture the overall evaluation using retrospection or global evaluations. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these different perspectives and methods by examining conceptual, methodological, and practical issues. We propose adopting a multi-method assessment approach to SWB that uses both perspectives and the corresponding methods in a theory-driven and complementary manner. For the purposes of measuring and tracking SWB of societies, we also call for more research on the reliability and validity of EMA and DRM.     

Subjective Well-Being Structure: Confirmatory Factor Analysis in a Teachers’ Portuguese Sample

Authors consider that subjective well-being is a theoretical construct that includes three components: life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect. Despite the numerous studies already conducted, divergences remain concerning how to conceptualize these components within a global structure of subjective well-being. This study aims to examine the dimensionality of the subjective well-being construct. A set of self-report questionnaires was used to assess life satisfaction, positive and negative affect in 397 teachers of primary and high schools. A model of a tripartite structure was tested using a confirmatory factor analysis. The results corroborate the premise that subjective well-being is a multidimensional construct that incorporates three components: life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect. Our findings reinforce the viewpoint that these three components are moderately correlated and relatively independent and also strengthen the need for a complete SWB assessment that includes adequate measures of all three components.     

They Are Richer But Are They Happier? Subjective Well-Being of Chinese Citizens Across the Reform Era

This study examined Chinese’s subjective well-being (SWB) in the past two decades. By capitalizing on the single time-series data available on SWB in China during the reform era (spanning for nearly two decades) and adopting a newly-developed cross-classified random effects model that can disentangle the confounding effects of age, period and birth cohorts, this analysis detects significant age and period effect. First, Chinese exhibits a curvilinear and concave relation between age and life satisfaction. Secondly, economic prosperity in the past decades did not translate into greater satisfaction with life among Chinese people. Significant period effect reveals a V-shape pattern of life satisfaction: the declining trend has continued throughout the 1990s and the beginning of the millennium. By 2007 (the most recently available), the life satisfaction of Chinese people has rebounded to some extent, albeit still considerably lower than in 1990. Subsequently, in search of explanations for this overall trend of plummeted subjective well-being among Chinese citizens over time, whether and how the rising inequality asserts its influence on SWB in China’s context are tested and discussed.     

The Set-Point Theory of Well-Being: Negative Results and Consequent Revisions

An adequate theory of happiness or subjective well-being (SWB) needs to link at least three sets of variables: stable person characteristics (including personality traits), life events and measures of well-being (life satisfaction, positive affects) and ill-being (anxiety, depression, negative affects). It also needs to be based on long-term data in order to account for long-term change in SWB. By including personality measures in the 2005 survey, the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) became the first available dataset to provide long-term evidence about personality and change in one key measure of SWB, namely life satisfaction. Using these data, the paper suggests major revisions to the set-point theory of SWB; revisions which seek to account for long-term change. Previously, theory focused on evidence that individuals have their own set-point of SWB and revert to that set-point once the psychological impact of major life events has dissipated. But the new SOEP panel data show that significant minorities record substantial and apparently permanent upward or downward changes in life satisfaction. The paper aims to explain why most people’s SWB levels do not change, but why a minority do. The main new result, which must be regarded as tentative until replicated, is that the people most likely to record large changes in life satisfaction are those who score high on the personality traits of extraversion (E) and/or neuroticism (N). These people in a sense ‘roll the dice’ more often than others and so have a higher than average probability of recording long-term changes. Data come from the 3130 SOEP respondents who rated their life satisfaction every year from 1985 onwards, among whom 2843 also completed a set of questions about their personality in 2005.

Life Satisfaction and Happiness in Turkey

This research aims to investigate life satisfaction and happiness in Turkey. It extends the previous researches on subjective well-being (SWB) for Turkey by considering both happiness and life satisfaction. The previous researches for Turkey are local studies, and their findings cannot be generalized to the population of Turkish society. Given these facts, the factors that shape individual happiness and life satisfaction amongst Turkish people are determined using a representative survey of sociocultural and political change, World Values Survey (WVS). Some results obtained in this study are similar to typical findings such as a negative age effect, positive influences of income and health status, and a negative effect of unemployment. Contrary to the expectations, middle education has a negative direct effect on life satisfaction among females, and the upper education level is insignificant in the life satisfaction model. By comparing the correlates of happiness and life satisfaction across different years, this research aims to provide insights for policy makers and professionals to improve the perceived lives of Turkish people.

Gender Convergence in the American Heritage Time use Study (AHTUS)

The present study explored the short-term temporal characteristics of subjective well-being (SWB) and its potential correlates. Specifically, we examined the intra-individual variability and the trajectories of SWB and its components life satisfaction, positive, and negative affect. Over a two-week period, 27 participants (78% university students, 85% females, mean age of 29 years) provided SWB data every other day. Before and after this period, participants completed several questionnaires assessing personality and environmental variables, as well as several open-ended questions. The results provide evidence that participants experienced a significant amount of intra-individual variability in their SWB and its components. Furthermore, inter-individual differences in the intra-individual variability were related to several of the personality and environmental variables, as well as to participant’s age. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that deliberation (one facet of the Big Five dimension conscientiousness), social support, and age accounted for 58% of the total variance of intra-individual variability in SWB. In contrast, the slopes of the individual trajectories of SWB were on average statistically non-significantly different from zero. These results emphasize that information is gained by looking at both the patterns and the intra-individual variability over time: The individual trajectories of the participants on average appeared to be stable, but intra-individual variability of SWB was meaningfully related to several of the variables.     

Getting Older and Getting Happier with Work: An Information-Processing Explanation

Job attitudes and subjective well-being (SWB) have important relationships with one another. Moreover, job attitudes and, to an extent, SWB are related to chronological age. Owing to a ??graying?? workforce in industrialized countries, uncovering how age influences job attitudes is increasingly important. The present work explores the effects of cognitive-aging research on the item response process during attitude measurement. Research finds that older individuals attend selectively to positive affective experiences and weigh affective experiences more heavily during judgment than younger individuals. Based on cognitive-aging research, we propose an item-response process and hypothesize that chronological age results in a specific form of measurement non-equivalence. Our hypothesis is tested on 2 different samples of university employees, across 3 different job attitudes rooted in emotional experiences. Results indicate age-related measurement non-equivalence across all 3 attitudes such that older employees report more positive job attitudes than younger employees even when controlling for the latent attitude construct. Our findings suggest caution in interpreting of age-satisfaction correlations, focusing greater attention on understanding item response processes of older versus younger individuals and increased attention to job-related emotional experience for older employees.     

Experiences of "not belonging" in collectivistic communities: narratives of gays in kibbutzes

The kibbutz is a uniquely Israeli phenomenon which is currently undergoing major changes, both ideologically and practically. It has attracted worldwide sociological and psychological research attention due to its unique characteristics, particularly in relation to communal child-rearing, education, and family life. The purpose of this paper is to understand the life experiences of homosexuals who experienced their adolescence on kibbutzes during the 1970s. In this study, the life experiences often gay men who still live on the kibbutz or have spent significant periods of their lives on it are examined from their own perspectives in order to understand how they view the connection between homosexuality and kibbutz life. Researching such a topic by utilizing a qualitative research paradigm approach enriches our understanding of the meanings associated with being different and the various ways in which marginality is perceived and experienced within the communal life of the kibbutz. A purposive sample of 10 gay men was recruited, and the age of participants ranged from 17-45. At the time of the interviews, six interviewees still lived on the kibbutz. Each participant was interviewed in-depth, with interviews lasting between one-and-a-half to two hours. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Two methods were used to analyze the data: analytic induction and constant comparison analysis. The findings suggest an interesting dynamic regarding the experiences of gay men in their transition from one total institution, the kibbutz, to another total institution, the army. Paradoxically, life in the army, which is undoubtedly a restricted system, is accompanied by experiences of freedom and actualization of self when compared to life in the kibbutz. The findings are discussed within the frameworks of differentness and marginality, homosexuality theory from both psychological and sociological perspectives, and the unique ideological and practical aspects of kibbutz life.     

Walking a well-being tightrope: young people in Australia

The economic and social contribution young people make to society is increasingly important as the population ages. Yet a substantial number of young people face economic and social challenges that have an impact on their current and future well-being. Independent indicators are often used to describe what we know about how young people are faring, but these fail to show how young people are doing holistically, across their whole life. If we are to better understand and improve young people??s well-being and their lives more generally, it is critical that research establishes the connections and interactions between life domains. This paper uses a well-being framework and secondary analysis of national statistics to begin to understand how young people are faring when we cross economic outcomes with other social indicators. It argues that some Australian young people fare poorly across a large number of other social indicators and thus may be walking a tightrope in regard to their well-being and well-becoming. This paper also aims to generate a dialogue about using a well-being framework for future research with and about young people.     

Falling Short of Highest Life Expectancy: How Many Americans Might Have Been Alive in the Twentieth Century?

Life expectancy at birth in the United States during the twentieth century was lower than in many other highly developed countries. We investigate how this mortality disadvantage in the last 100 years translates into the number of hypothetical lives lost and their sex and age structure. We estimate the hypothetical US population if it had experienced in each decade since 1900 the mortality level of the country with the then highest life expectancy and compare the results to the actual figures in 2000. By 2000, the number of additional people who could have been alive had the mortality levels in the United States been as low as those in countries with the highest life expectancy was 66 million. This number is distributed equally between males and females. Suboptimal mortality at reproductive ages is crucial for the cumulative effect of potential lives lost, resulting from premature deaths of women who could still become first‐time mothers or bear additional children. Out of the 66 million additional persons who could have been alive in 2000, 45 million are attributable to those indirect deaths. Although the differences in the composition of the population by sex and age under the two mortality regimes are minor, the majority of people who might have been alive—54 million—were of working age or younger.     

National differences in reported subjective well-being: Why do they occur?

There are marked variations between nations in reported subjective well-being (SWB), but the explanations for this diversity have not been fully explored. It is possible that the differences are entirely due to true variability in SWB, but it is also reasonable that the differences may be due to factors related to self-report measurement such as variation across nations in whether it is desirable to say one is happy. At a substantive level, there might be differences in the norms governing the experience of emotion such that cultural differences in SWB are due to affective regulation. Pacific Rim countries (e.g., Japan, the People's Republic of China, and S. Korea) appear to have lower SWB than their material circumstances warrant, and the U.S.A. has higher SWB than is predicted based on its income per person. The genesis of these differences was explored by comparing students in S. Korea, Japan, and the People's Republic of China to students in the U.S.A., and it was concluded that: (1) The Pacific Rim subjects score lower on both happiness and life satisfaction in both absolute terms and when income is controlled, (2) There probably is not a general negative response set in the Pacific Rim which causes lower SWB, as evidenced by the fact that the Asians express dissatisfaction in some areas (e.g., education and self) but not in other areas (e.g., social relationships), (3) Artifacts are not causing the lower reported SWB, (4) The general suppression of mood in the Pacific Rim is unlikely to be the cause of SWB differences, but Chinese students do appear to avoid negative affect, (5) SWB is no less important and salient in Japan and S. Korea, but does appear to be a less central concern in China, and (6) There are different patterns of well-being depending on whether life satisfaction or hedonic balance are considered.