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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Life Satisfaction and Income Comparison Effects in Turkey

This paper evaluates the relative impact of different types of benchmarks such as internal and external comparisons on subjective well-being in Turkey. There are few studies on life satisfaction for Turkey and they mostly focus on the impact of socio-demographic effects on subjective well-being. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate how reference group’s self-reported life satisfaction is related to the level of consumption; as well as the level of internal and external comparisons and other socio-economic factors. The paper relies on the Life in Transition Survey (EBRD 2011), a survey conducted in late 2010 jointly by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank. The survey includes 1,003 observations for Turkey. The emphasis of the paper is based on the concept of income comparisons—both to others in the relevant reference group and to oneself in the past (evaluation) and future (expectation). The main findings are; in addition to household consumption, internal and external comparisons have significant impact on life satisfaction. The impact of comparisons is asymmetric: in most cases under-performing one’s benchmark has a greater effect than out-performing it.     

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.     

Subjective Wellbeing: Telling Only Half the Story

A new paper presents a strong case for life satisfaction scales (Diener et al. in Soc Indic Res, 2012). However, it underestimates two important weaknesses in subjective wellbeing (SWB) measures: the contrast between individual satisfaction and social discontent; and the contradictory evidence on the benefits of personal freedom. This commentary argues that SWB, like other conventional indicators, is measuring Westernization or modernization, rather than improved quality of life or human progress and development. The concepts may overlap, but they are not the same thing. At best, the qualities being measured may be desirable, even necessary, but are not sufficient. At worst, the benefits of modernization are being counted, but not its costs, which are substantial and increasing.     

The Subjective Well-being of Adolescents from Two Different Cultures: Applying Three Versions of the PWI in Algeria and Spain

This paper analyses the crosscultural comparability of well-being among 13–20 year-old adolescents using two samples, one from Oran County (Wilaya) in Algeria and another from Catalonia (Spain). The following are used as well-being indicators: a modified version of the original Personal Well-being Index (PWI) (Cummins et al. in Soc Indicat Res 64:159–190, 2003b), a single-item scale on overall life satisfaction (OLS) and a list of complementary items on satisfaction with various life domains. This research tests the original version of the PWI with some changes and two other versions with additional items. Confirmatory factor analyses show good fit statistics for the three versions with the pooled sample of adolescents from the two countries. The multigroup models show that correlations and regressions may be compared between the two samples, but not means, probably due to different cultural response styles among adolescents in the two countries. Structural equation models including OLS also show good fit statistics. When gender and age are included in these models, the former does not show any correlation with PWI11 in either of the two countries, whereas age shows a clearly negative correlation in both. A new version of the PWI with 11 items has shown higher standardized regression coefficients when the items are regressed on OLS and higher R² and each of the items has shown to contribute with unique explained variance using the pooled sample, although 3 of the original scale items do not show a significant contribution in Algeria. The fact that a multigroup model using this 11-item version shows good fit with constrained loadings when comparing samples from such different cultural and linguistic contexts as Catalonia and Algeria offers new opportunities for international comparative research of adolescents’ subjective well-being.     

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.     

Evaluating the Link Between Perceived Income Adequacy and Financial Satisfaction: A Resource Deficit Hypothesis Approach

Data from an economically and racially diverse sample (N = 258) was used to determine (a) if an association between objectively measured income and perceived income adequacy exists, (b) how well individuals assess the adequacy of their income, and (c) if a bias exists, can these estimates be used to describe a person’s overall level of financial satisfaction? Duesenberry’s (Income, saving, and the theory of consumer behavior. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1949) relative income hypothesis and Kyrk’s (The family in the American economy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1953) resource deficit hypothesis were adopted for use as the conceptual framework for this study. A positive but modest association between objective and perceived income adequacy was noted. It was also found that individuals do not do a particularly good job of accurately assessing their income adequacy. Finally, perceived income adequacy estimation bias was found to be associated with financial satisfaction. Those who perceived their income to be deficient were less satisfied financially. Policy and practitioner implications from the study are discussed as a means for improving financial satisfaction at the individual and household level.     

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.     

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.     

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.