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.     

Stability and change in levels and structure of subjective well-being: USA 1972 and 1988

It has long been recognized that more needs to be known about the dynamic behavior of measures of subjective well-being. As the Social Indicators Movement matures, it becomes possible to explore issues of stability and change in measures of perceived life quality. To contribute to this research need, this paper reports results of administering similar measures of subjective well-being to several representative samples of the adult American population assessed 16 years apart — in 1972 and in 1988. Results show that in the United States, which has experienced reasonably continuous economic prosperity and no major social disruptions during these 16 years, thestructure of the subjective well-being measures (i.e. how they relate to one another and how concern-level measures predict global-level measures) has remained remarkably constant. This is in accord with expectation and enhances confidence in the validity and usefulness of the measures. Changes were found in thelevels of some of the measures: For the total population, feelings about life-as-a-whole, oneself, and one's own health became notably more positive; evaluations of own income and the national government also gained; but assessments of one's own family life, social relationships, community, and job remained fairly stable. Some of these gross changes were general throughout the population, but others occurred only for certain age, racial, or socioeconomic groups. Younger cohorts and people with higher educations and incomes showed more gains in subjective well-being than other groups.     

South African quality of life: A research note

A nation-wide survey (n=5587) was conducted in 1982/83 with a view to developing a reliable cross-cultural index of quality of life for South Africa. Findings confirmed the known under-privileged position of blacks relative to other groups in terms of some 60 objective and subjective indicators. Contrary to expectations the results of factor and regression analyses indicated that the linear additive model of quality of life-as-a-whole cannot account for its full complexity. The possibility is considered that more broadly symbolic factors related to relative deprivation may make an independent contribution to perceived overall well-being. In conclusion, a single cross-cultural albeit multi-item measure of South African quality of life is recommended.     

On ‘Consistent’ Poverty

The measurement of poverty as ‘consistent’ poverty offers a solution to one of the primary problems of poverty measurement within Social Policy of the last three decades. Often treated as if they were synonymous, ‘indirect’ measures of poverty, such as low income measures, and ‘direct’ measures, such as indices of material deprivation, identify surprisingly different people as being poor. In response to this mismatch, a team of Irish researchers put forward a measure which identified respondents in as being in poverty when they experienced both a low standard of living, as measured by deprivation indicators, and a lack of resources, as measured by a low income line. Importantly, they argued that the two measures required an equal weight. In this paper, I present a reconsideration of the consistent poverty measure from both conceptual and empirical perspectives. In particular, I examine the claim that low income and material deprivation measures should be given an ‘equal weight’. I argue that, from a conceptual perspective, the nature of the indicators at hand means that a deprivation-led measurement approach might be understood to align with the definition of poverty which Nolan and Whelan outline and, from an empirical perspective, that it is the material deprivation measure—and not the low income measure—which is particularly effective in identifying individuals at risk of multiple forms of deprivation. However, I argue that greater attention needs to be given to the question of whether indicators of material deprivation provide a sufficient measure of material poverty and suggest that advancing the measurement of material deprivation beyond its relatively rudimentary state represents an important priority for poverty research.     

Toward sociomedical health indicators

The various forms of mortality data and biomedical measures of morbidity have become inadequate measures of the level of health in economically developed countries. Measures of functional physical capacity have some advantages but do not reflect physical impairment. Current attempts to develop sociomedical health indicators include: measures of social disability; typologies of presenting symptoms, which have been used to estimate probable needs for care; measures which focus on behavioral expressions of sickness; research based on operational definitions of ‘positive mental health’, ‘happiness’ and perceived quality of life; assessments of met and unmet needs for health care, which are measures of social capacity to care for the sick. Sociomedical indicators reflect both objective conditions and social values. They are policy-oriented, serving as mobilizing agents for sociopolitical pressures concerned with raising the overall level of health of the population.     

MEASURING QUALITY OF LIFE: ECONOMIC,SOCIAL, AND SUBJECTIVE INDICATORS

Thinkers have discussed the “good life” and the desirable society for millennia. In the last decades, scientists offered several alternative approaches to defining and measuring quality of life: social indicators such as health and levels of crime, subjective well-being measures (assessing people's evaluative reactions to their lives and societies), and economic indices. These alternative indicators assess three philosophical approaches to well-being that are based, respectively, on normative ideals, subjective experiences, and the ability to select goods and services that one desires. The strengths and weaknesses of the various approaches are reviewed. It is argued that social indicators and subjective well-being measures are necessary to evaluate a society, and add substantially to the regnant economic indicators that are now favored by policy makers. Each approach to measuring the quality of life contains information that is not contained in the other measures.     

Hope: An affective cognition

Hope is here operationalized as a predominance of expected future positive feelings over future expected negative feelings. Hope, comprised of both desire and expectation, involves the interaction of affect and cognition. Modifications of Bradburn's Affective Balance Scale were used to measure hope and happiness. Four graphic rating scales were used to measure psychological well-being, perceived health, satisfaction, and happiness. Hope, measured by the Expected Balance Scale correlated as expected with the other measures. A factor analysis further supported the robustness of the hope variable. Hope is offered as an important personality dimension worthy of continued research.     

Ideology and social indicators of the quality of life

This paper explores the possibility that social-psychological, evaluative measures of social well-being/quality of life (QOL) perceptions may embody unintended ideological elements. We argue that individual QOL satisfactions are likely caused, in part, by ‘satisfactions’, or conservative orientations, vis-à-vis societal institutions. Four dependent measures of QOL attitudes-overall life satisfaction, service satisfaction, community satisfaction, and powerlessness-are derived from factor analyses and established measurement procedures. Each of these QOL indicators is found to exhibit significant bivariate associations with measures of political-economic ideology. These relationships are somewhat reduced, but persist at statistically significant levels, when socio-demographic background variables are held constant. We then discuss the implications of our results for theory and method in the social indicators field.     

The quality of life in Australia

This paper outlines a long term project on the quality of life in Australia and presents some initial survey data. The long term project is intended (1) to find which domains of life most affect the perceived well-being of Australians and the values/satisfactions people wish to achieve in these domains (2) to propose policy programs designed to enhance satisfaction with particular domains and (3) to assess the political feasibility of proposed programs. Policy programs intended to enhance satisfaction are termed positive welfare programs to distinguish them from conventional compensatory welfare programs. The survey data analysed here (national sample, N=679) deal with the satisfactions and dissatisfactions of Australians, the correlates of perceived well-being and the links between domains and values. Perceived well-being is measured by Andrews and Withey's Life-as-a-whole index and Bradburn's Affect Balance scale. Satisfactions are measured on a 9 point modified version of Andrews and Withey's delighted-terrible scale. Readers familiar with American, British and Canadian findings will find the results reported here broadly similar. However, the linkage between people's sociological characteristics and their satisfaction levels appears to be exceptionally weak in Australia, which tends to confirm the view that Australia is a comparatively unstratified society.     

Social indicators of perceived life quality

Modern societies in both developing and developed countries have real and legitimate concerns about the enhancement, maintenance, and redistribution of individual well-being. Indicators of perceived well-being provide direct measures of what societies are trying to achieve, permit cross-sector comparisons, can indicate the adequacy of coverage of ‘objective’ indicators, and can contribute to social policy making. in both the long and short run. Some commentators, however, have suggested perceptual indicators suffer from methodological weaknesses associated with their validity, interpretability, completeness, and utility. Each of these possible weaknesses is addressed in some detail. New research evidence and certain philosophical perspectives are presented, and it is concluded that none of these presumed weaknesses is sufficient to invalidate the development and use of perceptual indicators. Suggestions are made concerning methodological research needed to support the development of indicators of perceived well-being. It is noted that the materials and results developed in the author's research on Americans' perceptions of life quality may be useful for suggesting approaches to the development of indicators of perceived life quality relevant to other cultures.     

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.     

Work-Related Demands Emanating from Social Change and Their Relation to Trait-Like and Occasion-Specific Aspects of Subjective Well-Being

Following current macro-level social change people are increasingly confronted with new demands encompassing perceived uncertainties concerning their job and career prospects. Studies utilizing concurrent assessments showed that perceiving a high accumulation (“load”) of such demands is negatively related to individuals’ subjective well-being. Without further evidence the interpretation of the direction of these effects, however, is equivocal. Based on the concept that individuals have a rather stable trait-like level of subjective well-being from which they may vary when confronted with changes of the external ecology, the current study examined the relationship between the reported load of demands and subjective well-being assessed as general life satisfaction and average satisfaction in domains of life (i.e., family, work, finances, and leisure). We expected that a higher load of demands corresponds to a temporary decline in well-being, while at the same time differences in the stable trait-like level of well-being account for differences in the reported demand load. For the purpose of our study, we analyzed three annual waves of assessment of German adults aged between 18 and 43 years (N = 488). Utilizing a trait-state-occasion model, we separated trait-like aspects of well-being from occasion-specific deviations. Overall, our results confirmed our expectation that effects indeed run in both directions. The higher the reported load of work-related demands, the more respondents’ well-being negatively deviated from the stable trait-like level. Beyond that a higher trait-like level of well-being corresponded to a lower demand load. Both effects revealed almost equal strength and remained stable after controlling for participants’ employment status, family status, and educational attainment.     

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.     

Whatever Happened to Social Indicators in Africa? Whatever Happened Indeed! A Developing World Perspective on the Kenneth C. Land and Alex C. Michalos Report on ‘Fifty Years After the Social Indicators Movement’

Africa is a latecomer to the Social Indicators Movement. The first social indicators for Third World countries were developed by outsiders and covered almost exclusively topics related to basic needs and development. In response to Kenneth Land’s and Alex Michalos’ historical assessment and their agenda for future ‘social indicators/quality of life/well-being’ research, the commentary traces how South Africa and sub-Saharan countries—with a little help from many friends who are pioneers in the movement—have succeeded in developing their own home-grown social indicators movement. Addressing some of the themes outlined in the agenda that Land and Michalos set for future research, the commentary discusses the importance of monitoring social change occurring in African society in a ‘post-industrialized and much more globalized, and digitized-computerized-roboticized’ era: How will new values and norms impact on the quality of life of future generations of African people?     

Life satisfaction—Aspirations and alcohol use: A preliminary report

Significant differences have been found to exist among individuals with different drinking patterns with respect to past life satisfactions — five years ago (p < 0.001) and present satisfaction (p < 0.005); however, no significant difference in future aspirations could be identified. In addition, using an ‘unrealistic hopefulness’ coefficient, the authors found higher future aspirations levels than would be normally expected. Those individuals who drink more now than five years ago consistently show the lowest mean satisfaction scores on the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. Those whose drinking pattern remained stable over time consistently perceived themselves highest on the scale both five years ago and now, regardless of present drinking pattern. At the time this article was written Drs Levy and Bell and Ms Lin were with the University of Louisville, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. Dr Levy is now with the Sepulveda VA Hospital, LA, California. Reprints may be obtained through Dr Levy.     

Social indicators of living conditions in Ireland with European comparisons

This monograph presents data from a nationwide survey of social indicators of living conditions in Ireland. This survey was part of a European Community (EC)-harmonised survey of subjective social indicators carried out in eight EC countries. The survey, the first of two, focussed on people's perceptions of their health, health services, housing, neighbourhood and life in general. Extensive analysis is made of the demographic determinants of a wide range of subjective measures of well-being in all of these life domains. Examination is also made of the predictors of global measures of well-being. Data are presented for Ireland and multi-nation comparative data are also presented throughout. Emphasis is placed on the relationship between objective and subjective social indicators.     

Away from Dissatisfaction,Closer to Well-Being: A Multidimensional Synthetic Measure

As part of the international debate on methods for measuring the social progress of a population, there has been increasing interest in individual subjective opinions about different aspects of quality of life (elementary indicators). In the literature, many methods have been introduced for producing measures of subjective well-being based on these opinions. Some of these methods aim to construct synthetic measures that allow us to consider all the aspects simultaneously. This topic often requires subjective methodological choices and/or distributional assumptions and, when the opinions are encoded by means of categorical ordinal values, the eventual quantification of the original variables. Here, starting from the Istat multipurpose survey on households’—aspects of daily life, we propose an original method for constructing a global satisfaction index. We introduce a variable based on the joint distribution of all the elementary indicators that is able to express the individual degree of global satisfaction. This approach allows us to maintain the original ordinal data scale and to avoid any aggregation formula. By comparing the observed distribution of the new variable and the theoretical one, which refers to the situation of overall dissatisfaction (all individuals are dissatisfied for every aspect), we propose three indices of global satisfaction. We also implemented two simulation studies that confirms both the efficacy and robustness of our method. We then applied it to measure the global satisfaction degree of the Italian population, using Istat multipurpose survey data for the year 2013.     

Psychometric Properties of the Medical Outcome Study Social Support Survey with a General Population Sample of Undergraduate Students

Among non-clinical populations, perceived social support is an important factor in health maintenance and well-being. Among measures that purport to assess perceived social support, the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS) is based on a strong conceptual framework and has been subjected to a rigorous psychometric evaluation. Since no studies have investigated its psychometric properties with a young, non-clinical population, the purpose of this study is to investigate the psychometric properties (construct validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability) of an Italian version of the MOS-SSS with a non-clinical population sample. A convenience sample of 485 undergraduate students (73.0 % female; mean age = 21.81 ± 1.52) has been recruited. With regards to scale dimensionality, the best fit measurement model found support for the four subscales proposed by the original version: emotional and informational support, tangible support, positive social interactions, and affectionate support (χ ²/df = 4.49; CFI = .92; TLI = .91; RMSEA = .08). MOS-SSS subscales showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha for the subscales ranged from .848 to .939). Significant correlations were found with measures of psychological well-being (Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being) and depression (Beck-Depression Inventory-II). Test–retest stability was tested by examining a subsample (N = 225) over a 10-week period (correlation coefficients for the subscales ranged from .502 to .579). The findings suggest that MOS-SSS presents good psychometric characteristics with a young general population sample. Therefore, the MOS-SSS seems to be a psychometrically sound measure for the evaluation of perceived social support among young non-clinical populations.     

The Pre- and Post-1997 Well-Being of Hong Kong Residents

Since July 1997, Hong Kong has become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) under the sovereignty of China. This paper compares the social well-being of Hong Kong residents before and after the change of sovereignty by analyzing six sets of survey data collected between 1990 and 2001. These are six biennial territory wide Social Indicator Surveys conducted to collect subjective assessments of well-being of Hong Kong residents. Analysis of the survey data which are typically categorized subjective evaluations has to deal with the commonly encountered problems of ‘direct quantification’ (Schuessler and Fisher, 1985) and ‘incomplete data’ (Little R.J.A. and Rubin D.B., 2002, Statistical Analysis with Missing data (Wiley-Interscience, New Jersy). The problems are handled by applying ‘optimal scaling’ and ‘hot-deck imputation’ as recommended by Shen S.M. and Lai Y.L. (2001, Social Indicators Research 55, pp. 121-166). Different life domain measures as well as compound measures in the form of indices are studied. The data analysis indicates that the residents of Hong Kong were most satisfied in 1997 and least satisfied in 1995. It reveals that the sovereignty change had major impact on many life domains of the people of Hong Kong and the effect was compounded by the economic situation of the territory.