Measures Of Subjective Well-being Research Articles

The impact of digital technology use on adolescents' subjective well-being: The serial mediating role of flow and learning engagement.

While existing research has established the influence of digital technology use, flow, and learning engagement on students' subjective well-being, there remains a gap in understanding the interrelationships among these factors and the serial mediating role of flow and learning engagement in the relationship between digital technology use and adolescents' subjective well-being. This study examined the potential indirect roles of flow and learning engagement in the association between digital technology use and adolescents' subjective well-being. A paper-based survey was conducted among 1289 adolescents (M = 16.33, SD = 1.688) in Shandong Province. All participants completed a structured self-report questionnaire, including measures of digital technology use, flow, learning engagement, and subjective well-being. Data analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling via Amos 24.0 and SPSS 24.0. The results are as follows: (1) digital technology use has a significant and positive effect on adolescents' subjective well-being; (2) digital technology use significantly and positively affects adolescents' subjective well-being through flow; (3) digital technology use significantly and positively affects adolescents' subjective well-being through learning engagement; (4) digital technology use significantly and positively affects the subjective well-being of adolescents through both flow and learning engagement. This study underscores the benefits of digital technology in boosting adolescents' well-being and identifies flow and learning engagement as key mediators. Our findings equip educators and policymakers with insights to craft interventions that optimize digital technology's role in fostering adolescent development, presenting a fresh view on the intricate dynamics linking digital interaction with psychological health.

Evaluating the reliability and validity of the Questionnaire on Well-Being: a validation study for a clinically informed measurement of subjective well-being

ABSTRACT Researchers and clinicians are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of assessing positive functioning to inform clinical outcomes. This paper evaluates the Questionnaire on Well-Being (QWB, available for free https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GSC3R), a clinically informed instrument that assesses subjective well-being, across two studies. Study One, consisting of treatment-seeking individuals in an assertiveness training sample (n = 495), explored the factorial structure of the QWB, assessed the four-week test-retest reliability, criterion-related validity, and identified a preliminary cutoff point for the QWB with clinical significance. Study Two, including participants from the general public (n = 1561), confirmed the factorial structure of the QWB and further evaluated criterion-related validity. The results provided support for a unidimensional structure for the QWB. Furthermore, the QWB exhibited excellent internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.93 and 0.94 in Study One and Two, respectively), high test-retest reliability (ICC3 = .50 at a four-week follow-up in Study One), and appropriate criterion-related validity demonstrating positive correlations with positive affect and negative correlations with psychopathology. Finally, a cutoff point on the QWB below 50 was associated with marked psychopathology. These findings provide preliminary support for the usage of the QWB in clinical and non-clinical settings, establishing the QWB as a reliable indicator of subjective well-being.

Assessing the Impact of the Way of Saint James on Psychological Distress and Subjective Well-being: The Ultreya Study

This study aimed to examine the impact of a pilgrimage on the Way of St. James on psychological distress and subjective well-being, and to compare these outcomes with a control group on non-pilgrimage vacations. Additionally, the study explored psychological process variables that may mediate the pilgrimage's beneficial effects. A nonrandomized pretest-posttest design was used, involving 444 pilgrims and 124 controls. Participants completed baseline and post-experience self-reported measures of psychological distress, subjective well-being, and psychological processes (i.e., mindfulness, nonattachment, engaged living). A 3-month follow-up was conducted only in the pilgrim group. Mediation analyses examined psychological processes as potential mediators of pre-post change in the pilgrim group (vs. control). Within-group analyses revealed that the pilgrim group experienced improvements in psychological distress, subjective well-being, and psychological processes immediately post-experience, with most measures sustaining improvement at the 3-month follow-up. Compared to the control group, pilgrims showed significantly greater increases in positive affect, life satisfaction, and valued living, alongside greater reductions in anxiety, depression, and perceived stress. Valued living partially mediated the relationship between pilgrimage and positive affect, and fully mediated the effects on perceived stress, negative affect, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness. Pilgrimage on the Way of St. James effectively reduced psychological distress and enhanced subjective well-being, with greater benefits observed compared to a non-pilgrimage vacation control group. Consistent with the concept of pilgrimage as a transformative experience, significant improvements in valued living were noted, which mediated some of the positive outcomes post-pilgrimage. The Way of St. James may serve as a valuable complementary approach for alleviating distress and promoting well-being. Further studies exploring the effects of this pilgrimage on specific populations and using more robust study designs are warranted.Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT04141813.

Are Danes really happier than Swedes and Australians? A comparative analysis of subjective well-being measurement issues in Denmark, Sweden, and Australia

This study examines the reliability of cross-national subjective well-being (SWB) survey data, by corroborating the persistently high SWB-rankings of Denmark through a comparison to Sweden and Australia, two countries with similar or superior social, economic, and health indicators. Our research focuses on both the affective and the cognitive component of SWB, with a special emphasis on the affective component. We investigate four potential measurement issues that could contribute to Denmark’s elevated SWB scores: linguistic inconsistencies in survey translations, variations in answering scale usage, recall bias of affect, and positivity bias in life satisfaction judgments. To address these concerns, we utilize multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, analyse emotion-focused anchoring vignettes, examine affect items across varying time frames, and contrast overall life satisfaction assessments with those of domain-specific satisfaction. Despite accounting for various potential measurement issues, our results reveal that Danes consistently report higher SWB than their Swedish and Australian counterparts, although the differences are small for several of the measures. This finding implies that the SWB survey-data is reliable in this case, and that Denmark's high SWB rankings are not attributable to measurement biases but may indeed signify genuinely high levels of SWB. This paper adds to the growing body of literature on cross-national SWB comparisons and might provide insights for researchers aiming to compare well-being across countries.

The Right Numeraire or the Just Weights? How to Make BCA Rational and Fair

Abstract Unweighted benefit–cost analysis (BCA) based on aggregate willingness to pay might be, at long last, falling into disrepute, as it is widely recognized that it exhibits a bias toward the wealthy, and as alternatives are appearing more and more practicable. However, the choice of alternatives is often framed in terms of choosing an alternative metric to willingness to pay in money, such as willingness to pay in healthy life years, or a measure of subjective well-being. It is argued in this paper that (i) a simple summation of individuals’ willingness to pay in any numeraire (e.g., money, healthy life years) is bound to generate non-transitivity issues in a similar way as money-based BCA, and (ii) a metric such as subjective well-being involves distributional value judgments that are too specific to reflect the relevant spectrum in the public debate. The “orthodox” weighted BCA method, which links BCA to an underlying social welfare function, offers more flexibility and guarantees transitive choices. Fortunately, in some relevant cases, these various methods may provide similar results, and the main options currently proposed all give greater weight to the worse off in the population than does unweighted BCA.

Higher Levels of Morning and Daytime Light Exposure Associated with Positive Sleep Indices in Professional Team Sport Athletes.

Light exposure techniques have been recommended to combat sleep issues caused by disruption to circadian regularity in the athletic population, although studies are lacking. A total of 17 professional male Australian Football athletes (age ± SD: 22 ± 3 years) wore a wrist actigraph to measure sleep parameters, and a wearable light sensor to measure melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance (mEDI, in lux) for 14 days. Participants completed three sleep questionnaires at the end of the data collection period and completed well-being surveys 6 times. The Sleep Regularity Index (SRI) for each player was also calculated from actigraphy data. Light exposure data were organised into three different timeframes: morning (wake time + 2 hours), daytime (end of morning to 6 pm), and evening (2 hours leading up to bedtime) for analysis. Repeated measures correlation was conducted for objective sleep measures and mEDI values per timeframe. Pearson's correlation was conducted on subjective sleep measures and well-being measures against mEDI values per timeframe. Higher morning light was associated with significantly (p < 0.001) greater total sleep time (r = 0.31). Higher daytime light exposure was associated with higher subjective sleep quality (r = 0.48, p < 0.05). Higher evening light exposure was associated with higher Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ) global scores (r = 0.52, p < 0.05). There were no other significant correlations between light exposure and sleep or well-being measures (p > 0.05). Higher morning and daylight exposure levels were associated with various positive objective and subjective sleep measures in professional team sport athletes, supporting the need for education on optimising light exposure to improve circadian function, sleep, and health.

A PERMA model approach to well-being: a psychometric properties study

Psychological well-being influences all the facets of adolescent success. This study examined the psychometric properties of PERMA, a subjective well-being measure consisting of five domains: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. The sample size consisted of 502 high school students from public schools in Qatar. Contrary to expectations, the five-factor structure for PERMA did not fit our data well; however, after refining the model by the errors of the covariances between items, the one-factor model was found to be applicable. Multivariate analysis revealed that socioeconomic status (SES) and level of academic performance were independently and positively associated with overall well-being scores, whereas internalizing and externalizing behaviors were negatively associated. Notably, no significant effects of gender or age on well-being were observed. These findings suggest that interventions specific to socioeconomic status, academic excellence, and internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the school setting can produce more effective outcomes concerning student well-being.

Happiness, positive emotions, and subjective well-being in dementia.

Research on non-cognitive features of dementia traditionally focusses on neuropsychiatric symptoms and challenging behavior and thus on negative aspects of the disease. Despite the clinical observation that many patients frequently report subjective well-being and often express positive emotions there is only little research on the definition, measurement and determinants of subjective well-being and happiness in people living with dementia. Furthermore, the few studies there are, examined happiness using retrospective questionnaires and the accounts of relatives or caregivers. However, in dementia, the experiencing self becomes more significant since past and future thinking are fading into the background. Here, we review the relative scarce literature in this field, discuss different psychological constructs and their applicability for dementia research, and suggest methods for measuring the addressed constructs in people with dementia. In particular, we propose methodology to study happiness and positive emotions in the experienced moment of the participants using ecological momentary assessments (EMA). We believe that adequate measures of momentary subjective well-being might become an important outcome parameter in clinical dementia trials beyond the currently used quality of life measures.

How and Why Marriage is Related to Subjective Well-Being? Evidence from Chinese Society

Although research on the relationship between marriage and subjective well-being (SWB) has been a principal focus in social sciences, research that takes cultural contextual effects into account is scant. Drawing on data from the five-wave 2010–2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) panel survey, we explore how marital status (married or not) affects SWB among 15,507 Chinese adults. Utilizing the two-way fixed-effects (FE) model, we show that under the influence of Confucianism, getting married leads to higher SWB levels in Chinese people. The result is robust to alternative SWB measures. Our heterogeneous analyses indicate that the impact of marriage varies across gender, cultural context, income, and couples’ differences in the level of education. In particular, how Confucianism impacts the relationship between marriage and SWB differs by gender. Structural equation modeling ( N = 13,196) predicts that individual human capital and social capital are mediators in marriage–SWB relationships.

Preliminary development of the Survey on Flourishing: measuring subjective well-being in an adolescent sample

BackgroundAdolescent subjective well-being is a topic that has gained significant focus over recent years. This focus is reflected in forming measurement tools and interventions to better understand better and improve adolescent mental health. While these steps are necessary, problems still exist regarding adolescent subjective well-being measurement. Notably, current measurement tools are limited in their content, applicability to various populations, and accessibility.AimsThis paper examines the psychometric properties of the Survey on Flourishing (SURF) when used with an adolescent sample from the United States.MethodA sample of 334 participants participated in the present study. We examined the reliability and validity of the SURF by examining its internal consistency, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. We also examined the factor structure of the SURF using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).ResultsThe SURF demonstrated high internal consistency (α = 0.92), a strong positive correlation with convergent measures, and a weak negative correlation with a discriminant measure. A one-factor model best fits the observed data.ConclusionThe SURF demonstrated good psychometric properties and addressed several shortcomings in current measures. Preliminary data suggests the SURF may be a useful and practical measure of adolescent subjective well-being.

To change or not to change? – Status quo bias and happiness

The status-quo bias (SQB) is the tendency to stick with the current situation despite potential dissatisfaction. In this study, we explore the relationship between SQB and subjective well-being (SWB). We hypothesized that higher SQB may lead to less desirable situations (e.g., unsatisfactory marriage, unwanted job), negatively affecting SWB. We developed and examined a novel index for measuring SQB. Surveying 1,423 Israeli working adults, the index showed strong internal consistency and validity, affirming reliability and construct validity. A significant negative correlation between SQB and three SWB measures was found, with SQB explaining more to SWB variations than subjective health, income, and religion combined. Positive life changes over the past three years have moderated this relationship. Moreover, despite including factors like regret, present bias, loss aversion, and optimism—which correlate with SWB and SQB in opposite directions and, therefore, could nullify our findings—the SQB-SWB correlation remained robust. Furthermore, our SQB measure significantly predicted SWB even when controlling for the negative relationship between the affective component of SWB (i.e., emotions) and SQB, which was demonstrated to operate in reverse causality compared to our hypothesis. In other words, SQB was found to mediate between the affective component and the other components of SWB. By providing evidence of the correlation between SQB and SWB, we introduce a robust SQB measurement tool, and underscore SQB's importance when exploring SWB determinants, suggesting that policy interventions encouraging individuals to overcome barriers to change could be advantageous.

Food Insecurity and Measures of Subjective Well-Being Among Pregnant and Postpartum Women: Evidence From Nigeria

Food Insecurity and Measures of Subjective Well-Being Among Pregnant and Postpartum Women: Evidence From Nigeria

Measuring Subjective Well-being Capability: A Multi-Country Empirical Analysis in Europe

The main aim of this paper is to conceptualise and empirically estimate subjective well-being capability. The empirical demonstration of the conceptual framework is applied in a selection of European countries: Poland and its leading emigration destinations the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, France and Italy. The paper advances the measure of subjective well-being capability (SWC) as the integration of the subjective well-being measure with the capability approach in a unified measurement framework. Following the development of a conceptual model, the theoretical framework is operationalized empirically to quantify measures of SWC across the selected countries using a Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes Model. Data from the European Quality of Life Survey is employed. A comparative analysis compares the SWC measures across countries as well as comparing SWC with conventional well-being measures such as overall happiness and GDP per capita. The results of the study reveal a significant correlation between the SWC based on a general model for all countries, overall happiness, and GDP per capita. However, it also suggests that country-specific SWCs, calculated from tailored models, could substantially deviate from traditional well-being measurements. This attribute suggests that SWC could be a practical tool for assessing individual contexts, as reflected in the tailored models, even though it might not serve as the optimal instrument for country ranking (via the general MIMIC model).

Measuring quality of life in Europe: A new fuzzy multicriteria approach

Quality of life indicators include measures of both objective and subjective well-being to broaden the traditional income-focused view towards a multidimensional view of welfare. In this paper, we develop a single reliable composite index employing fuzzy mathematical modelling that considers the effect of uncertainty and imprecision related to the specific nature of the phenomenon being measured. Additionally, we suggest a procedure for incorporating this new way of assigning priorities through multicriteria techniques. To this end, we propose a new multicriteria approach that introduces the recent notion of picture fuzzy sets to deal with uncertainty and imprecision in the assessment of objective and subjective dimensions of quality-of-life performance. To verify the effectiveness of the whole approach and the credibility of the results, we show its application for monitoring the quality of life in the European Union. Our results show that fuzzy numbers can be a useful tool when combined with multicriteria techniques in the prioritization phase of the criteria and that they increase the quality and reliability of the overall aggregate indicator. Furthermore, through statistical measures we found that in a picture environment the results are consistent regardless of the multi-criteria approach used to provide a final classification.

Subjective Well-Being and Bullying Victimisation: A Cross-National Study of Adolescents in 64 Countries and Economies

Bullying is a recognised serious public problem affecting many students worldwide. Despite the well-established empirical evidence for the negative consequences of bullying on adolescents? mental and physical health and educational outcomes, little is known about the link between bullying victimisation and adolescents? subjective well-being. Moreover, empirical studies using comparative large-scale survey data are particularly scarce. This study explores this question using nationally-representative data from 329,015 adolescents across 64 high and middle-income countries and economies from the 2018 PISA survey. Two measures of subjective well-being were considered: overall life satisfaction and positive affect. Multilevel regressions were estimated at three levels (student, school, and country). Results showed that bullying victimisation was negatively and significantly related to overall life satisfaction and positive affect after controlling for a wide set of factors affecting subjective well-being. Moreover, this negative relationship was more pronounced for top performing students. Locally adapted intervention programmes are needed to tackle the issue of school bullying and foster positive school climate and student well-being. Practical and policy implications are discussed in detail.

Pain and subjective well-being among older adults in the developing world : A comprehensive assessment based on the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health

This paper studies the association of pain with subjective well-being (SWB) and time use among older adults in five low- and middle-income countries using data from the first wave of the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health. We suggest a novel use of anchoring vignettes as direct control functions to account for potentially correlated reporting behaviors such as correlated response scales when analyzing the relationship between subjective variables such as self-reported pain and SWB. Exploiting detailed data on individual time use and several complementary measures of SWB, including fine-grained activity-specific affective experiences derived from an abbreviated version of the Day Reconstruction Method, we find that both evaluative and experienced well-being are markedly lower for people living with pain compared to those without pain. These disparities persist even after controlling for possible confounding from reporting behaviors through the use of anchoring vignettes. Differences in experienced utility by pain status appear to be exclusively due to worse affective experiences during daily activities for those with pain, which seem to be partially mediated through changes in their functional limitations. Pain-related differences in time use, in turn, seem to provide only small compensating effects, underscoring important challenges to the use of changed activity patterns as a viable coping strategy for individuals enduring pain.

Geographical match of objective and subjective measures of well-being at an intra-city scale

Despite human well-being serving as a crucial indicator for measuring social development and progress, the measurement of well-being faces great challenges. This study constructs a multi-level statistical model to investigate the geographical relationship between subjective well-being measure derived from a large-scale social survey and objective well-being measure derived by using a non-compensatory indicator aggregation technique and a variety of urban geospatial data. We find that a consistent resemblance between the subjective and objective measures of well-being at both the community (r = 0.61 with a p < 0.01) and sub-district scales (r = 0.62 with a p < 0.01) within a city. This finding is further supported by the estimation results from models that controls for a variety of covariate effects. Drawing on the close resemblance between the subjective and objective measures of human well-being, we develop a statistical model that links these two measurements to create a composite measure of well-being. Our results extend the understanding on the geographical match between subjective and objective measures of well-being at an intra-city spatial scale, and provide a new insight on how to leverage the emerging urban geospatial data and social survey when devising indicators of well-being.

Further examination of the dual-factor model: characteristics of emerging adults with non-traditional mental health profiles

Traditionally, the mental health field has focused on psychological symptoms and distress, and health is considered the absence of illness. An alternative view suggests that optimal mental health must include the presence of positive characteristics in addition to the absence of illness. Accordingly, a dual-factor model of mental health includes measures of both psychopathology and positive subjective well-being to determine an individual’s mental health status. The current study investigated this dual-factor model by examining whether subjective well-being and psychopathology combine to produce distinct mental health profiles in emerging adults. A sample of 559 university students completed self-report surveys indicating their life satisfaction and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Cluster analysis yielded four unique mental health groups. The well-adjusted cluster included individuals with high life satisfaction and low internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The dissatisfied cluster consisted of individuals with low externalizing, but also low life satisfaction and slightly above-average levels of internalizing. The externalizing cluster had high life satisfaction but also high externalizing psychopathology, and the troubled cluster exhibited low life satisfaction and high levels of both psychopathology symptoms. The clusters also differed in their personality traits, coping responses, and automatic thoughts, with the most favorable pattern across all three dimensions exhibited by the well-adjusted cluster. These findings highlight the importance of considering positive indicators of mental health in addition to measures of psychopathology and support the use of an empirical classification procedure in determining the mental health status of emerging adults.

How the wellbeing function varies with age: the importance of income, health and social relations over the lifecycle

AbstractPrevious literature has identified income, health status and social relationships as the most important predictors of subjective wellbeing (SWB). In addition, the literature has identified a non‐linear relationship between age and SWB, with a dip in SWB in midlife. Explanations of the non‐linear age–SWB relationship include the notion of unmet aspirations and the idea that people's emotional response to the drivers of SWB changes with age. Against this background, we use representative longitudinal data for Germany (1992–2019) with about 570,000 observations for more than 88,000 individuals aged 16–105 years to investigate if and how the association between SWB and its main predictors changes over the lifecycle. Using fixed effects estimation to control for cohort effects and unobserved personal characteristics, we find that the marginal effects of income and social relationships vary with age in a wave‐like fashion, while the positive marginal effect of good health status increases monotonically and progressively with age. Our results are similar for alternative measures of SWB (life satisfaction and living in misery), and for men and women separately. The age‐related changes in the importance of income and social relationships for SWB found in this paper help to explain the relationship between age and SWB found in previous literature.

The worst off in Europe - country differences and trends over time in (low) life satisfaction

In recent years, policymakers and researchers have shown increased interest in subjective well-being across countries. While previous research primarily focused on country averages, measuring the distribution of subjective well-being through standard deviation has become more frequent. This article introduces a new approach to assess subjective well-being: focusing on the “worst off," or the group with the lowest levels of well-being. Based on several ethical and political theories, this measure is deemed the most relevant when assessing well-being levels in society. The study constructs new measures of low subjective well-being (the bottom 10%) to evaluate differences across countries, changes over time, and associations with economic growth, using data from 33 European countries from 2002 to 2018. The findings indicate significant variations in well-being for the worst off across countries, with improvements observed in almost all countries studied, particularly in Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Improvements are generally larger for the worst off compared to the general population. Furthermore, both GDP per capita and financial satisfaction are positively associated with the subjective well-being of the worst off, both over time and when countries are compared cross-sectionally. The implications of these findings for future research and benchmarking quality of life are discussed.