Personality Traits and Subjective Well-Being: Moderating Role of Optimism in University Employees

The present study examined the moderating impact of optimism on the relationship between personality traits (neuroticism and conscientiousness) and subjective well-being (distress and satisfaction with life) among university employees. Participants were 251 (age 25–60) employees at COMSATS University, who completed demographic information sheet, two subscales (neuroticism and conscientiousness) of NEO Personality Inventory (Costa et al. in Br J Psychol 78:299–306, 1987), Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 67:1063–1078, 1994), Satisfaction with Life Scale (Dienere et al. in J Persy Assess 49:71–75, 1985), and two subscales (depression and anxiety) of Brief Symptom Inventory (Derogatis and Melisaratos in Psychol Med 13:595–605, 1983). On a final sample of 251 university employees, a series of moderated hierarchical regression analyses were performed separately for positive and negative health outcomes. Results indicated that optimism moderated between neuroticism and distress and neuroticism and satisfaction with life. Further, optimism moderated between conscientiousness and distress and conscientiousness and satisfaction with life. The current findings have implications for clinicians, researchers, and policy makers for the identification of resource factors that may help to understand the resistant power of non clinical sample to maintain positive functioning.     

Testing a New Operationalization of the Basic Values on Estonian- and Russian-speaking Subpopulations in Estonia

The theory of basic human value developed by Shalom Schwartz has held a dominant place in the field of value studies for at least two decades. Despite of some modest adaptations, the theory has maintained its original form. Still, an increasing number of critical discussions have recently been published throwing doubt upon universality of its inner structure (e.g. Mohler and Wohn in Persönliche Wertorientierungen im European Social Survey, ZUMA-Arbeitsbericht, 2005; Clercq 2006; Perrinjaquet et al. in J Res Pers 41:820–840, 2007; Davidov and Schmidt in Measuring meaningful data in social research, Acco, Leuven, pp 373–386, 2007; Davidov et al. in Public Opin Quart 72:420–445, 2008; Davidov in Surv Res Methods 2:33–46, 2008; Knoppen and Saris in Surv Res Methods 3:91–103, 2009a; Knoppen and Saris 2009b; Fischer et al. in J Cross Cult Psychol 41:135–151, 2010). Most of these studies have proposed that the shortcomings of that model can be improved through unification of some adjacent value types (e.g. Davidov and Schmidt in Measuring meaningful data in social research, Acco, Leuven, pp 373–386, 2007; Davidov et al. in Public Opin Quart 72:420–445, 2008; Davidov in Surv Res Methods 2:33–46, 2008). However, Knoppen and Saris (Surv Res Methods 3:91–103, 2009a; Knoppen and Saris 2009b) have showed that the given grouping of factors was a consequence of misspecifications in the model and proposed an alternative structure with 19 value types, which has been largely confirmed by several recent papers (Cieciuch and Schwartz in J Pers Assess 94:321–328, 2012; Beierlein et al. in Surv Res Methods 6:25–36, 2012). Current study will also test the new model, but contrarily to cited papers, a representative national sample is used, which raises the robustness of findings. The data is from Estonia and collected in late 2008. Due to the existence of large ethnic minority in Estonian society, the sample allows additionally testing the equivalence of the measurement in the two subpopulations. This study shows that the alternative value-structure, proposed by Knoppen and Saris, applies well to the representative Estonian data.     

Socioeconomic Status,Income Inequality,and Health Complaints: A Basic Psychological Needs Perspective

Socioeconomic status (SES) and income inequality are now recognized as important determinants of health, and there is growing interest in uncovering the intermediary psychosocial pathways through which the socioeconomic context affects physical well-being (Marmot in The status syndrome: how social standing affects our health and longevity, Henry Holt, New York, 2004; Wilkinson and Pickett in The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better, Allen Lane, London, 2009). We adopted the applied framework of self-determination theory (SDT; Deci and Ryan in Psychol Inq 11:227–268, 2000) and hypothesized that fulfillment of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness would mediate the relationships that SES and income inequality have to self-rated health. An online community sample of American participants (N = 1,139) completed a detailed demographic survey and provided self-reports of need fulfillment and health complaints. Structural equation models controlled for impression management and self-deceptive enhancement. Controlling for sex and age, need fulfillment was predicted positively by subjective SES and objective household income and negatively by state-level income inequality; in turn, need fulfillment predicted lower levels of health complaints. These findings suggest that SDT provides a useful framework for the study of SES, income inequality, and health, and that basic psychological needs are an important mechanism through which socioeconomic contexts influence health.     

Richer in Money, Poorer in Relationships and Unhappy? Time Series Comparisons of Social Capital and Well-Being in Luxembourg

The worrying decline of social capital (Putnam in Bowling alone: the collapse and revival of American community. Simon and Schuster, New York, 2000) and the disappointing trends of subjective well-being characterising the US (Easterlin in Nations and households in economic growth. Academic Press, New York, 1974; Easterlin and Angelescu in Happiness and growth the world over: time series evidence on the happiness-income paradox, 2009; Easterlin et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 107:22463–22468, 2010) raise urgent questions for modern societies: is the erosion of social capital a feature of the more developed and richer countries or is it rather a characteristic aspect of the American society? To test the hypothesis that the erosion of social capital and declining well-being are not a common feature of richer countries, present work focuses on Luxembourg. The main results are: (1) the erosion of social capital is not a legacy of the richest countries in the world; (2) between 1999 and 2008, people in Luxembourg experienced a substantial increase in almost every proxy of social capital; (3) both endowments and trends of social capital and subjective well-being differ significantly within the population. Migrants participate less in social relationships and report lower levels of well-being; (4) the positive relationship between trends of subjective well-being and social capital found in previous literature is confirmed.     

On the ‘Urbanness’ of Metropolitan Areas: Testing the Homogeneity Assumption, 1970–2000

In recent decades, population dynamics, have made definitions of what localities are rural or urban somewhat unclear. The vast majority of demographic work has simply used metropolitan classifications with various forms of a non-metropolitan residual (e.g., adjacent to metro versus non-adjacent). The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) periodically redefines metropolitan areas, which makes temporal comparisons difficult. In fact, some demographers have offered the idea that, due to these shifting reclassifications, the so-called “rural rebound” is a misnomer, in that non-metropolitan counties that transitioned to metropolitan status were, in fact, already more ‘urban’ than those that did not become reclassified as metropolitan (Johnson et al 2005). This argument depends largely on the assumption of homogeneity in rural or urban ‘character’ in those counties. Following arguments by others (Wilkinson 1991; Isserman 2001; Bogue 1950), we take population and land use into account to examine whether these transitional counties were more or less urban than comparable others, all at the county level for the contiguous 48 states for 1970–2000. Our results show that adjacent non-metropolitan counties that were later reclassified as metropolitan were indeed characterized by a larger population and heavier urban land cover than those not making this transition. However, the results also show that metropolitan areas were also quite heterogeneous in terms of traditionally rural activities. A discussion of the homogeneity assumption in demographers’ conceptualization of metropolitan areas is included.     

Income Inequality Indices Interpreted as Measures of Relative Deprivation/Satisfaction

This paper considers different ways of making comparisons between individuals in terms of deprivation and/or satisfaction. This allows the Gini index, the Bonferroni index and the De Vergottini index to be interpreted as social deprivation measures as well as social satisfaction measures. The inequality measures that belong to the ?? family, or linear combinations of them, are obtained when using different weighting schemes to average the deprivation and satisfaction associated with each income level. Particularly, the generalised Gini indices (Yitzhaki, Int Econ Rev 24:617?C628 in 1983), the indices proposed by Aaberge (J Econ Inequal 5(3):305?C322, 2007) or those proposed by Imedio-Olmedo et al. (J Public Econ Theory 13(1):97?C124, 2011) can be used to evaluate social deprivation or social satisfaction in an income distribution.     

How Cognitive Interviewing can Provide Validity Evidence of the Response Processes to Scale Items

The current theory about validity reflected in the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (AERA et al. in Standards for educational and psychological testing, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC, 1999), offers no clear indications about the methods for gathering validity evidence about the response processes. Cognitive interviewing (CI) can play an important role answering the current demand about empirical and theoretical analyses of the response processes as a source of validity evidence in psychological testing. CI can provide validity evidence for investigating substantive aspects of construct validity and for contributing to the explanations for item and test scores (Zumbo in Handbook of statistics, vol 26, Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 45–79, 2007; The concept of validity: revisions, new directions and applications, IAP—Information Age Publishing Inc., Charlotte, NC, pp. 65–82, 2009). The aim of the study was to illustrate the use of cognitive interviewing method for gathering validity evidence on response processes. The search for evidence about the “response process” was guided by an argument-based approach to validity (Kane in Psychological Bulletin 1992; Educational measurement, American Council on Education/Praeger, Washington, DC, pp. 17–64, 2006). 21 cognitive interviews were carried out during the cognitive testing of the APGAR psychological scale intended to measure the “family support” construct. Cognitive interviewing provided validity evidence that explains how respondents interpret and respond to the APGAR items. Respondents maintained a shared interpretation of “family concept” while answering the APGAR scale items. Nevertheless, they included in the concept of family not only family members they live with but also other family members and even friends. CI participants were also capable of classifying their answers about the family support perception following a polythomous response system. Lastly, the role of CI in the Kane’s argument-based approach and Zumbo’s contextualized view of validity will be discussed.     

Choices Which Change Life Satisfaction: Similar Results for Australia, Britain and Germany

Using data from national socio-economic panel surveys in Australia, Britain and Germany, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that, in all three countries, preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner’s personality, hours of work, social participation and healthy lifestyle have substantial and similar effects on life satisfaction. The results have negative implications for a widely accepted theory of SWB, set-point theory. This theory holds that adult SWB is stable in the medium and long term, although temporary fluctuations occur due to life events. Set-point theory has come under increasing criticism in recent years, primarily due to unmistakable evidence in the German Socio-Economic Panel that, during the last 25 years, over a third of the population has recorded substantial and apparently permanent changes in life satisfaction (Fujita and Diener in J Pers Soc Psychol 88:158–64, 2005; Headey in Soc Indic Res 85:389–403, 2008a; Headey et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(42):17922–17926, 2010). It is becoming clear that the main challenge now for SWB researchers is to develop new explanations which can account for medium and long term change, and not merely stability in SWB. Set-point theory is limited precisely because it is purely a theory of stability. The paper is based on specially constructed panel survey files in which data are divided into multi-year periods in order to facilitate analysis of medium and long term change.     

Validating the Portuguese Version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale in an Elderly Sample

Life satisfaction is referred to a cognitive, judgmental process (Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:71–75, 1985), in which person’s quality of life is globally assessed according to his/her chosen criteria (Shin and Johnson in Soc Indic res 5:475–492, 1978). Thus, life satisfaction is a conscious cognitive judgment, based on the comparison of one’s life with a self-imposed standard or set of standards, which lead to a global assessment of life (Pavot and Diener in Psychol Assess 5:164–172, 1993). Among the many scales developed to measure life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS, Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:71–75, 1985) is one of the global life satisfaction scales more often used in the research arena. It is composed of five items assessing global life satisfaction, using a Likert type response format. The aim of this paper is to validate the Portuguese version of the SWLS via confirmatory factor analysis, with a sample of 1,003 elderly from Angola. Reliability, factorial and criterial validity estimates are presented. Overall, the results shown that the scale had an adequate one-factor confirmatory solution, satisfying reliability indices, and adequate criterion-related validity when assessed in a sample of Angolan elderly. The discussion relates the results with existing literature and posits the contributions of the paper: firstly, it offers the researchers on life satisfaction in Portuguese-speaking contexts a brief, self-rated measure of satisfaction with life that has sound psychometric properties, validity, and reliability; secondly, it is the first confirmatory validation of the scale in Portuguese.     

The Dual-Factor Model of Mental Health: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study of School-Related Outcomes

The Dual-Factor Model of Mental Health, proposed by Greenspoon and Sasklofske (Soc Indic Res 54:81–108, 2001), suggested that student mental health should be assessed on a dimension of psychopathology as well as a dimension of subjective well-being (SWB). Greenspoon and Sasklofske (Soc Indic Res 54:81–108, 2001) argued that measuring both psychopathology and SWB allow mental health professionals to have a more complete understanding of the child’s psychological health. The present exploratory study provided a further evaluation of the usefulness of the Dual-Factor model in understanding adolescents’ SWB using both person-centered and variable-centered analyses. Using person-centered analyses, we explored whether group membership revealed differential changes in middle school students’ GPAs as well as emotional, cognitive, and behavioral engagement across a 5-month time period. Furthermore, we used variable-centered analyses to examine whether middle school students’ levels of SWB at Time 1 predicted changes in our criterion variables. Specifically, we assessed whether SWB at Time 1 predicted student school engagement and GPA at Time 2 above and beyond their levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors at Time 1, levels of student engagement and grades at Time 1, and demographic variables. Results of the person-centered analyses found statistically significant differences across the four groups identified in the Dual-Factor Model for emotional, cognitive and behavioral engagement as well as GPA. The results from the variable-centered analyses suggest subjective well-being to be a significant predictor of emotional, cognitive and behavioral engagement beyond measures of psychopathology. These results provide additional support for use of the Dual-Factor Model.     

Point and interval forecasts of age-specific fertility rates: a comparison of functional principal component methods

Accurate forecasts of age-specific fertility rates are critical for government policy, planning and decision making. With the availability of the Human Fertility Database (2011), the paper compares the empirical accuracy of the point and interval forecasts, obtained by the approach of Hyndman and Ullah (Comput Stat Data Anal 51(10), 4942?C4956, 2007) and its variants for forecasting age-specific fertility rates. The analyses are carried out using the age-specific fertility data of 15 mostly developed countries. Based on the one-step-ahead to 20-step-ahead forecast error measures, the weighted Hyndman-Ullah method provides the most accurate point and interval forecasts for forecasting age-specific fertility rates, among all the methods we investigated.     

Measuring Dimensions of Perceived Discrimination in Five Stigmatized Groups

The purpose of this investigation was to design and validate a multidimensional scale with the potential to measure perceived discrimination in different stigmatized groups. The study was carried out in Spain with a sample of 1,016 participants belonging to five stigmatized groups: Latin American immigrants, Romanian immigrants, people with HIV, gays and lesbians. Confirmatory factor analysis validated the existence of four dimensions in the scale: blatant group discrimination, subtle group discrimination, blatant individual discrimination, and subtle individual discrimination. In accordance with the literature, the scale presents positive relations with the stigma consciousness scale (Pinel in J Pers Soc Psychol 76:114–128, 1999) and negative relations with two measures of psychological well-being, affect balance and self-acceptance. Likewise, the results indicate that the perception of subtle individual discrimination is more negatively associated with participants’ psychological well-being.     

Psychometric Properties of the Flourishing Scale in a New Zealand Sample

The Flourishing Scale (FS; Diener et al. in Soc Indic Res 97(2):143–156, 2010) was developed to assess psychological flourishing, which can be conceived of as a social-psychological prosperity incorporating important aspects of human functioning. This study takes the FS, which has previously been validated on convenience samples of students, and analyses the underlying structure, psychometric properties, and demographic norms using nationally-representative data from New Zealand’s Sovereign Wellbeing Index (n = 10,009; Human Potential Centre in Sovereign Wellbeing Index: New Zealand’s first measure of wellbeing. Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, 2013). Evidence for the reliability and validity of the FS is presented (Cronbach alpha) and its performance compared to other related scales and behaviors. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated the one factor structure of the 8-item FS. Contemporary population norms for the FS are reported, providing a much-needed benchmark for estimation of population health and permitting cross-study and international comparisons. The study provides further evidence that the FS is a valid and reliable brief summary measure of psychological functioning, suited for use with a wide range of age groups and applications.     

Detecting Unobserved Heterogeneity in the Relationship Between Subjective Well-Being and Satisfaction in Various Domains of Life Using the REBUS-PLS Path Modelling Approach: A Case Study

In this article, we propose a model to estimate the direct and indirect effects of the relationship between subjective well-being and satisfaction in various domains of life using a partial least squares path modelling approach in a structural equation model framework. A drawback of these models is that they assume homogeneous behaviour over the observed set of units. To address this issue, Trinchera (Ph.D. thesis, University of Naples, 2007) and Esposito Vinzi et al. (Appl Stoch Models Bus Ind 28:439–458, 2008) proposed an algorithm, called the response-based unit segmentation in partial least squares (REBUS-PLS) path modelling, to detect sources of heterogeneity in both measurement and structural models. The REBUS-PLS allows researchers to identify classes of units with similar behaviours (with respect to the postulated model) and to estimate one model for each identified class (so-called ‘local models’). Applying the REBUS-PLS algorithm to our case study, we detected three main classes of units with similar behaviours and estimated three local models. We found, for example, that in the estimated model for the entire sample, the relationship between satisfaction with family and social life and subjective well-being is statistically significant. However, this result was not confirmed in all of the estimated local models.     

Social Correlates of Psychological Well-Being Among Undergraduate Students in Mysore City

This study explores the impacts of social factors on psychological well-being mainly, gender, educational levels of parents, family income, occupation of parents, and family relationships. The research methodology I employed was guided by random sampling techniques; I selected two hundred eighty students, between the ages of, 19 and 22, from both genders, and different socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. These students were selected from a total of 8 governmental and private colleges in Mysore. I prepared a structured questionnaire for gathering the demographic information and assessing relevant social factors. To measure psychological well-being, I administered Ryff’s psychological well-being scales (Ryff in J Pers Soc Psychol 57(6):1069–1081, 1989). I used frequencies, distribution, and contingency coefficient to describe the variables such as, age, gender, education, religion, income, occupation and their association with type of colleges The data were statistically tested through a one way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Post Hoc Test (Duncan’s Multiple Range Test) and a t test using (SPSS, version 16). The findings of this quantitative study reveal that there were no gender differences in relation to psychological well-being of students. Educational levels of parents, occupation, income, and family relationships impact students’ psychological well-being. This study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, my work explores multiple social factors in tandem, instead of focusing on one social factor. Second, the current study probes into better understanding of the sociological issues that are related to characteristics of psychological well-being, particularly that of young college -age women and men. This research is supported by previous studies related to the psychological well-being.     

Towards International and Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration for the Measurements of Quality of Life

This paper focuses on three main subjects: (1) monitoring quality of life (QoL) in old age; (2) international and interdisciplinary collaboration for QoL research; and (3) computer-based technology and infrastructure assisting (1) and (2). This type of computer-supported cooperative work in the social sciences has been termed eHumanities or eSocial Science. Although QoL issues matter for all ages, given the size of population aging and the demographic outlook of developed countries, QoL in old age is one of the most pressing issues to study (Walker and Mollenkopf in Quality of life in old age: international and multi-disciplinary perspectives, Springer, The Netherlands, 2007). Despite the recognized need for good measurement methods in QoL (e.g., Stiglitz et al. in The measurement of economic performance and social progress revisited. progress revisited. OFCE working documents, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE), Paris, 2009), effective mechanisms allowing cross-country comparisons are still rare. In the context of QoL or human well-being research and measurement, one of the most influential concepts is the capability approach (CA). Yet, the operationalization of the CA has long been one of the serious challenges faced by capabilities and quality of life researchers. As regards to this issue, we argue that modern technology has the potential to provide ample tools for enhancing the measurement of human well-being, and facilitating large-scale collaborative research on the QoL. This paper demonstrates a methodology, procedures, and tools that we have developed, based on the new technologies designed and developed for both governmental and intergovernmental (OECD) sponsored assessments and that are ready to be used for QoL analysis. We propose a viable alternative for facilitating international and interdisciplinary research collaboration to develop a methodology and a dashboard of indicators to monitor the progress of human well-being over the years and to formalize its multidimensional measure for international comparisons.     

Life Shocks and Homelessness

We exploited an exogenous health shock—namely, the birth of a child with a severe health condition—to investigate the effect of a life shock on homelessness in large cities in the United States as well as the interactive effects of the shock with housing market characteristics. We considered a traditional measure of homelessness, two measures of housing instability thought to be precursors to homelessness, and a combined measure that approximates the broadened conceptualization of homelessness under the 2009 Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act (2010). We found that the shock substantially increases the likelihood of family homelessness, particularly in cities with high housing costs. The findings are consistent with the economic theory of homelessness, which posits that homelessness results from a conjunction of adverse circumstances in which housing markets and individual characteristics collide.     

Climbing up the Social Ladders: Identity, Relative Income, and Subjective Well-being

This study incorporates the concept of identity to explain the relationship between relative income and subjective well-being. Based upon the theoretical framework of an identity model developed by Akerlof and Kranton Q J Econ 115:715–753, (2000), the empirical findings of this study suggest that an increase in relative income leads to a gain in positional identity and therefore raises the level of subjective well-being. This approach extends our understanding about the connection between positional concern and subjective well-being and explains the importance of social comparison in shaping individuals’ preferences and tastes. People are concerned about their relative income as it represents a positional identity of social status, dependent upon ideals and norms derived from the interactions between an individual and others within a society.     

Monitoring Human Development Goals: A Straightforward (Bayesian) Methodology for Cross-National Indices

We offer a straightforward framework for measurement of progress, across many dimensions, using cross-national social indices, which we classify as linear combinations of multivariate country level data onto a univariate score. We suggest a Bayesian approach which yields probabilistic (confidence type) intervals for the point estimates of country scores—a vital, and often missing, feature in cross-national comparisons. We demonstrate our approach using the United Nations Development Programme’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), via the Maternal and Neonatal Program Effort Index (MNPI) data (Ross et al. in Trop Med Inter Health 6(10):787–798, 2001), and Human Development Index (HDI) (2010) as examples.