Innovativeness and Subjective Well-Being

What are the effects of innovativeness on well-being? This paper argues that research on subjective well-being has progressed to a point where measures of subjective well-being (or: happiness) can usefully be employed to assess the welfare effects of innovative change. Based on a discussion of the prospects and pitfalls associated with subjective well-being as welfare measure and benchmark of societal progress, an argument is put forward as to why these measures are particularly well-suited in the context of innovative change. Empirically well-founded and with an explicit dynamic foundation, theories of subjective well-being allow for a nuanced and comprehensive assessment of the effects that innovativeness has on a society. Two evaluation rules, the “life domain evaluation principle” and the “welfare dynamics principle” are suggested to guide such normative assessment.     

Assessing Spirituality Through Personal Goals: Implications for Research on Religion and Subjective Well-Being

This article is concerned with the conceptual and methodological issues in the measurement of personal goals, with special emphasis on assessing spiritual and religious content in goals. The research literature on personal goals and subjective well-being is reviewed and synthesized. A comparison of several popular goal units in the research literature is included. Goal content and goal conflict have been reliably associated with well-being in past research. Spiritual or religious content in personal goals emerges as having an especially strong influence on well-being, and recent research on spiritual personal strivings and well-being is summarized. One of the primary purposes of the article is to consider conceptual and methodological challenges in the measurement of spirituality through personal goals. The advantages of a combined idiographic-nomothetic approach to measuring spirituality through purposive behavior are enumerated. A personal goals approach to studying spiritual motivation can make an important contribution to understanding how religiosity affects well-being, thus expanding religion's role in quality of life research.     

Weekends and Subjective Well-Being

This paper exploits the richness and large sample size of the Gallup/Healthways US daily poll to illustrate significant differences in the dynamics of two key measures of subjective well-being: emotions and life evaluations. We find that there is no day-of week effect for life evaluations, represented here by the Cantril Ladder, but significantly more happiness, enjoyment, and laughter, and significantly less anxiety, sadness, and anger on weekends (including public holidays) than on weekdays. We then find strong evidence of the importance of the social context, both at work and at home, in explaining the size and likely determinants of the weekend effects for emotions. Weekend effects are twice as large for full-time paid workers as for the rest of the population, and are much smaller for those whose work supervisor is considered a partner rather than a boss and who report trustable and open work environments. A large portion of the weekend effects is explained by differences in the amount of time spent with friends or family between weekends and weekdays (7.1 vs. 5.4 h). The extra daily social time of 1.7 h in weekends raises average happiness by about 2 %.     

Measuring Subjective Well-Being in Taiwan

This paper explores the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) in Taiwan through survey data as a result of 13 self-reported SWB questions. We illustrate the findings using multivariate data analysis approaches. First, by taking the first two principal component scores extracted from all SWB measurements, the biplot presents a relatively “even” society for SWBs, in which the plot depicts all data-points radiating from the center. Second, we employ factor analysis to juxtapose these 13 SWB measurements into three factors: health-related, prosperity-related, and social-related. Third and finally, this paper applies the seemingly unrelated regression model to verify the determinants of SWB. The SWB measurements are mostly increasing in higher education and (disposable) income, while falling with unemployment. Volunteering, donating more money to charities, having more leisure time, spending more hours on sports, and being involved in more arts-related activities all enhance an individual’s well-being. Gender and age may matter, but they are indecisive in the direction for various SWBs.     

Internet Use and Subjective Well-Being in China

Using data from the 2010 China Family Panel Studies, we analyze the association between Internet use and various measures of subjective well-being (SWB) in a sample of 16- to 60-year-old Chinese. Our analysis shows that although intensive Internet use is significantly associated with lower levels of SWB, we hardly observe any associations when the focus is on participation in specific online activities. Nevertheless, SWB depends on the reasons for using the Internet and the extent to which individuals feel that their Internet use is displacing other activities. Our results suggest that, contrary to previous findings, differences in beneficial outcomes (the third level digital divide) do not necessarily arise from individuals’ actual Internet use (the second level digital divide) but rather may result from their subjective perceptions of such usage. Our findings also point to a possible cultural factor that puts Chinese Internet users at psychological risk.     

Subjective Well-Being and Social Production Functions

Recent reviews of scientific work on subjective well-being (SWB) reveal disagreements in conceptualization, measurement, and explanation of the concept. We propose Social Production Function theory as a framework to resolve them. Social Production Function (SPF) theory integrates strengths of relevant psychological theories and economic consumer/household production theories, without their limitations (namely, tradeoffs between satisfaction of different needs are not in the first, and goals or needs are not in the second). SPF theory identifies two ultimate goals that all humans seek to optimize (physical well-being and social well-being) and five instrumental goals by which they are achieved (stimulation, comfort, status, behavioural confirmation, affection). The core notion of SPF theory is that people choose and substitute instrumental goals so as to optimize the production of their well-being, subject to constraints in available means of production. SPF theory guides research measurement and explanatory models, and it integrates features of contemporary subjective well-being theories.     

Domain Importance in Subjective Well-Being Measures

This article explores the underlying dimensions of consumer well-being from 2013 adults representing the major cities in two emerging countries, China and India; and three developed countries, Japan Korea, and Singapore. The analyses reveal that well-being dimension importance varies across respondents. For example, Market Mavens valued acquisition, image, and consumption dimensions while Social Shoppers value the personal interactions associated with consumer well-being. These groups exist in all five countries, suggesting that macro measures of consumer well-being may mask meaningful differences. Our results suggest that consumer well-being measures need to be modified to account for individual differences.     

Subjective Well-Being Among College Students

Social Indicators Research - This study examined the subjective well-being of Korean college students and its relation with personality constructs, such as self-esteem, collective self-esteem, and...     

Agent-Based Simulations of Subjective Well-Being

There has been extensive empirical research in recent years pointing to a weak correlation between economic growth and subjective well-being (happiness), at least for developed economies (i.e. the so-called ‘Easterlin paradox’). Recent findings from the behavioural sciences and happiness literature link this paradoxical relationship to negative externalities on utility imposed by social comparison (i.e. relative income with respect to others) and adaptation (habituation to own income in the past). We believe that the type of economic growth (pro-poor, pro-middle, pro-rich, neutral), in combination with sensitivity to social comparison and past income, is a key determinant of happiness trajectories and future utility levels. With the use of agent-based simulations we examine the long-term dynamics of subjective-well-being by focusing attention on the type of growth process rather than the mere size of income growth. We generally find that pro-middle (and balanced) growth corresponds to much higher levels of long-term happiness in comparison to pro-rich growth.     

Subjective Well-Being and Household Factors in South Africa

This paper uses a household surveyfrom South Africa to estimate a model ofsubjective well-being based upon poverty andhousehold characteristics including housing,sanitation, and transportation. Following Sen,we allow for factors in addition to income andwe begin to incorporate functionings andcapabilities as determinants of well-being. This study finds that important differencesexist among groups based upon their economicstatus. For the poorest quartilestransportation and housing play the mostimportant role in determining well-being, whilefor the richest quartiles, sanitation, water,energy, education and health are relativelymore important. These results have importantpublic policy implications because many of thefactors affecting well-being have large publicgood components. In addition, these resultscould be used to help governments focus aid inorder to improve well-being.     

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.     

Deprivation,Social Exclusion and Subjective Well-Being

This paper aims at investigating empirically the relationship between self-declared satisfaction with life and an individual’s well-being as measured by the indices of deprivation and social exclusion proposed in the income distribution literature. Results on European countries show that life satisfaction decreases with an increase in deprivation and exclusion after controlling for individual’s income, relative income and other influential factors in a multivariate setting.     

Will Money Increase Subjective Well-Being?

Four replicable findings have emerged regardingthe relation between income and subjectivewell-being (SWB): 1. There are largecorrelations between the wealth of nations andthe mean reports of SWB in them, 2. There aremostly small correlations between income andSWB within nations, although these correlationsappear to be larger in poor nations, and therisk of unhappiness is much higher for poorpeople, 3. Economic growth in the last decadesin most economically developed societies hasbeen accompanied by little rise in SWB, andincreases in individual income lead to variableoutcomes, and 4. People who prize materialgoals more than other values tend to besubstantially less happy, unless they are rich.Thus, more money may enhance SWB when it meansavoiding poverty and living in a developednation, but income appears to increase SWBlittle over the long-term when more of it isgained by well-off individuals whose materialdesires rise with their incomes. Several majortheories are compatible with most existingfindings: A. The idea that income enhances SWBonly insofar as it helps people meet theirbasic needs, and B. The idea that the relationbetween income and SWB depends on the amount ofmaterial desires that people's income allowsthem to fulfill. We argue that the firstexplanation is a special case of the secondone. A third explanation is relativelyunresearched, the idea that societal norms forproduction and consumption are essential tounderstanding the SWB-income interface. Inaddition, it appears high SWB might increasepeople's chances for high income. We review theopen issues relating income to SWB, anddescribe the research methods needed to provideimproved data that will better illuminate thepsychological processes relating money to SWB.     

Toward an Integration of Subjective Well-Being and Psychopathology

The validity and utility of a dual-factor system (DFS) of mentalhealth was explored. Factors were the traditional perspective onmental health, psychopathology (PTH), and the more recentperspective, subjective well-being (SWB). Research has shown thatPTH and SWB are not simply opposite poles of a single continuum,however, the constructs have yet to be integrated.The sample consisted of 407 children in Grades 3–6. Subjects wereclassified as high or low on each construct, offering fourresearch groups, two challenging the unidimensional perspective.Group membership was the classification variable in a series ofdiscriminant function analyses. Predictors assessed the domainsof temperament, personality, self-concept, locus of control, andinterpersonal relations.Results offered strong initial evidence for the validity andpotential utility of a DFS. Results are discussed, as areimplications for mental illness prevention/intervention.     

An Exploratory Study of Religion and Trust in Ghana

Based on individual-level data from 2008 Afro-barometer survey, this study explores the relationship between religion (religious affiliation and religious importance) and trust (interpersonal and institutional) among Ghanaians. Employing hierarchical multiple regression technique, our analyses reveal a positive relationship between religious affiliation and both measures of trust among Ghanaians. A positive relationship between Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Pentecostal/Evangelical faiths and interpersonal trust compared to non/traditional religion are detected. The data also reveal that upon controls, only Catholic and Pentecostal/Evangelical show significant positive effect on institutional trust among Ghanaians compared to non/traditional religion. It is worth noting that religious importance does not significantly predictor of neither interpersonal nor institutional trust among Ghanaians. The overall effect of religion on trust is weak, and weaker for institutional trust. Most of the difference relates to the difference between world religions and traditional religions. Place of residence, political affiliation, region of residence, ethnicity, and education are significant nonreligious predictors of both institution and interpersonal trust among Ghanaians. The findings further show that whereas age significantly influences only interpersonal trust, gender, life satisfaction, media exposure, sense of corruption, and sense of unfair treatment are significant factors molding institutional trust among Ghanaians. Policy implications of the study are discussed, emphasizing the need to incorporate religious organizations in efforts aimed at boosting interpersonal and institutional trust among Ghanaians. Religious-specific trust promotion program is suggested as possible strategy likely to succeed in Ghana. The need for more detailed studies in this important but ignored area is emphasized.     

Poverty,Psychological Resources And Subjective Well-Being

This study was carried out for the purpose of explaining the mediating effects of a number of psychological variables (strategies for coping with stress, competitiveness, mastery, locus of control, depression and self-esteem) in the relationship between poverty and the well-being of individuals. To carry out the study, a non-probabilistic, stratified sample was used, with the participation of 918 inhabitants of Mexico City from three socioeconomic levels: extremely poor, moderately poor and not poor. A structural model was used for the analysis and treatment of data, and on the basis of that model, it was proven that there are different trajectories (mediations) through which poverty influences subjective well-being. The findings are discussed in light of the literature.     

How Friendship Network Characteristics Influence Subjective Well-Being

This article explores how friendship network characteristics influence subjective well-being (SWB). Using data from the 2003 General Social Survey of Canada, three components of the friendship network are differentiated: number of friends, frequency of contact, and heterogeneity of friends. We argue that these characteristics shape SWB through the benefits they bring. Benefits considered are more social trust, less stress, better health, and more social support. Results confirm that higher frequency of contacts and higher number of friends, as well as lower heterogeneity of the friendship network are related to more social trust, less stress, and a better health. Frequency of contact and number of friends, as well as more heterogeneity of the friendship network increase the chance of receiving help from friends. With the exception of receiving help from friends, these benefits are in turn related to higher levels of SWB. Only the frequency of meeting friends face-to-face has a remaining positive direct influence on SWB.     

Race-Related Correlates of Young Adults' Subjective Well-Being

We investigated how often young adults worry about race relationsand whether they perceive that white/black relations have beendeteriorating. We also explored the relationships betweenrace-related worry and pessimism, and subjective well-being. This study addressed the distribution of race-related worry andpessimism, and their relationship to subjective well-being innational probability samples of high school seniors completingself-administered questionnaires in 1996 and 1997 (n = 4,514). Nearly one-third of high school seniors often worry about racerelations, and about 20% perceive that contemporary white/blackrelations have been getting at least a little worse. Worryingoften about race relations and perceiving that race relationshave been getting worse were significantly associated withdiminished levels of life satisfaction and happiness. Theresults confirm that race-related worry and pessimism werecommon, and that they impact youth's affective and cognitivestates.     

Ethnicity and Economic Well-Being: The Case of Ghana

In the context of decades of successful economic reforms in Ghana, this study investigates whether ethnicity influences economic well-being (perceived and actual) among Ghanaians at the micro-level. Drawing on Afro-barometer 2008 data, the authors employs logistic and multiple regression techniques to explore the relative effect of ethnicity on economic well-being. Results demonstrate that ethnicity is an important determinant of both measures of people’s economic well-being (perceived and actual) in Ghana. Ethnicity tends to have both negative and positive effect on economic well-being among different ethnic groups and different sub-sample. For instance, for three ethnic groups (Akans, Ga-Adangbes and Ewe/Anglo), ethnicity predicts lower level of economic well-being for rural residents, whereas for Akans, it minimizes the risk of deprivation in the urban setting. Findings from this study do not support the idea that ethnicity may be less relevant in shaping people’s well-being in an era of economic reforms in a society like that of Ghana. Detailed policy implications of the study are discussed emphasizing the need to develop ethnic-specific development programs to complement the on-going reforms as part of the country’s decentralization efforts.     

Subjective Well-Being, Income and Relative Concerns in the UK

We present an empirical model aimed at testing the relative income hypothesis and the effect of deprivation relative to mean income on subjective well-being. The main concern is to deal with subjective panel data in an ordered response model where error homoskedasticity is not assumed. A heteroskedastic pooled panel ordered probit model with unobserved individual-specific effects is applied to micro-data available in the British Household Panel Survey for 1996–2007. In this framework, absolute income impacts negatively on both completely satisfied and dissatisfied individuals, while relative income affects positively the most satisfied ones. Such an effect is asymmetric, impacting more severely on the relatively poor in the reference group. We argue that our results buttress the validity of the relative income hypothesis as an explanation of the happiness paradox.