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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Validation of the Satisfaction with Life Scale to Brazilians: Evidences of Measurement Noninvariance Across Brazil and US

Satisfaction with life is one of three hallmarks of subjective well-being, along with frequent positive emotions and infrequent negative emotions (Diener et al. in Psychol Bull 125:276–302, 1999), and the satisfaction with life scale (SWLS; Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49:91–95, 1985) has been used worldwide to evaluate it. The current study seeks to (a) adapt and gather evidence of validity and reliability of the SWLS for a Brazilian sample, (b) evaluate gender equivalence on Brazilian university students, and (c) test for invariance between Brazilian and US samples. Participants were US (N = 241), and Brazilian (N = 1,388) undergraduates. Results from the Brazilian sample, based on confirmatory factor analyses and measurement invariance tests, showed: (a) evidence of validity of the scale, (b) scalar invariance across gender, (c) scalar invariance within group. However, nonequivalence between Brazil and US samples was found. Such results suggest that within comparisons can be conducted with Brazilian undergraduates, but comparisons between Brazil and the US might be misleading due to lack of invariance. Similar findings have already been reported in other cultures and raise questions about cross cultural studies with this scale.     

Socioeconomic Inequality and Life Satisfaction in Late Childhood and Adolescence: A Moderated Mediation Model

An increasing number of studies have established an association between socioeconomic inequality and life satisfaction, but the underlying mediating and moderating mechanisms of this association have not been fully identified. The present study investigated the effect of family socioeconomic status (SES) on life satisfaction in late childhood and adolescence; examined the mediating effect of optimism in the association between family SES and life satisfaction; and tested whether this mediating process varied across late childhood and adolescence. A sample of 552 Chinese children in late childhood (M _age = 10.73 years, SD = 0.96) and 637 Chinese adolescents (M _age = 14.71 years, SD = 1.60) was recruited to complete questionnaires regarding family SES, optimism, and life satisfaction. Results indicated that socioeconomic inequality was associated with life satisfaction in Chinese children and adolescents. Moreover, optimism partially mediated the relation between family SES and life satisfaction, and developmental period moderated this mediation effect. Specifically, the mediation effect was found in adolescence, but not in late childhood, indicating an adolescent-emergent model (Chen et al. in Psychol Bull 128(2):295–329, 2002; in Soc Sci Med 62(9):2161–2170, 2006). The meaning and implications of socioeconomic inequality in different development periods and applied considerations to improve life satisfaction in late childhood and adolescence are discussed.     

The causal relationship between female labor supply and fertility in the USA: updated evidence via a time series multi-horizon approach

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the causality between female labor supply and fertility in the presence of auxiliary variables such as education, female wages, and male relative cohort size. We employ annual time series data spanning the period 1948 to 2007 for both an aggregate and an age-specific group. Our econometric specification follows closely the concepts and procedures proposed by Dufour and Renault (Econometrica 66(5):1099–1125, 1998) and Dufour et al. (J Econom 132:337–362, 2006) in that we conduct multi-horizon causality tests that allow for direct and indirect effects to take place. The sign and economic importance of our results is assessed via the estimation of impulse response functions. Our results establish bidirectional indirect causality between female labor supply and fertility and suggest interesting causal chains among the system variables. Causality effects are stronger for the age-specific group.     

Does Weather Really Influence the Measurement of Life Satisfaction?

Since the beginning of the nineties, a number of studies indicate that weather conditions at interview day can have an effect on measurement, in particular regarding life satisfaction. In their seminal paper, Schwarz and Clore (J Pers Soc Psychol 45(3):513–523, 1983) show higher reported life satisfaction for sunny days, a finding which is replicated recently by Kämpfer and Mutz (Soc Indic Res 110(2):579–595, 2013). However, both studies are based on relatively small samples (from a few dozen up to 200 cases). We use data of the German Family Panel (pairfam) and local weather data for every respondent to investigate if weather effects on satisfaction measurement can be replicated with a large sample (about 7,000 respondents). In addition to cross-sectional analyses in which we follow closely the approach of Kämpfer and Mutz, we estimate fixed effects regressions to model the effect of weather on individual changes in satisfaction over time. We do neither find an effect of nice weather on the day of the interview on the respondents’ ratings of general life satisfaction nor a consistent effect on any of the other satisfaction measures. These results show that at least with simple weather measures as they have been used as yet a relationship between weather conditions at interview day and answering behavior regarding life satisfaction cannot be found.     

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.     

Parents Transmit Happiness Along with Associated Values and Behaviors to Their Children: A Lifelong Happiness Dividend?

There are strong two-way links between parent and child happiness (life satisfaction), even for ‘children’ who have grown up, moved to their own home and partnered themselves. German panel evidence shows that transmission of (un)happiness from parents to children is partly due to transmission of values and behaviors known to be associated with happiness (Headey et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 107(42):17922–17926, 2010, in Soc Indic Res doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0079-8,2012). These values and behaviors include giving priority to pro-social and family values, rather than material values, maintaining a preferred balance between work and leisure, active social and community participation, and regular exercise. Both parents have about equal influence on the values and behaviors which children adopt. However, the life satisfaction of adult ‘children’ continues to be directly influenced by the life satisfaction of their mothers, with the influence of fathers being only indirect, via transmission of values and behaviors. There appears to be a lifelong happiness dividend (or unhappiness dividend) due to parenting. Structural equation models with two-way causation indicate that the life satisfaction of offspring can significantly affect the satisfaction of their parents, as well as vice versa, long after the ‘children’ have left home. Data come from 25 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP 1984–2008). SOEP is the only panel survey worldwide in which data on life satisfaction have been obtained from parents and an adequate sub-sample of children no longer living in the parental home.     

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.     

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.     

Gender and Psychological Correlates of Self-rated Strengths Among Youth

Research on virtues and character strengths has increased over the last decade. A total of 283 young participants from Portugal completed a measure of character strengths (Furnham and Lester in Eur J Psychol Assess 28:95–101, 2012) grounded on the values in action inventory of strengths (Peterson and Seligman in Character strengths and virtues: a handbook of classification, APA Press, Washington, DC, 2004). Participants also completed well-being measures, and a Big Five personality trait measure. The study examined the factor structure of self-assessed character strengths as well as demographic (particularly gender), well-being and personality correlates of the virtues which are the “higher order” classification of the strengths. Our results provided evidence for a four-dimensional model, though somewhat different from the theoretical formulation. Females typically scored higher on character strengths than males. Regressions investigating demographic, well-being and personality determinants of these strengths evidenced personality factors (particularly openness and agreeableness) were always most powerful predictors of the self-reported strengths than demographic and well-being measures. Limitations of the research are discussed and directions for future investigation are suggested.     

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.     

Psychometric Evaluation of a Serbian Version of the Subjective Happiness Scale

The main aim of this research was to examine the psychometric properties of the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; Lyubomirsky and Lepper in Soc Indic Res 46:137–155, 1999) in a sample of young adults in Serbia (N = 605, mean age = 21.99). The SHS demonstrated adequate internal consistency reliability and homogeneity. Exploratory and Confirmatory factor analyses supported the unidimensional structure of the SHS. The results provided support for the convergent validity of the SHS, by significant correlations with measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, emotional distress), positive expectations (optimism and self-efficacy), meaning in life and personality traits (extraversion and neuroticism). As compared to the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the SHS showed significantly higher correlations with measures of emotional states and personality traits. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the SHS had incremental validity over and above subjective well-being and personality traits in predicting emotional distress and meaning in life.     

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.     

A New Framework of Happiness Survey and Evaluation of National Wellbeing

Happiness surveys based on self-reporting may generate unreliable data due to respondents?? imperfect retrospection, vulnerability to context and arbitrariness in measuring happiness. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes to combine a happiness evaluation method developed by Ng (Soc Indic Res, 38:1?C29, 1996) with the day reconstruction method developed by Kahneman et al. (Science 306:1776?C1780, 2004a) to form a new happiness survey procedure. Distinguished from other surveys that ask respondents to rate their subjective wellbeing on a given scale, this happiness evaluation method provides detailed instructions to help each respondent determine a personal unit and use this unit to measure happiness in various occasions. While the day reconstruction method helps avoid the effects of imperfect retrospection and external disturbances, this new procedure can further reduce arbitrariness in self-reported measures and derive more accurate, intertemporally and interpersonally comparable happiness metrics. How to evaluate national wellbeing based on the data collected from such a survey is also demonstrated.     

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.