Happiness of the very wealthy

The subjective well-being of very wealthy persons was compared with that of a control group who lived in the same geographical area. One hundred persons from Forbes list of wealthiest Americans were queried, as well as 100 control persons selected from telephone directories. The 49 wealthy respondents reported average levels of subjective well-being which were higher than the 62 control group respondents and any subgroup of respondents in a national sample. However, there were unhappy wealthy people and the average level of this group was only modestly higher than for other groups. None of the respondents believed that money is a major source of happiness. When the major sources of happiness mentioned by the two groups were coded for Maslow's needs, it was found that the wealthy group more often mentioned self-esteem and self-actualization and less frequently mentioned physiological and security needs.     

Factors predicting satisfaction judgments: A comparative examination

A number of psychological processes (e.g. social comparison, aspirations) may explain why people differ in their satisfaction with various life domains. This study compared the impact of a number of such processes on satisfaction judgments in a sample of 149 college students. Social comparison and positive affect were strong predictors of satisfaction across most domains. Objective conditions and aspirations were predictive of satisfaction in few domains. The relevance of Multiple Discrepancies Theory (Michalos, 1983) for the present findings is discussed. Limitations of the present study are noted and suggestions for future research are offered. Researchers need to focus on the reasons underlying the predictability of different domains from different processes.     

Striving for the Sacred: Personal Goals, Life Meaning, and Religion

Religion invests human existence with meaning by establishing goals and value systems that potentially pertain to all aspects of a persons' life. A goals approach provides a general unifying framework to capture the dynamic aspect of religion in people's lives. Empirical research on the measurement of spirituality and religion through personal goals is described. To illustrate the application of the goals framework, data from the author's research program on personal goals and quality of life in persons with neuromuscular diseases are described. Framing subjective quality-of-life outcomes in terms of goals can lead to new possibilities for understanding adaptation to physical disabilities and in particular, the understanding of the religious and spiritual dimensions of disability and rehabilitation.     

Assertion Training in Marital Counseling

Assertive behavior training is an evolving technique of great value to the marriage counselor. In this paper "assertive" behavior is differentiated from "non-assertive" and "aggressive" behavior in the text and an explanatory table. Specific components of behavior are identified, and techniques for facilitating assertiveness in clients are described in the context of marital counseling. Beginning with an illustrative example, the paper presents a step-by-step summary of the process and rationale for utilizing assertion training in marital counseling     

Adherence and accuracy. Self-medication during inpatient psychiatric treatment.

1. The goals of the Medication Education and Self-Administration Program were to develop a way to assess inpatient self-medication accuracy; create a comprehensive intervention that would address individual characteristics that may produce nonadherence; and evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. 2. The majority of program participants demonstrated significant errors within days when given the opportunity to administer their own medications, suggesting that participants' in-hospital self-administration may be an accurate predictor of postdischarge performance. 3. Even in cases where training failed to influence self-administered performance, program participation provided valuable information that guided subsequent treatment decisions and programmatic refinements.     

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

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

Air Nicotine and Saliva Cotinine as Indicators of Workplace Passive Smoking Exposure and Risk1

We model nicotine from environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in office air and salivary cotinine in nonsmoking U.S. workers. We estimate that: an average salivary cotinine level of 0.4 ng/ml corresponds to an increased lifetime mortality risk of 1/1000 for lung cancer, and 1/100 for heart disease; >95% of ETS-exposed office workers exceed OSHA's significant risk level for heart disease mortality, and 60% exceed significant risk for lung cancer mortality; 4000 heart disease deaths and 400 lung cancer deaths occur annually among office workers from passive smoking in the workplace, at the current 28% prevalence of unrestricted smoking in the office workplace.