The Top-Down/Bottom-Up Controversy from a Constructionist Approach. A Method for Measuring Top-Down Effects Applied to a Sample of Older People

Two different theories, called bottom-up and top-down, were developed to understand the determinants of an individual's satisfaction. Experimental studies didn't provide unanimous results, and confirmed, to different extents, both theories. Aside from these classic theories, a constructionist approach was developed. The purposes of this study were to examine the top-down/bottom-up controversy from a constructionist point of view and to obtain a new method for measuring the top-down effects in different satisfaction judgements. In this approach, an individual's satisfaction is viewed as constructions, evoked by the specific question in its particular context, and made by people using cognitive strategies. This view implies that the correlation between satisfaction judgements may reflect the use of the same strategies, rather than a causal effect. From this point of view, the top-down and bottom-up effects, described by the classic theories, cannot be seen as a pattern of causal links among satisfaction domains; therefore we propose a reinterpretation of these concepts in which they refer to ways used by people to construct their satisfaction judgements. On these grounds, we developed a method to extract the weight of top-down effects from correlation coefficients between satisfaction judgements. Two hypotheses concerning the different weight of top-down processes in the different satisfaction judgements were subsequently developed.These propositions were tested using the data set of 'Outdoor Mobility Survey' which was carried out in Italy on a sample of 600 people, 55--95 years of age, stratified by sex and age. We found different top-down effects in satisfaction judgements that confirm our hypothesis, even if some aspects need further investigation.     

Subjective Well-Being: The Constructionist Point of View. A Longitudinal Study to Verify The Predictive Power of Top-Down Effects and Bottom-Up Processes

Based on the constructionist point of view applied to Subjective Well-Being (SWB), five hypotheses were advanced about the predictive power of the top-down effects and bottom-up processes over a five years period. The sample consisted of 297 respondents, which represent the Italian sample of a European longitudinal survey; the first phase was conducted in 1995 and the follow-up in 2000. Satisfaction judgments were collected on Overall Life Satisfaction (OLS) and on seven Life Facet Satisfaction (LFS) domains. The top-down effects were measured using a method derived from the constructionist point of view. Life conditions, which represent the bottom-up processes, were gathered by structured questionnaire and were optimized by a factor analyses. A stepwise regression was performed in each satisfaction judgment to test the five hypotheses, which were confirmedwith only few exceptions. The results revealed that the top-down effects were a significant predictor in all satisfaction judgments, especially in OLS, where it was the strongest predictor. Life conditions (bottom-up factors) were less strong predictors than the top-down effects, but they became strong predictors if they were gathered at the same time as satisfaction judgments.