Reported Life Satisfaction Research Articles

Assessing the household burdens of infrastructure disruptions in Texas during Winter Storm Uri

In February 2021, severe winter weather conditions associated with Winter Storm Uri triggered an energy infrastructure failure in Texas. Most Texans lost electricity, some lost potable water, natural gas, and suffered other infrastructure-related service disruptions that had profound household consequences. Although several studies have documented the disparities in terms of the types and extent of disruptions Texans experienced during Uri, there is little information about the impact of these disruptions in terms of their burdens on households. Guided by the Capabilities Approach framework, a survey of Texan households was conducted to identify the outage characteristics and capability losses for different household types, as well as the burdens that those disruptions posed to households using both objective and subjective measures. Our results indicate that households that endured longer and constant electricity outages suffered more severe impacts across all measures, including more disrupted household capabilities, increased time, and financial costs to cope during the outages, as well as greater declines in reported life satisfaction. We found that low-income households, households with children, and households with disability challenges suffered more severe objective burdens during the storm, although subjective results for these households were mixed. Households with members over the age of 65 fared better in terms of objective measures, yet suffered more in terms of subjective well-being. Moreover, households that had prior experience with a prolonged outage reported significantly smaller reductions in well-being during the storm than other households, despite not showing any difference in objective measures. Ultimately, our results offer context-specific, post-event information about the impacts and needs of different types of households during Uri that are important for informing emergency management and community resilience planning.

Social media use and social well-being: a systematic review and future research agenda

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to provide a systematic review of the existing literature on social media (SM) use and examine its relationship with various facets of social well-being (SWB).Design/methodology/approachThe study identifies and selects relevant articles using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework, wherein 273 articles were identified using the keyword search criteria from 5 databases namely Web of Science, Emerald, Pubmed, Google Scholar and EBSCOhost, and finally, 20 relevant studies were included for this systematic review. In order to provide directions for future research, a thorough profile with the key findings and knowledge gaps is presented.FindingsThe majority of the reviewed studies report an increase in the use of SM, especially amongst adolescents, and this suggests a seriously detrimental impact on their SWB in terms of cyberbullying, lifestyle comparison and impact on self-esteem, substance abuse, declined academic performance, fear of missing out (FoMo) and social overload. However, some of the studies reported life satisfaction, a reduction in loneliness and improved social support and belongingness, particularly those focussing on old age people who experience social isolation. The review also affirmed improved job performance and employees’ well-being. These findings vary across various demographic variables and various SM platforms namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, YouTube, etc.Originality/valueThe findings have significant implications for SM researchers, family members and educators concerning promoting appropriate SM use, especially in terms of their SWB. The study also provides various suggestions for future studies and the need to further explore the topic as the field of SM use and SWB is ever-growing.

INTERPLAY OF COGNITIVE STATUS AND SPOUSAL CAREGIVER PATTERNS ON WELL-BEING

Abstract The current paper investigated the intersection of cognitive status and caregiver characteristics on older adults’ reports of life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. Using a sub-sample from the 2016 Health and Retirement Study Harmonized Cognitive Assessment Protocol (HRS-HCAP), individuals were selected if the HCAP informant was a spouse self-identified caregiver. The sample was trimmed to include those whose spouse caregiver was also a respondent in the main 2016 HRS and completed the measures of interest in the psychosocial leave-behind questionnaire (N = 190). The final analytic sample comprised 109 respondents classified as cognitively normal, 51 with cognitive impairment, not dementia, and 30 with dementia based on the algorithm developed by Manly, Jones, Langa, et al. (2022). The sample was 50% women, 10% racialized as Black, 18% racialized as LatinX, with a mean age of 75.62 and an average 11.75 years of education. Latent Class Analysis identified meaningful caregiver psychosocial classes from spouse reports on purpose in life (Ryff & Keyes, 1995), positive and negative affect (Watson & Clark, 1994), and perceived positive and negative support from one’s spouse (in this case the main respondent), children, other family, and friends (Turner, Frankel, & Levin, 1983). The data supported a 4-class solution, which was then used in linear regression analyses to examine associations of cognitive status and caregiver profiles on individual’s life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. Interestingly, cognitive status was not associated with well-being in the current study, suggesting associations of spousal psychosocial classes were independent of the care-recipient’s dementia/impairment designation.

Do We Know How Happy Strangers Are? Accuracy in Well-Being Judgments at Zero Acquaintance

We examined the accuracy of well-being judgments by strangers using Brunswik’s lens model. A sample of 200 college students (targets) reported their self-perception of well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect). The targets were photographed and videotaped during their self-introductions. Various physical, nonverbal, paralinguistic, and linguistic cues were measured or rated by cue coders from the photos and videotaped self-introductions. Strangers evaluated the targets’ well-being based on the videotaped self-introductions. We found significant correlations between self- and strangers’ reports of life satisfaction and positive affect but not negative affect. Loud voice and physical attractiveness mediated the correlation between self- and stranger-reports of life satisfaction. Loud voice mediated the correlation between self- and stranger reports of positive affect. These findings suggest that strangers can accurately evaluate someone’s life satisfaction and positive affect in brief self-introductions, and loud voice and physical attractiveness are the sources of the accurate well-being judgments.

Loneliness and its correlates among older adults living with HIV: A multicenter cross-sectional study

BackgroundWith the aging among people living with HIV, it is critical to understand the health needs of older adults (aged 50 years and above) living with HIV (OALHIV). Loneliness, as the next critical public health issue, was rarely mentioned among OALHIV. MethodsA multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted between April 2021 and April 2022. Participants were recruited from infectious diseases hospitals that provide HIV care in four cities in China. The associations with loneliness symptoms (measured by a three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale) were analyzed by logistic regression models. ResultsA total of 680 OALHIV (500 men, 180 women, mean age 60.3 ± 7.8 years) were included in the analysis. About one-fifth (18.1 %) of OALHIV reported loneliness symptoms. Living in urban areas (aOR 3.50, 95 % CI 1.76–6.95), having children without close intergenerational relationships (2.85, 1.15–7.07), higher self-perceptions of aging (1.10, 1.06–1.15), being heterosexual (0.26, 0.13–0.52) or bisexual (0.37, 0.16–0.82), having children with whom they kept close intergenerational relationships (0.36, 0.14–0.98), and reporting life satisfaction (0.40, 0.24–0.66), were associated with loneliness symptoms. LimitationsThis study is a cross-sectional study and only included OALHIV who participated in antiretroviral therapy treatment for >18 months, which is not widely representative. ConclusionsLoneliness was prevalent among OALHIV. Living in urban areas, being homosexual, having children with whom they kept fragile intergenerational relationships, being dissatisfied with life, and having higher self-perceptions of aging were independent risk factors for loneliness. Routine health management for OALHIV needs to incorporate the assessment of aging perceptions and loneliness.

Resilience, mindfulness, anxiety, and depression within a dual-continua model of mental health approach

Mental health research is often focused on alleviating psychological distress rather than increasing well-being. This study approached mental health from a dual-continua model (DCM) framework, which allows for distress and well-being to co-occur. The aims of the present study were to expand upon DCM literature by examining differences in psychological well-being indicators among a broad adult sample with varying levels of depression and/or anxiety symptoms. Our sample was comprised of adults in the United States (n = 1,170) who reported different levels of anxiety, depression, mindfulness, resilience, and satisfaction with life. Participants who reported high anxiety symptoms, high depression symptoms, both anxiety and depression symptoms, or neither were grouped by their level of reported life satisfaction (high or low). We predicted that groups with higher life satisfaction would report higher levels of resilience and trait mindfulness than groups with lower life satisfaction, irrespective of higher levels of anxiety and/or depression, consistent with a DCM of mental health. Our results indicated that higher life satisfaction was associated with higher levels of resilience in all groups except for the high depression with low anxiety group. Higher levels of life satisfaction were also associated with higher trait mindfulness in all but the high anxiety with low depression group. Implications for mental health treatment and prevention are discussed.

Life satisfaction in coastal Kenya and Mozambique reflects culture, gendered relationships and security of basic needs: Implications for ecosystem services

Life satisfaction is both a desirable ‘end’ for sustainable development, and a means to understand the priorities, and behaviour of people towards local ecosystems. Ecosystem-services research on life satisfaction has focused on cultural services in wealthy, Western contexts, although ecosystem services are essential for poor people’s livelihoods in the Global South. We examined reported life satisfaction from a survey of over 2000 people in rural and urban settings of coastal Kenya and Mozambique. We coded respondents’ open-ended reasons for their reported satisfaction, and used multiple correspondence analysis to explore the characteristics of people who mentioned different reasons. We tested associations between satisfaction and the meeting of basic needs and income, with binary logistic regression, accounting for site and gender.Life satisfaction was lower in Kenya, for men, and in the most urbanised site. Respondents explained high, and low, satisfaction in terms of social relationships, basic needs, money and employment. They rarely mentioned the ecosystem services and related livelihoods that underpin those, suggesting an instrumental relation to nature. Meeting basic needs, including economic security better predicted satisfaction than household income. Life satisfaction reflected material differences in people’s lives but also different evaluative criteria and national cultures. For example, family reasons more commonly explained women’s satisfaction, while money was more important for urban-dwelling men. We propose that the holistic perspective offered by life-satisfaction research can inform environmental management alongside more focused ecosystem-service research. For example, our results suggest that a) interventions should recognise immediate needs and social relationships, b) the role of ecosystem services for subjective wellbeing varies by local culture and individual identities and c) secure and fair access to ecosystem services may support life satisfaction better than high incomes that are insecure or inequitably distributed.

“I’ve Lived My Life to the Fullest:” Life Satisfaction among Childfree Older Women

ABSTRACT The primary purpose of this study was to understand the life satisfaction experienced by childfree women over the age of 65, considering some assumption in society that parenthood is the best path to fulfillment. This study used a qualitative-dominant approach to look at the life satisfaction experiences of 14 childfree women over the age of 65 using semi-structured interview questions while furthering results with the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Participants included women gathered through community agencies in South Florida. A thematic analysis was used to analyze data from the interviews while basic SPSS calculations were used to calculate measures of central tendency. 13 of the 14 women reported life satisfaction in interviews, which was consistent with their scores on the SWLS. This study updates the literature that examines the life fulfillment of those who do not have children. Most specifically, it furthers the understanding of how those who have remained childfree feel in the final stages of their lives.

Life satisfaction and athletic identity among Olympic para-alpine skiers: a survey.

The objective of this study was to examine life satisfaction and athletic identity among para-alpine skiers and explore their associations with sociodemographic, sports practice, and disability-related characteristics of the participants. The respondents to the on-site survey were 129 para-alpine ski racers with acquired disability from 33 countries on all five continents who competed in the Paralympic games in Sochi (aged 16-53 years, mean and median 30 years, 100 men). Two self-developed assessment instruments were used - a 7-point Likert-type life-satisfaction questionnaire probing seven domains (health, family, education, freedom, friends, travelling, and self) and the Athletic Identity Scale (AIS; possible score range 17-85). The independence between life-satisfaction items was confirmed by low interitem correlations (largest absolute value <0.25, 15 of 21, and <0.15). The estimated internal-consistency reliability (Guttman lambda-2) of AIS was 0.65. The reported life satisfaction was very high (median of 6 for all domains except education, where it was 5). Like life-satisfaction ratings, the AIS scores were also very high on average (mean and median score 81). In general, the level of life satisfaction and athletic identity were not notably associated with sociodemographic, sports practice, and disability characteristics of the participants. The likely reason is high average and, hence, low variability of life-satisfaction ratings, as well as imperfect metric characteristics of the AIS. Nonetheless, the overall findings encourage further research into factors that drive the participation of disabled athletes in (winter) Paralympic games and the possible role of the rehabilitation process in this regard.

Predictors of HIV testing among women experiencing intimate partner violence in the Central Region of Ghana.

HIV testing, which is important for the control of the HIV pandemic, has been hampered by several factors including Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), resulting in low uptake. This study sought to determine the predictors of HIV testing among women experiencing IPV. Secondary analysis of data generated from a cross-sectional mixed-method unmatched cluster-randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate a multi-faceted community intervention to reduce the incidence of IPV in Ghana was done (N = 2000). Logistic regressions were performed to determine the predictors of HIV testing among women experiencing IPV, using the trial baseline data. The prevalence of HIV testing among women exposed to IPV in the study setting was 42.4%. Less than a third of the respondents (30.2%) had ever used condom and 96.6% had unemployed partners. Age, educational attainment, employment, residence and condom use were found to be significant predictors of HIV testing among women experiencing IPV. Women aged 25-39 years were more than twice as likely to test for HIV (AOR:2.41; 95%CI:1.45-4.02) than those above 45 years. Women with formal education (Junior-High-AOR:2.10; 95%CI:1.42-3.12; Senior-High-AOR:3.87; 95%CI:2.07-7.26); who had ever used condom (AOR:1.42; 95%CI:1.05-1.93); those reporting life satisfaction (AOR:1.44; 95%CI:1.08-1.92); and coastal residents (AOR:1.97; 95%CI:1.45-2.67) were more likely to test for HIV than those who did not and inland residents. However, employed women (AOR:0.66; 95%CI:0.45-0.96) were less likely to test for HIV than unemployed women. Less than half of the women exposed to IPV had tested for HIV. Socioeconomic disadvantages related to age, education, employment, residence and life satisfaction predicted HIV testing among women exposed to IPV. Considering the vulnerability of women experiencing IPV to HIV infection, strategies to improve uptake of HIV testing must tackle contextual socioeconomic factors that hinder access to services.

The Phenomenon of Generational Cohort Differences in Life Satisfaction Reports

The subjective well-being within society continues to be a focus in psychology, especially during the COVID 19 pandemic. The Life Satisfaction Scale for Apostolic Women Religious (LSSAWR) is designed to assess, across generations and congregations, the subjective well-being of Catholic Sisters worldwide. Sisters completing the LSSAWR online get a personal score report, and each congregation receives their LSSAWR scores in a Congregational Report (CR). The anonymous and confidential nature of gathering and reporting results, allows for honest feedback from Sisters about the current state of their community, and it provides insights for the potential planning of their preferred future. Additionally, CRs offer generational cohort comparisons across and within the domains that are reflective of various aspects as related to religious life. A multilevel model to account for clustering of Sisters within congregations was used to examine whether generational differences existed in LSSAWR scores. Results revealed significantly higher scores among elder cohorts as compared to younger cohorts but some differences in patterns among domain scores.

The effect of terrorist attacks on attitudes and its duration

AbstractIs terrorism effective as a tool of political influence? In particular, do terrorists succeed in affecting their targets’ attitudes, and how long does the effect last? Existing research unfortunately is either limited to small samples or does not address two main difficulties: issues of endogeneity and the inability to assess the duration of the effect. Here, we first exploit the exogeneity to the selection process of the success or failure of an attack as an identification mechanism. Second, we take advantage of the random allocation of survey respondents to interview times to estimate the duration of the impact of terrorist events on attitudes. Using survey data from 30 European democracies between 2002 and 2017, we find first that terrorism affects people's reported life satisfaction and happiness—a proxy for the cost of terrorism in terms of utility. However, we also find that terrorist attacks do not affect respondents’ attitude toward their government, institutions, or immigrants. This suggests that terrorism is ineffective at translating discontent into political pressure. Importantly, we also find that all effects disappear within less than two weeks.

Housing cost burden and life satisfaction.

The share of income spent on housing varies across individuals and countries but it has been increasing over time in a wide range of countries, particularly among lower income households, rising housing affordability as a prominent challenge in higher income economies. Variations in share of income spent on housing can reflect variations in household preferences but when more than a certain level of income is spent on housing, households face tradeoffs between housing and non-housing consumption that are expected to negatively affect their overall life satisfaction. Using data from the 2018 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for 14 countries we find that, controlling for household sociodemographic characteristics, households spending more than 30 percent of their income and those spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing report lower levels of life satisfaction, with the latter group reporting the lowest level. The negative relationship between housing cost burden and reported life satisfaction is found across countries but varies in magnitude, which points to the need to further investigate the mechanisms behind the association between housing cost burden and life satisfaction and the role of country-specific effects, including differences in welfare systems, in moderating this association.

What Happened to the Immigrant Life Satisfaction Gap?

Numerous studies have found that immigrants to Canada are less satisfied with life than comparable Canadian-born individuals. Yet recent data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) suggest that this immigrant satisfaction gap may be disappearing. This article traces the evolution of the immigrant–Canadian born life satisfaction gap from 2009 to 2018 and explores two competing explanations for the declining gap: improved immigrant outcomes and changes to the CCHS design introduced in 2015–2016. The article finds little evidence for the improved outcomes explanation. Indeed, the immigrant satisfaction gap is somewhat illusory—the more substantial gap is between the life satisfaction of White individuals and that of members of certain racialized groups, regardless of immigration status. The 2015–2016 CCHS redesign, however, may be a plausible explanation for the increase in reported life satisfaction. This article provides more evidence that researchers using life satisfaction measures need to be cautious when survey designs change.

Well-being Changes from Year to Year: A Comparison of Current, Remembered and Predicted Life Satisfaction

I study yearly changes in personal well-being combining data on current, retrospective and prospective life satisfaction from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Predicted and remembered changes in life satisfaction are both positive on average and match well, whereas the average year to year-change inferred from reports of current life satisfaction is negative. Retrospective assessments of past well-being are strongly influenced by current life satisfaction, significantly related to past life satisfaction and linked to past predictions of current satisfaction. Due to different problems related to the ordinal measurement scale, changes in subjective reference systems and recall ability, the analysis overall suggests that direct reports of intertemporal changes provide valuable additional information for the analysis of individual well-being.

Placement stability and satisfaction with foster home as predictors of life satisfaction for young adults raised in foster care

AbstractThis study examines how history of care, on one hand, and social support, on the other hand, predict satisfaction with life after leaving care by focusing on a sample of young adults raised in foster care in Norway. When aged between 19 and 29, youths answered questionnaires that mapped their past history of care, living conditions, social relationships and life satisfaction. Results show that the 70 respondents had experienced a relatively stable history of care (mean number of placements ± SD: 1.7 ± 0.9) and reported life satisfaction scores similar to those measured in the general population (23.3 ± 7.0, mean ± SD). Placement stability (P = 0.001) and a high satisfaction with foster home (P = 0.030) were related to a higher life satisfaction. Moreover, having good social support, that is, persons that you can count on in case of major personal problems (P &lt; 0.001) and a good contact with the foster family (P = 0.005), was associated with a higher satisfaction with life. Several health‐related variables and the working status were also linked to life satisfaction. Our work highlights the need to focus on promoting placement stability and a good relationship to the foster family in order to enhance well‐being after leaving care.

Dose-dependent and joint associations between screen time, physical activity, and mental wellbeing in adolescents: an international observational study

Mental wellbeing in adolescents has declined considerably during past decades, making the identification of modifiable risk factors important. Prolonged screen time and insufficient physical activity appear to operate independently and synergistically to increase the risk of poor mental wellbeing in school-aged children. We aimed to examine the gender-stratified dose-dependent and joint associations of screen time and physical activity with mental wellbeing in adolescents. We used data from three rounds of Health Behaviour in School-aged Children cross-sectional surveys (2006, 2010, and 2014) from 42 European and North American countries. Survey participants, aged 11 years, 13 years, and 15 years, provided self-reported information by completing an anonymous questionnaire that included items on health indicators and related behaviours. We used the self-reported variables of life satisfaction and psychosomatic complaints as indicators of adolescents' mental wellbeing, combining these with the self-reported discretionary use of screens and engagement in physical activity. We used generalised additive models and multilevel regression modelling to examine the gender-stratified relationships between mental wellbeing and screen time and physical activity. Our sample included 577 475 adolescents (mean age 13·60 years, SD 1·64), with 296 542 (51·35%) girls and 280 933 (48·64%) boys. The mean reported life satisfaction score (on a scale of 0-10) was 7·70 (95% CI 7·69-7·71) in boys and 7·48 (7·46-7·50) in girls. Psychosomatic complaints were more common among girls (mean 9·26, 95% CI 9·23-9·28) than boys (6·89, 6·87-6·91). Generalised additive model analyses showed slightly non-linear associations of screen time and physical activity with life satisfaction and psychosomatic complaints for girls and boys. Detrimental associations between screen time and mental wellbeing started when screen time exceeded 1 h per day, whereas increases in physical activity levels were beneficially and monotonically associated with wellbeing. Multilevel modelling showed that screen time levels were negatively associated with life satisfaction and positively associated with psychosomatic complaints in a dose-dependent manner. Physical activity levels were positively associated with life satisfaction and negatively associated with psychosomatic complaints in a dose-dependent manner. Joint associations of screen time-physical activity with mental wellbeing showed that, compared with the least active participants with more than 8 h per day of screen time and no physical activity, most of the other screen time-physical activity groups had considerably higher life satisfaction and lower psychosomatic complaints. Higher levels of screen time and lower levels of physical activity were associated with lower life satisfaction and higher psychosomatic complaints among adolescents from high-income countries. Public health strategies to promote adolescents' mental wellbeing should aim to decrease screen time and increase physical activity simultaneously. None.

Bargaining Power: A Framework for Understanding Varieties of Migration Experience

This article introduces the concept of bargaining power as a framework for understanding varieties of migration experience and behavior. We argue that migration and settlement experiences vary according to a migrant’s leverage — or bargaining power — afforded by their individual cultural and socioeconomic capital (internal bargaining power) and their home country’s political and physical security characteristics (external bargaining power). These two dimensions of bargaining power interact with a host country’s social and political structures to produce specific experiences of (dis)advantage. We apply our framework to the Arab Gulf states, where large and diverse foreign populations experience complex and interconnected forms of inclusion and exclusion. Utilizing data from a nationally representative survey of a highly diverse sample of foreign residents in Qatar, we use our framework, first, to generate a typology of Gulf migration experience and, then, to statistically predict migrants’ reported life satisfaction in the host country and intentions for long-term settlement. We also use widely available secondary data to examine objective correlates of bargaining power, offering an alternative pathway for future research that does not require individual-level survey data. We conclude by describing the relevance of our bargaining power framework to the study of varieties of migration experience in other migration regimes.

The share of satisfied individuals: A headcount measure of aggregate subjective well-being

This paper proposes the use of headcount-based indicators for the measurement of national Subjective Well-Being (SWB). I argue for the adoption of sufficientarianism as the guiding principle for aggregate measures of SWB, as opposed to the widely used average utilitarianism. I construct measures of the share of sufficiently satisfied individuals using reported life satisfaction data from the World/European Values Surveys across a range of sufficiency thresholds. A Beta-regression approach is employed to explore the empirical relationships between these measures and objective indicators of well-being. The use of this model is novel in this context. The findings reveal relationships between objective measures of development and SWB that are not apparent from analysis relying on conventional average measures of SWB. For example, I find no significant link between national income and the share of satisfied individuals when cultural controls are included (except when the sufficiency threshold is very high), which suggests that the SWB benefit of higher average incomes is limited from a sufficientarian point of view.

Identifying Stabilising Effects on Survey Based Life Satisfaction Using Quasi-maximum Likelihood Estimation

To which extent do happiness correlates contribute to the stability of life satisfaction? Which method is appropriate to provide a conclusive answer to this question? Based on life satisfaction data of the German SOEP, we show that by Negative Binomial quasi-maximum likelihood estimation statements can be made as to how far correlates of happiness contribute to the stabilisation of life satisfaction. The results show that happiness correlates which are generally associated with a positive change in life satisfaction, also stabilise life satisfaction and destabilise dissatisfaction with life. In such as they lower the probability of leaving positive states of life satisfaction and increase the probability of leaving dissatisfied states. This in particular applies to regular exercise, volunteering and living in a marriage. We further conclude that both patterns in response behaviour and the quality of the measurement instrument, the life satisfaction scale, have a significant effect on the variation and stability of reported life satisfaction.