Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 18 of 18
Full-Text Articles in Social Psychology
Assessing Subjective Well-Being: A Review Of Common Measures, William Tov, Jun Sheng Keh, Yan Qiang Tan, Qin Ying Joanne Tan, Indra Alam Syah Bin Aziz
Assessing Subjective Well-Being: A Review Of Common Measures, William Tov, Jun Sheng Keh, Yan Qiang Tan, Qin Ying Joanne Tan, Indra Alam Syah Bin Aziz
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Subjective well-being (SWB) consists of affective components (frequent positive feelings, infrequent negative feelings) and cognitive components (evaluations of life and judgments of satisfaction). We review four commonly used measures of SWB: the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Cantril’s ladder, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and the Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE). We conducted a meta-analysis of the reliability and validity of each measure based on studies published from 1999 to 2019. The SWLS, PANAS, and SPANE generally exhibit acceptable levels of reliability (alphas > .80) across most samples, time frame instructions, and age groups. All measures were …
Helping-Seeking Tendencies And Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of The United States And Japan, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Nadyannam N. Majeed, Andree Hartanto, Angela K. Y. Leung
Helping-Seeking Tendencies And Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of The United States And Japan, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Nadyannam N. Majeed, Andree Hartanto, Angela K. Y. Leung
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Help-seeking is commonly conceived as an instrumental behavior that improves people’s subjective well-being. However, most findings supporting a positive association between help-seeking and subjective well-being are observed in independence-preferring countries. Drawing from research demonstrating that the pathways to subjective well-being are culturally divergent, we posit that help-seeking tendencies may be detrimental to subjective well-being for members in interdependence-preferring countries where norms for preserving relational harmony and face concerns are prevalent. This study tested the moderating role of country in the relationship between help-seeking tendencies and subjective well-being using data from 5,068 American and Japanese participants. Results revealed that although help-seeking …
Coping Strategies Mediate The Relation Between Executive Functions And Life Satisfaction In Middle And Late Adulthood: A Structural Equational Analysis, Hui Si Oh, Hwajin Yang
Coping Strategies Mediate The Relation Between Executive Functions And Life Satisfaction In Middle And Late Adulthood: A Structural Equational Analysis, Hui Si Oh, Hwajin Yang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Recent studies have suggested that executive functions (EF) predict life satisfaction for older adults. However, the mechanism is not known. By analyzing a sample (N = 3,287, ages 32- 84 years) from the Midlife Development in the United States 2, we examined the mediational role of coping strategies in the relation between EF and life satisfaction. Both active coping and behavioral disengagement mediated the relation between EF and life satisfaction, and age significantly moderated the mediational pathways. Specifically, the positive effect of EF on active coping was more pronounced in middle-aged and older adults than in young adults. However, the …
The Association Between Objective And Subjective Socioeconomic Standing And Subjective Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Michael W. Kraus, Nichelle C. Carpenter, Nancy E. Adler
The Association Between Objective And Subjective Socioeconomic Standing And Subjective Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Michael W. Kraus, Nichelle C. Carpenter, Nancy E. Adler
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This meta-analysis tested if the links between socioeconomic status (SES) and subjective well-being (SWB) differ by whether SES is assessed objectively or subjectively. The associations between measures of objective SES (i.e., income and educational attainment), subjective SES (i.e., the MacArthur ladder SES and perceived SES), and SWB (i.e., happiness and life satisfaction) were synthesized across 357 studies, totaling 2,352,095 participants. Overall, the objective SES and subjective SES measures were moderately associated (r = .32). The subjective SES-SWB association (r = .22) was larger than the objective SES-SWB association (r = .16). The income-SWB association (r = .23) was comparable with …
Partner Commitment In Close Relationships Mitigates Social-Class Differences In Subjective Well-Being, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Michael W. Kraus, Emily A. Impett, Dacher Keltner
Partner Commitment In Close Relationships Mitigates Social-Class Differences In Subjective Well-Being, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Michael W. Kraus, Emily A. Impett, Dacher Keltner
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The present exploratory research examined the possibility that commitment in close relationships among lower class individuals, despite greater strains on those relationships, buffers them from poorer subjective well-being (SWB). In two samples of close relationship dyads, we found that when partners reported high commitment to the relationship, the typical deficits in relatively lower class individuals’ well-being compared to their upper-class counterparts, assessed as life satisfaction among romantic couples (Study 1) and negative affect linked to depression among ethnically diverse close friendships (Study 2), were mitigated. Conversely, when partners reported low commitment to the relationship, relatively lower class individuals reported poorer …
The Effects Of Gender And Perception Of Community Safety On Happiness, Jennifer K. Daffon
The Effects Of Gender And Perception Of Community Safety On Happiness, Jennifer K. Daffon
Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses
Income-based indicators of happiness have been shown to be limited in their ability to predict happiness. Alternative measures of happiness have been gaining prominence in happiness research, and two predictors of happiness were investigated in the current study. The extent to which happiness (measured by affect, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being) could be predicted by gender and perception of community safety was investigated with 19,644 participant responses to The Happiness Alliance Survey. Multiple linear regression models indicated that gender and community safety are significant predictors of affect, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being. The effect of the predictor variables was similar …
Rising Income And The Subjective Well-Being Of Nations, Ed Diener, Louis Tay, Shigehiro Oishi
Rising Income And The Subjective Well-Being Of Nations, Ed Diener, Louis Tay, Shigehiro Oishi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
We explored whether rising income in nations is associated with increasing subjective well-being (SWB), with several advances over earlier work. Our methods are improved in that across time, the same well-being questions were asked in the same order, and we employed broad and equivalent representative samples over time from a large number of nations. We also assessed psychosocial factors that might mediate the relation of income and SWB. We found that changes in household income were associated with concomitant changes in life evaluations, positive feelings, and negative feelings. The effects of gross domestic product (GDP) change were weaker and significant …
Comparing Well-Being Across Nations: Conceptual And Empirical Issues, William Tov, Evelyn Wing-Mun Au
Comparing Well-Being Across Nations: Conceptual And Empirical Issues, William Tov, Evelyn Wing-Mun Au
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this chapter, we review cross-national survey studies of subjective well-being. We begin with a short history of the concept of subjective well-being and examine how it has been measured in national surveys. We then review some findings on well-being at the level of societies and individuals. The former concerns how the economic and social conditions of countries are related to their average level of happiness and life satisfaction. The latter considers how the characteristics of happy and unhappy individuals may differ across cultures. Next we discuss important issues in research design and analysis of cross-national data, and in the …
Subjective Well-Being, William Tov, Ed Diener
Subjective Well-Being, William Tov, Ed Diener
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The cross-cultural importance of happiness and contentment can be inferred from their emergence in philosophical discussions across many cultural traditions. We begin by focusing on similarities, noting what has been found to correlate with the components of SWB across most cultures. Subjective well being (SWB) involves the various ways that people evaluate and experience their lives. In many ways, the term is synonymous with the everyday notion of happiness – positive feelings are an important aspect of well being. Cross-cultural similarities are important because they highlight our common humanity and hint at which factors may be fundamental to wellbeing. Next, …
National Accounts Of Well-Being, Ed Diener, William Tov
National Accounts Of Well-Being, Ed Diener, William Tov
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
National accounts of subjective well-being should be used to assess the various facets of citizen’s well-being such as life satisfaction, trust in others, positive emotions, meaning and purpose in life, and engagement and interest. Although economic indicators have reigned within policy debates, the purpose of the economic indicators is ultimately to enhance “happiness”—subjective well-being. National measures of well-being that are collected systematically at periodic intervals will not only help focus attention on wellbeing as a major goal of societies, but can give information to leaders about policy alternatives, and thus inform policy debates in a way that complements economic analyses. …
Interview On Subjective Well-Being, David Chan
Interview On Subjective Well-Being, David Chan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
New Well-Being Measures: Short Scales To Assess Flourishing And Positive And Negative Feelings, Ed Diener, Derrick Wirtz, William Tov, Chu Kim-Prieto, Dong-Won Choi, Shigehiro Oishi, Robert Biswas-Diener
New Well-Being Measures: Short Scales To Assess Flourishing And Positive And Negative Feelings, Ed Diener, Derrick Wirtz, William Tov, Chu Kim-Prieto, Dong-Won Choi, Shigehiro Oishi, Robert Biswas-Diener
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Measures of well-being were created to assess psychological flourishing and feelings—positive feelings, negative feelings, and the difference between the two. The scales were evaluated in a sample of 689 college students from six locations. The Flourishing Scale is a brief 8-item summary measure of the respondent’s self-perceived success in important areas such as relationships, self-esteem, purpose, and optimism. The scale provides a single psychological well-being score. The measure has good psychometric properties, and is strongly associated with other psychological well-being scales. The Scale of Positive and Negative Experience produces a score for positive feelings (6 items), a score for negative …
Well-Being On Planet Earth, Ed Diener, William Tov
Well-Being On Planet Earth, Ed Diener, William Tov
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The Gallup World Poll allows a look at how humanity is flourishing, based on the answers of survey respondents sampled from across the globe. Several conclusions are clear. First, how people are doing depends enormously on the society in which they live, and nations vary from doing very well to extremely poorly. In terms of subjective well-being, nations vary greatly, in both judgments of overall life and in positive and negative emotions. The best predictors of global life judgments were income and ownership of modern conveniences, whereas the best predictors of emotions were social factors such as the control of …
The Role Of Ideal Affect In The Experience And Memory Of Emotions, Christie N. Scollon, Amanda H. Howard, Amanda E. Caldwell, Sachiyo Ito
The Role Of Ideal Affect In The Experience And Memory Of Emotions, Christie N. Scollon, Amanda H. Howard, Amanda E. Caldwell, Sachiyo Ito
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
According to Affect Valuation Theory (Tsai et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1031-1039), culture influences how people want to feel (ideal affect). Integrating Affect Valuation Theory with the Time-sequential Framework of Subjective Well-being (KIM-Prieto et al. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 261-300), we proposed that cultural norms influence the memory, but not the experience, of emotion. The present study examined the role of ideal affect in relation to experience sampling and retrospective reports of emotion. Ideal affect correlated with retrospective reports but not experience sampling reports. Extraversion and neuroticism were more strongly related to experience sampling reports …
Beyond The Hedonic Treadmill: Revising The Adaptation Theory Of Well-Being, Ed Diener, Richard E. Lucas, Christie N. Scollon
Beyond The Hedonic Treadmill: Revising The Adaptation Theory Of Well-Being, Ed Diener, Richard E. Lucas, Christie N. Scollon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
According to the hedonic treadmill model, good and bad events temporarily affect happiness, but people quickly adapt back to hedonic neutrality. The theory, which has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, implies that individual and societal efforts to increase happiness are doomed to failure. The recent empirical work outlined here indicates that 5 important revisions to the treadmill model are needed. First, individuals' set points are not hedonically neutral. Second, people have different set points, which are partly dependent on their temperaments. Third, a single person may have multiple happiness set points: Different components of well-being such as pleasant emotions, …
Integrating The Diverse Definitions Of Happiness: A Time-Sequential Framework Of Subjective Well-Being, Chu Kim-Prieto, Ed Diener, Maya Tamir, Christie N. Scollon, Marrisa Diener
Integrating The Diverse Definitions Of Happiness: A Time-Sequential Framework Of Subjective Well-Being, Chu Kim-Prieto, Ed Diener, Maya Tamir, Christie N. Scollon, Marrisa Diener
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The field of subjective well-being (SWB) is primarily concerned with people's evaluation of their lives; however, it includes a wide range of concepts, from momentary moods to global life satisfaction judgments. We propose a framework that integrates these diverse constructs. Our sequential temporal framework of subjective well-being describes experiences of well-being from the events and circumstances that cause evaluative reactions, through the emotional reactions to these events, to recall of these reactions, and finally to global judgments of well-being based on the previous stages. The hypothesized processes that translate the various steps in the sequence into one another are described, …
Positivity And The Construction Of Life Satisfaction Judgments: Global Happiness Is Not The Sum Of Its Parts, Ed Diener, Christie N. Scollon, Shigehiro Oishi, Vivian Dzokoto, Mark Eunkook Suh
Positivity And The Construction Of Life Satisfaction Judgments: Global Happiness Is Not The Sum Of Its Parts, Ed Diener, Christie N. Scollon, Shigehiro Oishi, Vivian Dzokoto, Mark Eunkook Suh
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The present study investigated how reports of satisfaction with specific versus global domains can be used to assess a disposition towards positivity in subjective well-being reports. College students from 41 societies (N = 7167) completed measures of life satisfaction and ratings of global and specific aspects of their lives. For example, participants rated satisfaction with their education (global) and satisfaction with their professors, textbooks, and lectures (specific). It was hypothesized that global measures would more strongly reflect individual differences in dispositional positivity, that is, a propensity to evaluate aspects of life in general as good. At both the individual and …
What Makes A Life Good?, Laura A. King, Christie N. Scollon
What Makes A Life Good?, Laura A. King, Christie N. Scollon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Two studies examined folk concepts of the good life. Samples of college students (N=104) and community adults (N=264) were shown a career survey ostensibly completed by a person rating his or her occupation. After reading the survey, participants judged the desirability and moral goodness of the respondent's life, as a function of the amount of happiness, meaning in life, and wealth experienced. Results revealed significant effects of happiness and meaning on ratings of desirability and moral goodness. In the college sample, individuals high on all 3 independent variables were judged as likely to go to heaven. In the adult sample, …