A Multicriteria Analysis of Life Satisfaction: Assessing Trust and Distance Effects

Abstract

Sustainable societies require that a diverse set of risks (e.g. socio-economic, environmental, political and cultural) that intervene with peoples’ wellbeing levels are systematically addressed. Here we focus on life satisfaction and the social cohesion effects driven from the perceptions of others in contemporary societies. We postulate that perceptions of risk as drawn from ‘otherness’ are dependent upon citizens’ evaluations of trust in key societal institutions and their perceptions of civic (socio-economic and cultural) distance. Trust is a risk mitigation factor whereas distance exacerbates perceptions of exposure to various risk parameters. This constitutes a complex policy intervention challenge suggesting that the use of decision-making tools that are able to handle a large set of information is appropriate. To that extent, we propose the use of a hybrid TOPSIS-Entropy multicriteria technique and test our trust and distance risk effects hypotheses using case study data for Greece. After controlling for the socio-demographic and economic profile of respondents, we provide support for the role of trust in institutions and feelings of distance as determinants of life satisfaction. Important policy level implications are derived on the basis of these findings. Improvements in life satisfaction might be seen as policy interventions that aim at improving civil society institutions. Interventions might involve formal and/or informal institutions that affect both objective (e.g. safety/crime) and subjective (e.g. feelings of safety/disorder) quality of life judgements.