Life Satisfaction and Mental Health of Married and Unmarried Research Scholar: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Life Satisfaction Life satisfaction is a judgement about having a favourable attitude towards one's life as a whole. It refers to the person perception of how his or her Ufe has been and feeling about where it is going in the future .The judgement, how people are satisfied with their present state of affairs is not externally imposed rather is based on a comparison with a standard which each individual sets for him or herself (Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin, 1985). Those standards may include interpersonal relationships, love, money, creativity, tradition, religion etc. which deemed valuable according to the individual's priority, as evidenced to lead to satisfaction in different studies. Satisfaction is interchangeably used as happiness. According to Seligman (2002), the more happy people are, the less they are focused on the negatives. And people can be happy from many different sources vis-a-vis economic standing, amount of education, experiences, and people's residence which are unique and different for every person. In general higher income per se not only provide better access to resources but also expected to promote positive effects such as one's sense of happiness and life-satisfaction through higher self-appraisal and increase sense of control (Oshio, Umeda & Fujii, 2004). People who count on peers, friends, family and religious institutions like church, mosques, and temples as source of social support in their hard times, reported higher satisfaction from life. Ryff insists that psychological functioning should be assessed in terms of self acceptance, personal growth, purpose in life, positive relations with others, environmental mastery and autonomy.When it comes to life satisfaction, marriage likely creates some differences in person's life. There exists two possibilities after marriage, married partner may either enjoy advantages of positive relation developed out of marriage or may not have harmonious relation with the partner. Whatever be the case, person needs to adapt to the condition which may have bearing on his life satisfaction. And the degree of adaptation and habituation depends upon individual's personality (Headey& Wearing, 1989). The psychological basis of adaptation is that judgements of current situations depend on the experience of similar situations in the past, so that higher levels of past experience may offset higher current levels of these phenomena due to changing expectations (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; Ariely & Carmon, 2003). If there is no adaptation at all to the marriage, the positive effect associated with the marriage will no longer boost the satisfaction of married partners. Subsequently, in recent years it has become more acceptable for an individual to remain unmarried , because individuals less likely see marriage positive and were more likely to comment on the burdens and restrictions rather than the opportunities marriage brought to one's life (Veroff, Douvan & Kulka, 1981). Various studies mentioned a college education, high occupational prestige and a good income as the factors that make Ufe more satisfying lifestyle for singlehood (Jacoby, 1974; Perlin & Johnson, 1981). Consequently it appears that singlehood is more likely to be seen today as one's choice of status with some potentially positive outcomes, such as pursuing one's career and increasing mobility. However, Relationship harmony and social support are more strongly associated with life satisfaction in collectivist culture than in individualistic cultures (Kwan, Bond & Singelis, 1997).As people's ability to adapt to the significant Ufe changes increases with age (Ryff, 1991), it is expected that life satisfaction should decline with age but contrary to this many evidences are available pointing just opposites. Diener and Suh (1988) in a cross cultural study in 40 different nations on nearly 6000 participants found that reported life satisfaction generally remained stable throughout the life span, showing just slight increase in between 20 and 80 years. …