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.

/pdf/happiness-is-everything-or-is-it-explorations-on-the-meaning-4e8ub9008s.pdf

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

Brazilian secondary education and socio-economic development

/pdf/the-self-esteem-of-american-indian-youth-the-personal-social-4g7se62rhf.pdf

The Self-Esteem of American Indian Youth; The Personal-Social Adjustment of American Indian Youth. National Study of American Indian Education, Series 3, No. 8, Final Report.

Farewell to schools

Philanthropic Foundations as Interest Groups.

Social Adjustment Social adjustment involves two complementary processes, orientation and socialization. Orientation is the process thru which an individual finds channels for expressing his inner motivations in a system of social relationships. Every individual has to dovetail his behavior into a society, or some social group within a society. His problem is to learn skills and technics, rules and sanctions, symbols and value-attitudes, which permit him to maintain his place as a social being in the society and, at the same time, give him a sense of personal identity. Socialization is the process of presenting alternative channels for individual behavior together with positive and negative sanctions which will lead to the acceptance of some and the rejection of others. It emphasizes the influence of social groups, formal and informal, upon the personality of the individual. As a resultant of the socialization process, the individual learns a culture. Each social group teaches certain common and standardized ways of doing things, of behaving and of believing, characteristic of its culture. When inner motivations are incompatible with culturally acceptable expressive channels, and when the individual is forced to comply without compensating satisfactions, neurotic compensatory satisfactions are sought. Since complex societies have a number of different kinds of social groupings, each with its sub-culture, social adjustment varies from segment to segment of the society. Depending upon the way in which different investigators identify these segments, and upon their various preferences in explaining behavior in terms of orientation to or socialization by social groups, there are several distinct research approaches to the study of differential social adjustment. Some approaches are concerned with groupings on the basis of age, sex, and physical strength factors, and their relation to social adjustment. Bonney (7) found some sex differences in social success and personality traits in three groups of fourth-grade children. Pupil choices, teacher ratings, and self-ratings (obtained by analyzing responses to the California Test of Personality) consistently favored the girls. Jones (22) selected the ten strongest and the ten weakest boys in a normal urban school population of seventy-eight seventeen-year-old boys by tests of physical ability. The strong boys were found to be superior in social

Robert J. Havighurst

Papers

Brazilian secondary education and socio-economic development

The Self-Esteem of American Indian Youth; The Personal-Social Adjustment of American Indian Youth. National Study of American Indian Education, Series 3, No. 8, Final Report.

Farewell to schools

Philanthropic Foundations as Interest Groups.

Chapter V: Social Development