This article reports the development and validation of a scale to measure global life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among the various components of subjective well-being, the SWLS is narrowly focused to assess global life satisfaction and does not tap related constructs such as positive affect or loneliness. The SWLS is shown to have favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and high temporal reliability. Scores on the SWLS correlate moderately to highly with other measures of subjective well-being, and correlate predictably with specific personality characteristics. It is noted that the SWLS is suited for use with different age groups, and other potential uses of the scale are discussed.

The Satisfaction with Life Scale

This article reports the development and validation of a scale to measure global life satisfaction, the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS). Among the various components of subjective well-being, the SWLS is narrowly focused to assess global life satisfaction and does not tap related constructs such as positive affect or loneliness. The SWLS is shown to have favorable psychometric properties, including high internal consistency and high temporal reliability. Scores on the SWLS correlate moderately to highly with other measures of subjective well-being, and correlate predictably with specific personality characteristics. It is noted that the SWLS is Suited for use with different age groups, and other potential uses of the scale are discussed.

The Satisfaction With Life Scale.

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

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

Subjective Well-being

How many of the gifted children found in the schools will realize their potentialities and become distinguished persons, contributing in an outstanding way to the welfare of their society and gaining for themselves the satisfactions of excellent performance? Under present conditions, certainly less than half of them will do so. Even this, however, is not a bad situation when compared with what other societies have done for their gifted children. Probably no other society has done as well as the United States in this respect. Even Athens at the height of her creativity in the fifth century, B.C., or Florence in the Renaissance, or England in the sixteenth century, reached these peaks without having utilized the latent talent of the great mass of the people, who were submerged in slavery or grinding poverty. It is only when the facts of the development of talent in present-day America are compared with what might be and what the democratic ideal suggests they ought to be that the record looks inadequate.

Conditions Favorable and Detrimental to the Development of Talent

M UCH of the significant work on personality development in the recent period has been a result of combining concepts and methods of psychology and social anthropology. Sears (72) foreshadowed this approach in his review of three years ago. He pointed out that theories of learning and motivation had developed to the point where they could be applied usefully to the study of environmental conditions under which personality is, for the most part, learned. During the same year, Mowrer and Kluckhohn (55) contributed an admirable and provocative statement of a dynamic theory of personality. Several investigations following the \"personality and culture\" approach have been reported recently. Three of five integrative studies of Indian personality undertaken jointly by the U. S. Office of Indian Affairs and the Committee on Human Development of the University of Chicago have been published. Thompson and Joseph (82) were responsible for the initial report on the Hopi; MacGregor (53) had the collaboration of Hassrick, and W. E. Henry in a study of the society and personality development of the Pine Ridge Sioux; Kluckhohn and Leighton (44, 50) brought together the research done among the Navaho, the second book being devoted tø personality development as it is influenced by the way of life of \"The People.\" A research group at Columbia University has continued to develop the technic of psychodynamic analysis for the study of the relationships between personality and culture. In a book which describes the basic personality pattern for each culture, Kardiner (42) analyzed data supplied by Linton on the Comanche, by Dubois on the Alorese (22) , and by \"West\" on \"Plainville, U. S. A.\" (85) . Benedict has made a rather similar analysis of Japanese character (12) . These several studies of Indian and other simple and complex societies have a common emphasis on the importance of the early social experiences of the child in the formation of his personality. Analogous studies of child development in the various social classes of the American society have shown how systematic personality differences arise between the American cultural sub-groups. Notable in this respect is the recent book by Davis and Havighurst (19) . A second significant area of personality research has been that of factor and syndrome analysis. Jenkins and Hewitt (39) , by studying intercorrelations of various personality traits, came to the conclusion that there were three characteristic types of personality found among children in child guidance clinics. These types were described as the overinhibited

Chapter IV: Personality Development

A HE past three years have seen a considerable amount of study of the psychological adjustment of people as they grow older. But the concept of adjustment as applied to adults in a modern society is so complex that these studies have merely served to outline the problem and to suggest some useful approaches to it, leaving a thoro exploration of it to the future. An important characteristic of current research in gerontology is the amount of study being devoted to middle age rather than to old age. This signifies an interest in the process of aging and in getting knowledge which will provide a basis for a preventive mental hygiene that will help people to make a better adjustment in their later years.

Robert J. Havighurst

Papers

Conditions Favorable and Detrimental to the Development of Talent

Chapter IV: Personality Development

Chapter VI: Aging and Psychological Adjustment

American Indian and White Children : A Sociopsychological Investigation

The American veteran back home; a study of veteran readjustment.