People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the 2. These construals can influence, and in many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience, including cognition, emotion, and motivation. Many Asian cultures have distinct conceptions of individuality that insist on the fundamental relatedness of individuals to each other. The emphasis is on attending to others, fitting in, and harmonious interdependence with them. American culture neither assumes nor values such an overt connectedness among individuals. In contrast, individuals seek to maintain their independence from others by attending to the self and by discovering and expressing their unique inner attributes. As proposed herein, these construals are even more powerful than previously imagined. Theories of the self from both psychology and anthropology are integrated to define in detail the difference between a construal of the self as independent and a construal of the self as interdependent. Each of these divergent construals should have a set of specific consequences for cognition, emotion, and motivation; these consequences are proposed and relevant empirical literature is reviewed. Focusing on differences in self-construals enables apparently inconsistent empirical findings to be reconciled, and raises questions about what have been thought to be culture-free aspects of cognition, emotion, and motivation.

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Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.

Background: This study presents estimates of lifetime and 12-month prevalence of 14 DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders from the National Comorbidity Survey, the first survey to administer a structured psychiatric interview to a national probability sample in the United States. Methods: The DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders among persons aged 15 to 54 years in the noninstitutionalized civilian population of the United States were assessed with data collected by lay interviewers using a revised version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Results: Nearly 50% of respondents reported at least one lifetime disorder, and close to 30% reported at least one 12-month disorder. The most common disorders were major depressive episode, alcohol dependence, social phobia, and simple phobia. More than half of all lifetime disorders occurred in the 14% of the population who had a history of three or more comorbid disorders. These highly comorbid people also included the vast majority of people with severe disorders. Less than 40% of those with a lifetime disorder had ever received professional treatment, and less than 20% of those with a recent disorder had been in treatment during the past 12 months. Consistent with previous risk factor research, it was found that women had elevated rates of affective disorders and anxiety disorders, that men had elevated rates of substance use disorders and antisocial personality disorder, and that most disorders declined with age and with higher socioeconomic status. Conclusions: The prevalence of psychiatric disorders is greater than previously thought to be the case. Furthermore, this morbidity is more highly concentrated than previously recognized in roughly one sixth of the population who have a history of three or more comorbid disorders. This suggests that the causes and consequences of high comorbidity should be the focus of research attention. The majority of people with psychiatric disorders fail to obtain professional treatment. Even among people with a lifetime history of three or more comorbid disorders, the proportion who ever obtain specialty sector mental health treatment is less than 50%. These results argue for the importance of more outreach and more research on barriers to professional help-seeking.

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Lifetime and 12-Month Prevalence of DSM-III-R Psychiatric Disorders in the United States: Results From the National Comorbidity Survey

Job Demands, Job Decision Latitude, and Mental Strain: Implications for Job Redesign

Reigning measures of psychological well-being have little theoretical grounding, despite an extensive literature on the contours of positive functioning. Aspects of well-being derived from this literature (i.e., self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth) were operationalized. Three hundred and twenty-one men and women, divided among young, middle-aged, and older adults, rated themselves on these measures along with six instruments prominent in earlier studies (i.e., affect balance, life satisfaction, self-esteem, morale, locus of control, depression). Results revealed that positive relations with others, autonomy, purpose in life, and personal growth were not strongly tied to prior assessment indexes, thereby supporting the claim that key aspects of positive functioning have not been represented in the empirical arena. Furthermore, age profiles revealed a more differentiated pattern of well-being than is evident in prior research.

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Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being.

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

BOOK REVIEWS Americans View Their Mental Health. By Gerald Gurin, Joseph Veroff, and Sheila Feld. Price, $7.50. Pp. 444. Basic Books, Inc., 59 Fourth Ave., New York 3, 1960. This is the fourth in the series of ten monographs sponsored by the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health and designed to assess the nation's mental health resources and needs from a variety of perspectives. Its focus is the subjective dimension of mental health. Although not all of the monographs have been published so far, the findings and the recommendations of each have been already summed up and interpreted in the Commission's final report which, because of the publicity it has received, may be familiar to many readers. The present volume is based on an interview survey conducted in 1957 with nearly twenty-five hundred individuals selected to provide a probability sample of the country's adult population. It is a product of three social psychologists, all of whom are on the staff of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, one of the few widely recognized and influential organizations of its kind in social sciences. Besides being impressive for sheer magnitude and the consistent clarity in the presentation and evaluation of the data, the study gives further testimony of the methodological sophistication and the technical know-how typical of the work produced by the Center. Without committing themselves to a definition of mental health, the investigators explore it through a number of measures of adjustment. The measures, however, all derive from the self-appraised, experiential realm of the respondent. In the area of general life adjustment, such measures are obtained from the information about the extent of worrying, evaluation of personal happiness, whether the respondent ever felt close to a nervous breakdown, and if he ever experienced a problem relevant for professional help. In the more specific areas of functioning, namely, marriage, parenthood, and work, adjustment is studied via consideration of such variables as satisfaction with the particular role, feelings of adequacy in performing it, degree of involvement, expectations about future, and the type of problems and their prevalence encountered in each role. It is worth pointing out that in taking a multiple-criterion approach to mental health, the investigators are implicitly in agreement with the current view (e.g., Jahoda, 1958; Smith, 1961) that the search for a conceptual formulation of mental health which could meet with a general consensus is futile because of the unavoidable valuative assumptions in all such formulations. The organization of the book is as follows : The first part deals mainly with the distribution and the interrelations of the indices of adjustment in different demographic groups, most often specified in terms of such variables as sex, education, and age. (Religion, in-

Americans View Their Mental Health

This book is about savoring life—the capacity to attend to the joys, pleasures, and other positive feelings that we experience in our lives. The authors enhance our understanding of what savoring is and the conditions under which it occurs. Savoring provides a new theoretical model for conceptualizing and understanding the psychology of enjoyment and the processes through which people manage positive emotions. The authors review their quantitative research on savoring, as well as the research of others, and provide measurement instruments with scoring instructions for assessing and studying savoring.  Authors Bryant and Veroff outline the necessary preconditions that must exist for savoring to occur and distinguish savoring from related concepts such as coping, pleasure, positive affect, emotional intelligence, flow, and meditation. The book’s lifespan perspective includes a conceptual analysis of the role of time in savoring. Savoring is also considered in relation to human concerns, such as love, friendship, physical and mental health, creativity, and spirituality. Strategies and hands-on exercises that people can use to enhance savoring in their lives are provided, along with a review of factors that enhance savoring. Savoring is intended for researchers, students, and practitioners interested in positive psychology from the fields of social, clinical, health, and personality psychology and related disciplines. The book may serve as a supplemental text in courses on positive psychology, emotion and motivation, and other related topics. The chapters on enhancing savoring will be especially attractive to clinicians and counselors interested in intervention strategies for positive psychological adjustment.

Joseph Veroff

Papers

Americans View Their Mental Health

Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience

The Inner American: A Self-Portrait from 1957 to 1976.@@@Mental Health in America: Patterns of Help-Seeking from 1957 to 1976.

The Inner American: A Self Portrait From 1957 To 1976

Mental health in America : patterns of help-seeking from 1957 to 1976