Models of cognition and affect in perceptions of well-being

How do people arrive at assessments of their own life quality? A series of models was developed to provide an interpretation of the way the factors of cognition and affect operate along with evaluations of specific life concerns (domains) in the perception of well-being. Following previous research, cognition was defined operationally as a factor which accounts for the covariance among a set of assessments of life-as-a-whole after affect, as measured by Bradburn's scales, is partialled out and after allowance is made for the presence of correlated measurement errors. It was found that loadings on the cognitive factor, and hence the interpretation of this factor, changed little despite quite large changes in the models. Moreover, in all major comparisons, models that contained the cognitive factor fitted the data better than models that did not. Models that included affect as the only variable intervening between the domains and the life-as-a-whole factor led to results that were intuitively difficult to accept. In the preferred model both affect and cognition were positioned as intervening variables. In this model it was found that the domain evaluations had no direct impact on life-as-a-whole assessments — the contribution of the domains was indirect by way of their association with cognition and affect. It was hypothesised that associated with each domain was a domain-specific element of affect and a domain-specific element of cognition. The linear additive relation found by previous researchers between domain evaluations and life-as-a-whole assessments would then be explainable as a statistical result arising from the summing of the domain-specific elements of affect and cognition.     

Measures of economic well-being as predictors of psychological well-being

This research indicates that a comprehensive measure of economic well-being based on permanent income, annuitized net worth, and household economic demands, performs better as a predictor of psychological well-being than conventional measures of economic well-being, particularly current reported income. Statistically, the results are significant yet the percentage of psychological well-being variance explained by the measures of economic well-being is very small. The average level of happiness varied only a small amount across quintile categories of each of the measures of economic well-being. That is to say, a substantial number of respondents in the lowest and next lowest quintiles of the measures of economic well-being expressed as high a level of happiness as respondents in the upper two quintiles of economic well-being.This research was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health/Mental Health #MH41783-02.     

Sleep and psychological well-being

Although many studies have linked sleep problems with symptoms of psychopathology, fewer studies have examined the relationship between sleep and dimensions of psychological health as well as depression. To fill this gap, 502 community residents were surveyed about sleep habits, symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as Ryff’s six dimensions of psychological well-being. Using cut-offs suggested by epidemiological research, participants were classified as either optimal sleepers (those reporting an average of 6 hours or less than 8.5 hours per night) or suboptimal sleepers (those sleeping less than 6 hours or 8.5 or more hours per night). After controlling for demographic differences (i.e., sex, age, education, ethnicity, employment status, marital status, presence of children), the Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) suggested that optimal sleepers reported fewer symptoms of depression, and anxiety, and reported higher levels of environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self acceptance. Differences between optimal sleepers and non-optimal sleepers in depressive symptoms, positive relations with others, purpose in life and self-acceptance remained significant when people with mild to moderate symptoms of depression were eliminated from the data set. These results are consistent with a theoretical framework that defines sleep as a resource related to stress management and self-regulation.     

Subjective well-being and age

The relationship between subjective well-being and age is equivocal. This issue is addressed by two studies. In the first, a cross-sectional design with over 1000 participants revealed a positive association between well-being and age, with age as the most significant predictor of well-being and age, with age as the most significant predictor of well-being using multiple regression analysis. A longitudinal study found less stability in well-being than has been found in the past. Differential age experiences and access to available resources may help to explain the results.This research was supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant (#492-79-0044) to J. Laveryet al.Correspondence concerning this article can be sent to either author at the Department of Psychology, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada L2S 3A1.     

Ethnic diversity and well-being

This paper investigates how ethnic diversity, measured by immigrants’ nationalities, influences the well-being of the host country. Using panel data from Germany from 1998 to 2012, we find a positive effect of ethnic diversity on the well-being of German natives. Our finding is robust to alternative definitions of ethnic diversity and to the non-random selection of natives and immigrants into regions. The positive effect of ethnic diversity is stronger for immigrant groups that are culturally and economically closer to Germany. Consistent with this result, we document the existence of two mechanisms explaining the influence of ethnic diversity on well-being: productivity—as captured by immigrants’ skills and assimilation—and social capital—particularly in relation to the creation of a multicultural environment.     

Religious domains and general well-being

With only a few notable exceptions, studies on quality of life or general well-being have failed to deal with religiosity in general, and the development of more refined measures of religious meaning and belonging in particular. Data measuring subjective perceptions of well-being for various domains of life, including neighborhood, employment, work at home, education, friends, household members, marital status, standard of living, health and religion were used to form a number of domain scales. Relationships between the multidimensional concepts of well-being and religiosity are explored and the importance of religiosity in defining well-being is tested. Religious satisfaction was found to be important for general life satisfaction and existential well-being. Among the eight indicators and scales of religiosity, various combinations of religious satisfaction, frequency of prayer, prayer experience, and relationship with God, were important predictors of general life satisfaction, existential well-being, and overall happiness. Under no circumstance did any measure of religosity contribute to negative affect.     

Environmental quality and the well-being of children

There are many reasons for believing that the environment exerts an influence (directly or indirectly) on the wellbeing of children and families. However, while clear evidence is available that low socioeconomic status is associated with lower than average levels of wellbeing, especially among adults, the evidence linking the social and emotional adjustment of children with the quality of the environment is patchy and equivocal. In this paper we focus on three levels of the family environment: the street, the home and the neighborhood. Neighborhood quality was measured by the Vinson-Homel social problems index, street-type as residential or commercial/retail, and housing quality in terms of upkeep, floor occupied, availability of playspace and occupancy type. The research hypothesis was that after allowing for community selection processes children living in lower quality environments would be less satisfied with various areas of their lives, would experience more negative emotions, and would have more restricted and less positive friendship patterns. The sample comprised 321 families which included a 9–11 year old child, drawn from 18 neighborhoods of Sydney. Neighborhood social problem score and street-type, and some aspects of housing, predicted emotional and social adjustment. Before and after controls for family composition, social class and culture, children living in commercial streets, particularly in inner-city areas, stood out from all others in their feelings of loneliness, dislike of other children and feelings of rejection, worry, fear, anger and unhappiness. Children living in high social problems areas showed a pattern of social constriction rather than maladjustment. These results suggest not simply the influence of social class but genuine community socialization effects. Possible sources of, and mechanisms for, these effects are suggested.     

Cognition and affect in perceptions of well-being

The general characteristics and some possible implications of the distinction between cognition and affect in the perception of well-being are reviewed. It is posited that currently-used rating-scale indicators of perceived well-being differ only marginally in the extent to which they are compounds of both factors, and consequently variables that move differently and possibly strongly on the underlying factors will have only muted relationships with the indicators. Two kinds of secondary analyses of data from recent American Surveys are presented which support and amplify this hypothesis, along with some British data. The first kind focusses on the area of non-overlap between happiness and life satisfaction ratings by dichotomising and cross-tabulating the two indicators, and then observing what further variables change diagnostically between appropriate cells of the 2×2 table. Differential trends with age and education, barely discernible in straightforward correlations against the indicators now emerge strongly, along with further interesting differences for other outside variables, notably enjoyment-of-life, affect balance, income and personal competence. The second kind of analysis draws on data sets which include Bradburn's affect balance scales along with a range of global ratings of subjective well-being. The considerable variance in the global ratings which remains after the affect scales are partialled out, and allowance is made for correlated method effects, is attributed to cognition. Starting points are then explored for analysing the role of cognition and affect more exactly by means of path models which include the cognitive factor as an unobserved variable.     

Population issues and social indicators of well-being

Relating demographers' measures of various population characteristics (size, growth/decline, density, age/sex structures, migration, et cetera) to measures of well-being recently developed within the social indicators movement promises to provide new knowledge about the linkage of population and well-being that can enhance decision making about important population issues. A conceptual schema is presented that suggests specific relationships to examine at various levels of aggregation, that helps to classify research already done in this area, and that helps to identify "holes" in the knowledge base. Some special methodological features of research in this area suggest considerable time and care will be required to produce dependable new knowledge. These include: (a) the inherent multilevel nature of the relationships (involving properties of individuals and collectivities); (b) the slow rate at which population characteristics change; (c) the absence of much good well-being data from the past; and (d) the limited nature of the collectivities for which population data are available.     

Family structure transitions and adolescent well-being

Using data from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I extend prior research on family transitions and adolescent well-being by examining the influence of parental marital and cohabitation transitions on adolescent delinquency, depression, and school engagement. Adolescents who experienced a family transition reported decreased well-being, on average, relative to those in stable, two-biological-parent families. Specific comparisons of various types of family stability and change revealed that cohabitation is often associated with poorer outcomes. Moving out of a cohabiting stepfamily into a single-mother family was not harmful and was actually associated with improvements in school engagement. Moving into a cohabiting stepfamily from a single-mother family decreased adolescent well-being, and this impact was greater than that experienced by those who moved into a married stepfamily. Stable cohabiting stepfamilies were associated with lower levels of well-being than stable married stepfamilies. Formalization of a cohabiting stepfamily through marriage did not translate into any appreciable benefits for adolescent well-being.     

Subjective well-being and coping with adversity

This paper is concerned with identifying coping strategies which are effective in minimising the impact of adverse life events on subjective well-being and, in particular, on negative affect.Data are drawn from the 1983 and 1985 waves of the Victorian (Australian) Quality of Life Panel Study (N=734). Respondents completed a life events inventory (Henderson et al., 1981) and were then asked to identify the most adverse event they had dealt with in the last two years. They responded to a coping strategies inventory (Moos et al., 1984), indicating how they had dealt with this event.     

Perceptual indicators of family well-being

A resource exchange theory for the development of perceptual indicators of quality of family life is presented with empirical evidence to test the theory. The theory specifies six classes of resources: love, status, services, information, goods and money, as necessary to maintain some level of life quality. The first three are the most dependent on the particular people involved in the exchange relationship and the interpersonal exchanges of these resources offer opportunities for highest levels of satisfaction. It was hypothesized (1) that feelings about the particularistic resources received from family would significantly contribute to family life satisfaction for men and women; (2) that the order of resource classes on the particularism dimension would correspond to the order of their effectiveness in contributing to family life satisfaction. Results of the study support the theoretical model and hypotheses and suggest that further research with respondents of differing life circumstances is needed. The need for indicators of quality of family life in quality of life research is emphasized.     

The prediction of perceived well-being

Regression analysis of data from a sample of Northwestern Wisconsin residents shows that a limited number of domain satisfactions accounts for a significant proportion of the variance in life satisfaction. Most life satisfaction is derived from domains which are personal, broader in scope, and central to the individual, and which gain ascendency in the social and psychological life space of the individual as a result of differences in sex, age and income. Satisfaction with health, family and even community override work satisfaction as the main source of men's life satisfaction, while satisfaction with family life easily overwhelms other domain satisfactions as predictors of the life satisfaction of women. Also, the effect of family satisfaction is much stronger for women than men, and during the socially and biologically most productive years of life than in maturity. The contribution of satisfaction with sparetime activities, family, work, etc. to the life satisfaction of the elderly is consistent with a theory of re-engagement in fewer but more meaningful roles. Income differences do not sharply discriminate among the predictors, except at the extremes. Overall, the study demonstrates the efficacy of domain satisfaction measures as predictors of life satisfaction.     

The measurement of social well-being

This paper provides a conceptual framework for viewing social well-being as composed of two elements: social adjustment and social support. Social adjustment is a combination of satisfaction with relationships, performance in social roles and adjustment to one's environment. Social support is composed of the number of contacts in one's social network and satisfaction with those contacts. Through the pioneering work of McDowell and Newell, comparative ratings of measures of social adjustment and social support are available. It appears that Weissman's Social Adjustment Scale and Sarason's Social Support Scale are currently the best measures in terms of validity and reliability. But, they are merely starting points for future measurement of these concepts.Prepared for delivery at the American Public Health Association meeting in Atlanta, Georgia November 1991.     

The stability and sensitivity of subjective well-being measures

A longitudinal investigation of the stability and sensitivity of several subjective social indicators is presented. Over a seven year period, data collected from 93 Canadians indicated moderate stability for measures of enjoyment, satisfaction, and life quality. When respondents were divided into “change” and “no change” groups on the basis of their self-reported health status, the self-anchoring ladder of present life quality was found to be sensitive to change. Implications of this methodological inquiry are examined.     

The inter-temporal aspect of well-being and societal progress

The perceptions on well-being and societal progress are influenced also by the quantitative indicators and measures used in the measurement, presentation and semantics of discussing these issues. The article presents a novel generic statistical measure S-time-distance, with clear interpretability that delivers a broader concept to look at data, to understand and compare situations. This methodology can provide a new insight to many problems, an additional statistical measure, and a presentation tool for policy analysis and debate expressed in time units, readily understood by policy makers, media and general public. The benefits of this new view in comparisons, competitiveness issues, benchmarking, target setting and monitoring for economic, employment, social, R&D and environment indicators at the world, OECD, EU, country, regional, city, sector, socio-economic groups, company, project, household and individual levels could be immediately applied to a wide variety of substantive fields at macro and micro levels using existing data and indicator systems from international, national, state, city and local sources. These suggestions are illustrated by comparisons between EU15 and USA.

The theoretical and empirical structure of general well-being

A comprehensive set of variables that have been supported as contributing to overall health and general well-being were analyzed to determine their simple structure using factor analysis and their relative contribution using Pearson correlation. The contributors to general well-being had been theoretically grouped into: emotions, beliefs, temperaments, behaviors, sittuations, experiences and health. The empirical factor structure was compared with the theoretical structure used to develop the variables. Stability was investigated by comparing results with those of another geographically separated group. All subjects were normally functioning working adults. The results demonstrated the feasibility and potential usefulness of using self-report questionnaires with multivariate procedures to measure components of the global general well-being concept.     

Satisfaction,happiness and well-being of Dutch students

Applying Multiple Discrepancies Theory (MDT), the well-being of Dutch students was measured.To test relevant portions of MDT a questionnaire, originally developed by Michalos, was administered to a group of students at Leiden University, the Netherlands.     

Subjective evaluation of well-being: Problems and prospects

This paper discusses some of the substantive and methodological pitfalls that arise in the subjective evaluation of well-being. The discussion includes illustrative references to the empirical findings of the 1977 Edmonton Area Study. Issues discussed include (1) specific, domain, and global measures; (2) objective states and subjective perceptions; (3) micro and macro units of analysis; and (4) the problem of cultural relativism. It is concluded that it is not yet possible to delineate a simple set of social indicators for use by policy-makers and social planners. Accurate assessment of social well-being currently requires the study of demographic and objective states together with cognitive and evaluational responses and also requires assessment not only at the global ‘general satisfaction’ level but also at more specific levels of analysis.     

The correlation coefficient and models of subjective well-being

The issue has been raised previously that the use of the correlation or squared correlation as an estimate of determination depends on the type of model that is considered (Ozer, 1985). We identify three models of subjective well-being and show that the respective estimates of determination require different interpretations of the correlation statistic. The differences are illustrated using data from the Newfoundland Longitudinal Study of Aging. (NLSA).