Forms Of Subjective Well-being Research Articles

Indonesian Happiness Factor: A Panel Data Analysis

The measurement of welfare level is one of the success benchmarks of a country's developmental program. Welfare assessments in the form of subjective well-being (SWB) can complement the objective measures. In assessing SWB, economists use happiness and life satisfaction questions. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the factors that influence individual happiness in Indonesia. The panel data from the last two waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), namely IFLS 4 (2007) and IFLS 5 (2014) were used. The analytical tool was panel data regression with a fixed effect approach. The results showed religiosity, generalized trust, altruism, and education-age interaction significantly affected happiness levels. This study implies the higher the year of education, the more positive the effect of age on happiness level. Furthermore, the control variables, namely marital status, subjective health, perceived safety, and per capita expenditure are significant, while unemployment affected the happiness level of only the male sample. The government and public figures in Indonesia may promote initiatives that facilitate religiosity, trust, and altruism development, for instance, promoting activities that require involvement from different stakeholders in the community. They also should become role models showing altruism and religiosity.

Indonesian Happiness Factor: A Panel Data Analysis

The measurement of welfare level is one of the success benchmarks of a country's developmental program. Welfare assessments in the form of subjective well-being (SWB) can complement the objective measures. In assessing SWB, economists use happiness and life satisfaction questions. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the factors that influence individual happiness in Indonesia. The panel data from the last two waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), namely IFLS 4 (2007) and IFLS 5 (2014) were used. The analytical tool was panel data regression with a fixed effect approach. The results showed religiosity, generalized trust, altruism, and education-age interaction significantly affected happiness levels. This study implies the higher the year of education, the more positive the effect of age on happiness level. Furthermore, the control variables, namely marital status, subjective health, perceived safety, and per capita expenditure are significant, while unemployment affected the happiness level of only the male sample. The government and public figures in Indonesia may promote initiatives that facilitate religiosity, trust, and altruism development, for instance, promoting activities that require involvement from different stakeholders in the community. They also should become role models showing altruism and religiosity.

Happiness is associated with successful living across cultures

ABSTRACT We explored in three cultures (the United States, Korea, and Costa Rica) the association between subjective well-being (SWB) and behaviors often described as positive or beneficial. In two studies we found that three forms of subjective well-being (positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction) were associated with several categories of behavior (health behavior, supportive behavior, citizenship behavior, and creative behavior). Most of the associations were significant in three nations and not significantly different between nations. Furthermore, we examined whether there exists a significant association between common variance across types of SWB and common variance of categories of behaviors. We found that there was a significant common pathway between a latent SWB factor and a latent behavior factor, along with unique associations between individual SWB and behavior categories. We conclude that the SWB and behavior associations are widespread across the three distinct cultures.

Hierarchy of customer goals: conceptual framework and new insights

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to: (1) better understand the structure (hierarchy) of customer goals providing conceptual clarity; and (2) propose a hierarchy of customer goals conceptual framework that explicates how healthcare customer goals are linked to drivers and outcomes, thus building theory and informing practice.Design/methodology/approachThe research draws on 21 in-depth interviews of patients with a chronic disease. Drawing principally on construal-level theory and using manual thematic analysis and Leximancer, this article provides new insights into customer goals.FindingsIn a first, the authors identify a two-dimensional structure for each of the three main goal types, which previously had been viewed as unidimensional. The authors develop a conceptual framework linking drivers of goal setting (promotion/prevention focus world view and perceived role) with goal type (life goals, focal goals and action plan goals and their respective subgoals) and outcomes (four forms of subjective well-being). Visual concept maps illustrate the relative importance of certain health-related goals over others.Research limitations/implicationsThe usefulness of the authors’ conceptual framework is demonstrated through the application of their framework to goal setting among healthcare customers, showing links between the structure of goals (life goals, focal goals and action plan goals) to drivers (promotion/prevention focus world view and perceived role) and outcomes (subjective well-being) and the framework's potential application to other service settings.Originality/valueThis study contributes to healthcare marketing and service management literature by providing new insights into goal setting and proposing a novel hierarchy of customer goals conceptual framework linking drivers, goal types and outcomes.

Religiosity and life satisfaction: evidence from the Russian data

ABSTRACT Does religiosity make people happy? Many studies document positive associations between religiosity and various forms of subjective well-being. This holds true for general life satisfaction as well, both under normal economic conditions and in the case of economic shocks. However, both life satisfaction and religiosity may be correlated with unobserved individual and household traits or unobserved life shocks, which can relate to reverse causality. These facts result in endogeneity problems and make ordinary least square estimates biased. Endogeneity problems refer to situations in which an explanatory variable is correlated with the error term. They usually happen when an unobserved or omitted variable affects both independent and dependent variables. In this study, we employed two methods to avoid possible endogeneity issues: fixed effects and instrumental variable estimations. Using data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) and different econometric models, we document positive associations between religiosity and life satisfaction. In particular, fixed effect and instrumental variable regressions provide evidence for a positive effect of religiosity.

Coastal Fishers Livelihood Behaviors and Their Psychosocial Explanations: Implications for Fisheries Governance in a Changing World

This research is a critical examination of the behavioral foundations of livelihood pathways over a 50-year time period in a multispecies fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Fishers make difficult decisions to pursue, enjoy, and protect their livelihoods in times of change and uncertainty, and the resultant behaviors shape efforts to advance sustainability through coastal and marine fisheries governance. However, there is limited evidence about fishers’ behavioral changes over long time periods, and the psychosocial experiences that underpin them, beyond what is assumed using neoclassical economic and rational choice framings. Our analysis draws on 26 narrative interviews with fishers who have pursued two or more fish species currently or formerly. Fishers were asked about their behavioral responses to change and uncertainty in coastal fisheries across their entire lifetimes. Their narratives highlighted emotional, perceptual, and values-oriented factors that shaped how fishers coped and adapted to change and uncertainty. The contributions to theory and practice are two-fold. First, findings included variation in patterns of fisher behaviors. Those patterns reflected fishers prioritizing and trading-off material or relational well-being. With policy relevance, prioritizations and trade-offs of forms of well-being led to unexpected outcomes for shifting capacity and capitalization for fishers and in fisheries more broadly. Second, findings identified the influence of emotions as forms of subjective well-being. Further, emotions and perceptions functioned as explanatory factors that shaped well-being priorities and trade-offs, and ultimately, behavioral change. Research findings emphasize the need for scientists, policy-makers, and managers to incorporate psychosocial evidence along with social science about fisher behavior into their models, policy processes, and management approaches. Doing so is likely to support efforts to anticipate impacts from behavioral change on capacity and capitalization in fleets and fisheries, and ultimately, lead to improved governance outcomes.

Community Gardening: Stress, Well-Being, and Resilience Potentials.

The financial and health burdens of stress associated with increased urbanization have led to a demand for mental health enhancement strategies. While some extant literature details mental health benefits of community gardening, a coherent narrative on the construct of resilience and its relationship with the mental health benefits of community gardening is lacking. The present study examined the relationship between community gardening and a number of mental health benefits, in the forms of subjective well-being, stress, resilience potentials, and resilience factors (self-esteem, optimism, and openness). A total of 111 residents in Singapore completed a survey. Results from Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) and Pearson’s correlation analyses show that, after controlling for age and levels of connection to nature, community gardeners reported significantly higher levels of subjective well-being than individual/home gardeners and non-gardeners, indicating that engagement in community gardening may be superior to individual/home gardening or non-gardening outdoor activities. Community gardeners reported higher levels of resilience and optimism than the non-gardening control group. These novel results indicate some potential for mental health benefits in urban environments, specifically in terms of subjective well-being and resilience. These findings have implications for future research in clinical psychology, mental health promotion, and policy.

The Relationship of Perceived Service Quality With Revisitation and Subjective Well-Being of Chinese Tourists: The Role of Emotions and Destination Identification

Utilizing Mehrabian-Russell's Stimulus–Organism–Response framework, this research investigates how service quality elicits positive emotions, negative emotions, and destination identification, contributing to tourists' subjective well-being and intentions to return to a destination. Using an intercept sampling approach at a natural and cultural destination, a total of 539 completed questionnaires were obtained from Chinese tourists. The findings demonstrate that perceived service quality can enhance tourists' positive emotions and identification with a destination while decreasing negative emotions. This study also provides empirical evidence for a direct relationship between emotions in tourism consumption and destination identification processes. In addition, the results suggest that emotions and destination identification can bring about both economic benefits to a destination via revisitation and positive social outcomes for tourists in the form of subjective well-being.

Integrating philosophical and psychological approaches to well-being: The role of success in personal projects

Interdisciplinary research on the relation of well-being to personality, virtue and life experience is impeded by lack of agreement about the nature of well-being. Psychologists tend to reduce well-being to various subjective evaluations (e.g., life satisfaction or sense of meaning in life). Philosophers tend to reject these reductions but often do not agree among themselves. We believe most conceptions of well-being can agree that well-being involves success in one’s personal projects and that personal projects should be a central construct for well-being assessments. Here we provide some initial evidence that traditional psychological approaches to well-being are commensurable with our personal projects approach, by demonstrating in a longitudinal sample that success in current personal projects predicts various forms of subjective well-being, even when controlling for past levels of well-being and project success.

Religiosity and Life Satisfaction in Russia: Evidence from the Russian Data

Does religiosity make you happy? Many studies document positive associations between religiosity and various forms of subjective wellbeing. This is also true for general life satisfaction in normal economic conditions and in the case of economic shocks. However, both life satisfaction and religiosity may be correlated with unobserved individual and household traits or unobserved life shocks which can relate to reverse causality. These facts result in endogeneity and make ordinary least square estimates biased. In our study, we employ two methods to avoid possible endogeneity issues – we use fixed effects and instrumental variable estimations. Using Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) data and different econometric models, we document positive associations between religiosity and life satisfaction. In particular, fixed effect and instrumental variable regressions provide evidence for a positive effect of religiosity.

Entitlement and subjective well-being: a three-nations study

<b>Background</b><br /> The current study investigated the role of three facets of entitlement (active, passive and revenge) in various forms of subjective well-being (SWB): hedonistic and two facets of eudaimonic well-being (social and psychological). Social well-being was based on Keyes’ model (1998) and psychological well-being on Ryff’s model (1989).<br /> <br /> <b>Participants and procedure</b><br /> The study was performed in three nations (Poland, Puerto Rico and Vietnam) on student samples (Poland, n = 245, Vietnam, n = 115, and Puerto Rico, n = 300). To assess entitlement level the Entitlement Questionnaire was used. The level of hedonistic well-being was measured with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), and eudaimonic well-being by the Mental Health Continuum–Short Form (MHC-SF).<br /> <br /> <b>Results</b><br /> Active entitlement was positively related to all aspects of SWB. Revenge entitlement was negatively related to hedonistic and psychological SWB in all samples and negatively related to social well-being only in Poland. Passive entitlement was unrelated to SWB.<br /> <br /> <b>Conclusions</b><br /> The current study shows cross-cultural similarities in relationships of entitlement with hedonistic and psychological well-being and cross-cultural differences in the relationship of entitlement with social well-being. Additionally, the study indicates positive meaning of healthy aspects of entitlement for subjective well-being and negative meaning of dysfunctional aspects of entitlement for subjective well-being.

The effect of gender discrimination in organization

Since discrimination against women in the workplace is generally regarded as having a negative impact on quality of life, systematic managerial efforts to prevent such discrimination have been enforced. However, there are very few studies on whether or how this discrimination affects the subjective well-being in Asia where the unequal treatment of women has been traditionally accepted. Our study examines whether perceived/experienced discrimination against women consistently influences two subjective kinds of well-being: job satisfaction and work engagement. It will consider how the impact varies according to different dimensions of discrimination, what kinds of moderators intervene to influence the effect on subjective well-being and how they do so. Empirical findings from three-wave panel data with a sample of 5987 female workers show the negative effects of discrimination on these two forms of subjective well-being.

A note on sustainability and habit formation

The link with subjective well-being has not been addressed in the literature of sustainability, the latter defined by social well-being improvement. We explicitly derive genuine savings as an indicator of sustainability inclusive of one form of subjective well-being, namely habit formation, building on the work of Aronsson and Lofgren (Econ Lett 98:84–88, 2008). We show that, along an optimal path, the effect of habits on well-being improvement is negative, as long as the current output is larger than the current habit stock. Moreover, a numerical example for an optimal balanced growth path hints that this adjustment is potentially large in the case of a large weight parameter on habits.

A Domain-Specific Validation of the Core Self-Evaluations Scale

Core self-evaluations have been recently proposed as indicating positive self-concept and as being predictive of various forms of subjective wellbeing. In an effort to further validate the Core Self-Evaluations Scale (CSES), structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed in three independent samples of university students to examine the extent to which scores on the Core Self-Evaluations Scale predicted two measures of university satisfaction. Good fit was found for models that also controlled for status in college, student major, class satisfaction, life satisfaction, college grade point average, and overall grade fairness. Statistically significant relationships corrected for attenuation by SEM between scores on the Core Self-Evaluations Scale and university satisfaction range from .24 to .37.