The literature on subjective well-being (SWB), including happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect, is reviewed in three areas: measurement, causal factors, and theory. Psychometric data on single-item and multi-item subjective well-being scales are presented, and the measures are compared. Measuring various components of subjective well-being is discussed. In terms of causal influences, research findings on the demographic correlates of SWB are evaluated, as well as the findings on other influences such as health, social contact, activity, and personality. A number of theoretical approaches to happiness are presented and discussed: telic theories, associationistic models, activity theories, judgment approaches, and top-down versus bottom-up conceptions.

Subjective Well-Being

This article provides researchers with a guide to properly construe and conduct analyses of conditional indirect effects, commonly known as moderated mediation effects. We disentangle conflicting definitions of moderated mediation and describe approaches for estimating and testing a variety of hypotheses involving conditional indirect effects. We introduce standard errors for hypothesis testing and construction of confidence intervals in large samples but advocate that researchers use bootstrapping whenever possible. We also describe methods for probing significant conditional indirect effects by employing direct extensions of the simple slopes method and Johnson-Neyman technique for probing significant interactions. Finally, we provide an SPSS macro to facilitate the implementation of the recommended asymptotic and bootstrapping methods. We illustrate the application of these methods with an example drawn from the Michigan Study of Adolescent Life Transitions, showing that the indirect effect of intrinsic student interest on mathematics performance through teacher perceptions of talent is moderated by student math self-concept.

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Addressing Moderated Mediation Hypotheses: Theory, Methods, and Prescriptions.

https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2651&context=soss_research

Subjective Well-being

This article describes a scale measuring dispositional optimism, defined in terms of generalized outcome expectancies. Two preliminary studies assessed the scale's psychometric properties and its relationships with several other instruments. The scale was then used in a longitudinal study of symptom reporting among a group of undergraduates. Specifically, respondents were asked to complete three questionnaires 4 weeks before the end of a semester. Included in the questionnaire battery was the measure of optimism, a measure of private self-consciousness, and a 39-item physical symptom checklist. Subjects completed the same set of questionnaires again on the last day of class. Consistent with predictions, subjects who initially reported being highly optimistic were subsequently less likely to report being bothered by symptoms (even after correcting for initial symptom-report levels) than were subjects who initially reported being less optimistic. This effect tended to be stronger among persons high in private self-consciousness than among those lower in private self-consciousness. Discussion centers on other health related applications of the optimism scale, and the relationships between our theoretical orientation and several related theories.

Optimism, coping, and health: Assessment and implications of generalized outcome expectancies.

The establishment of measurement invariance across groups is a logical prerequisite to conducting substantive cross-group comparisons (e.g., tests of group mean differences, invariance of structura...

A Review and Synthesis of the Measurement Invariance Literature: Suggestions, Practices, and Recommendations for Organizational Research

A sample of 124 women with osteoarthritis or fibromyalgia, or both, completed initial assessments for demographic data, health status, and personality traits and 10-12 weekly interviews regarding pain, stress, negative affect, and positive affect. Multilevel modeling analyses indicated that weekly elevations of pain and stress predicted increases in negative affect. Both higher weekly positive affect as well as greater positive affect on average resulted in lower negative affect both directly and in interaction with pain and stress. Finally, increases in weekly negative affect and higher average negative affect related to greater levels of pain in subsequent weeks. In contrast, higher levels of overall positive affect predicted lower levels of pain in subsequent weeks.

/pdf/positive-affect-as-a-source-of-resilience-for-women-in-2h371svzeh.pdf

Positive Affect as a Source of Resilience for Women in Chronic Pain.

Part 1. Resilience at Many Levels of Analysis. 1. A. J. Zautra, J. S. Hall, K. E. Murray, Resilience: A New Definition of Health for People and Communities. Part 2. Basic Dimensions of Resilience. A. Biological Dimensions of Resilience. 2. A. Feder, E. J. Nestler, M. Westphal, D. S. Charney, Psychobiological Mechanisms of Resilience to Stress. 3. K. Lemery-Chalfant, Genes and Environments: How They Work Together to Promote Resilience. B. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Models of Resilience. 4. A. D. Ong, C. S. Bergeman, S. Chow, Positive Emotions as a Basic Building Block of Resilience in Adulthood. 5. J. D. Mayer, M. A. Faber, Personal Intelligence and Resilience: Recovery in the Shadow of Broken Connections. 6. A. E. Skodol, The Resilient Personality. 7. K.Boerner, D.Jopp, Resilience in Response to Loss. 8. P. Karoly, Psychopathology as Dysfunctional Self-Regulation: When Resilience Resources Are Compromised. 9. E. Rafaeli, A. Hiller, Self-Complexity: A Source of Resilience? 10. K. I. Pargament, J. Cummings, Anchored by Faith: Religion as a Resilience Factor, C. Resilience across the Lifespan. 11. A. S. Masten, M. O'Dougherty Wright, Resilience over the Lifespan: Developmental Perspectives on Resistance, Recovery, and Transformation. 12. L. J. Luecken, J. L. Gress, Early Adversity and Resilience in Emerging Adulthood. 13. A. D. Mancini, G. A. Bonanno, Resilience to Potential Trauma: Toward a Lifespan Approach, D. Social Dimensions of Resilience. 14. M. A. Zimmerman, A. B. Brenner, Resilience in Adolescence: Overcoming Neighborhood Disadvantage. 15. V. S. Helgeson, L. Lopez, Social Support and Growth Following Adversity. E. Organizational and Public Policy Dimensions of Resilience. 16. J. Denhardt, R. Denhardt, Building Organizational Resilience and Adaptive Management. 17. J. S. Hall, A. J. Zautra, Indicators of Community Resilience: What Are They, Why Bother? Part 3. Ethnic and Cultural Dimensions of Resilience. 18. F. Gonzalez Castro, K. E. Murray, Cultural Adaptation and Resilience: Controversies, Issues, and Emerging Models. 19. M. Ungar, Cultural Dimensions of Resilience among Adults. Part 4. Interventions for Enhancing Resilience. 20. M.Kent, M. C. Davis, The Emergence of Capacity-Building Programs and Models of Resilience. 21. S. Lyubomirsky, M. D. Della Porta, Boosting Happiness, Buttressing Resilience: Results from Cognitive and Behavioral Interventions. 22. J. Tedlie Moskowitz, Positive Affect at the Onset of Chronic Illness: Planting the Seeds of Resilience. 23. J. P. Kretzmann, Asset-Based Strategies for Building Resilient Communities. 24. R. A. Hughes, Health in a New Key: Fostering Resilience through Philanthropy.

Handbook of adult resilience

Examined whether psychological adjustment of women with rheumatoid arthritis would be related to the support and criticism the patient received from the husband. Interviews were conducted with the husbands of 103 women with rheumatoid arthritis. Spouse interviews were content coded for critical remarks. Wives completed a revised version of the Ways of Coping Scale and a scale of the perceived supportiveness of the spouse. Husbands completed rating scales assessing their perceived vulnerability to illness and the degree of burden they experienced in providing assistance to their wives. Path analyses revealed that patient adjustment was significantly related to the attitude of the spouse. Patients with a highly critical spouse engaged in more maladaptive coping behaviors and reported a poorer psychological adjustment. Independent of spousal criticism, patients who perceived their spouse as being supportive engaged in more adaptive coping. A path model was fit to the data that suggested that the spouse may affect adjustment indirectly through influencing the patient's selection of adaptive or maladaptive coping responses.

Spouse criticism and support: their association with coping and psychological adjustment among women with rheumatoid arthritis.

This research examined whether cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness interventions that target responses to chronic stress, pain, and depression reduce pain and improve the quality of everyday life for adults with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The 144 RA participants were clustered into groups of 6-10 participants and randomly assigned to 1 of 3 treatments: cognitive behavioral therapy for pain (P); mindfulness meditation and emotion regulation therapy (M); or education-only group (E), which served as an attention placebo control. The authors took a multimethod approach, employing daily diaries and laboratory assessment of pain and mitogen-stimulated levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), a proinflammatory cytokine. Participants receiving P showed the greatest Pre to Post improvement in self-reported pain control and reductions in the IL-6; both P and M groups showed more improvement in coping efficacy than did the E group. The relative value of the treatments varied as a function of depression history. RA patients with recurrent depression benefited most from M across several measures, including negative and positive affect and physicians' ratings of joint tenderness, indicating that the emotion regulation aspects of that treatment were most beneficial to those with chronic depressive features.

Comparison of Cognitive Behavioral and Mindfulness Meditation Interventions on Adaptation to Rheumatoid Arthritis for Patients With and Without History of Recurrent Depression

What enables people to bounce back from stressful experiences? How do certain individuals maintain a sense of purpose and direction over the long term, even in the face of adversity? This is the first book to move beyond childhood and adolescence to explore resilience across the lifespan. Coverage ranges from genetic and physiological factors through personal, family, organizational, and community processes. Contributors examine how resilience contributes to health and well-being across the adult life cycle; why—and what happens when—resilience processes fail; ethnic and cultural dimensions of resilience; and ways to enhance adult resilience, including reviews of exemplary programs.

Alex J. Zautra

Papers

Positive Affect as a Source of Resilience for Women in Chronic Pain.

Handbook of adult resilience

Spouse criticism and support: their association with coping and psychological adjustment among women with rheumatoid arthritis.

Comparison of Cognitive Behavioral and Mindfulness Meditation Interventions on Adaptation to Rheumatoid Arthritis for Patients With and Without History of Recurrent Depression

Resilience: A new definition of health for people and communities.