Appraisal of Lifecolon; ``Area' Versus ``Dimension' Conceptualizations

The aim of the present work was to study the relationship between theresponses given by participants from various age groups and situations toa life appraisal questionnaire constructed from an area (work, spouse,family, friends) x dimension (acceptance, autonomy, mastery, purpose)matrix. When subjected to confirmatory factor analyses, the response datawere more supportive of an ``area' model than of a ``dimension' model. Whensubjected to an exploratory factor analysis, they revealed a seven-factorunderlying structure, which was more easily interpreted in terms of areasthan in terms of dimensions, and the effects of age and gender on thesefactors were the expected ones. When this seven-factor structure waslinked to a global measure of well-being, only factors with a clear ``area'definition could explain a significant part of the variance. These factorswere Love life, Family life, Leisure, and Occupational Life.