Well-Being, Quality of Life, and the Naïve Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness is a long-enshrined tradition that has recently become the cornerstone of the American Positive Psychology movement. However, “happiness” is an over-worked and ambiguous word, which, it is argued, should be restricted and only used as the label for a brief emotional state that typically lasts a few seconds or minutes. The corollary proposal for positive psychology is that optimism is a preferable stance over pessimism or realism. Examples are presented both from psychology and economics that illustrate the dangers of optimism, and in which better outcomes can occur with a pessimistic stance. A more sophisticated approach is then presented in which, in relation to well-being and quality of life, neither optimism nor pessimism is seen as inherently better than the other, but, rather, in which psychological flexibility may contribute optimally to health and well-being.     

The Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life: What about the Balanced Life?

Martin Seligman, in his very popular book Authentic Happiness (Seligman 2002), argued that authentic happiness is derived from three major sets of experiences in life, namely experiencing pleasantness regularly (the pleasant life), experiencing a high level of engagement in satisfying activities (the engaged life), and experiencing a sense of connectedness to a greater whole (the meaningful life). In this paper, we maintain that balance in life contributes significantly to subjective well-being. Balance contributes to subjective well-being because of the satisfaction limit that people can derive from a single life domain. People have to be involved in multiple domains to satisfy the full spectrum of human development needs. Different life domains tend to focus on different human developmental needs. More specifically, balance contributes to subjective well-being because subjective well-being can only be attained when both survival and growth needs are met. High levels of subjective well-being cannot be attained with satisfaction of basic needs or growth needs alone. Both needs have to be met to induce subjective well-being.     

Creativity, “Twinning,” and Self-Destruction in the Life and Work of Tennessee Williams

Applying an eclectic psychoanalytic framework, this paper provides a thematic link between the core experiences of Williams' early life and his creative work. Both preoedipal and Oedipal themes are elucidated. The central issue that dominated Williams' mental life was his struggle between a sense of suffocation and confinement, on the one hand, and having artistic and sexual freedom, on the other. The experience of suffocation extended to his dread of becoming mad. This dread derived from his intense twinning or twinship merger with his schizophrenic sister who was confined in an asylum. The study focuses attention on a number of Williams' one-act and full-length plays, written during each of the decades of his public career, as representative of his overall dramatic opus. These works are indicative of his special relationship with his sister as well as of his obsession about self-indulgence and fear of confinement. The later plays suggest that he was subject to identity confusion.     

Life partners’ perceptions of the emotional,speech disruptive,and attitudinal correlates of stuttering

PurposeThe purpose of the current investigation was to explore the extent to which the life partners (LPs) of people who stutter (PWS) perceive their loved ones’ speech-situation specific emotional reaction, expectancy of speech disruption, and speech-related communication attitude.MethodsThree subtests of the Behavior Assessment Battery (BAB): the Speech Situation Checklist - Emotional Reaction (SSC-ER), the Speech Situation Checklist - Speech Disruption (SSC-SD) and the Communication Attitude Test for Adults Who Stutter (BigCAT) were administered to 33 PWS and modified versions were administered to their LPs via Qualtrics Survey Software. Effect of relationship duration on subtest scores was considered. Perceived stuttering severity by the participant and their LP was also queried as part of a demographic questionnaire.ResultsPWS and their LPs rated BigCAT items in a similar way, while they rated certain SSC-ER and SSC-SD items differently. Importantly, between-group agreement was not affected by relationship duration. Among the PWS and LP, perceived stuttering severity influenced all BAB subtest scores.ConclusionLPs of PWS appear to be in tune with the cognitive aspects of their partner’s experience of stuttering. This has important clinical implications as it relates to active involvement of the family in speech intervention targeting fluency.     

Leaning In and Out: Work–Life Tradeoffs,Self-Conscious Emotions,and Life Role Satisfaction

Drawing on self-discrepancy theory, which posits discomfort when actual selves deviate from ideal or ought selves (Higgins, 1987), we examine the complementary and compounding effects of work–life tradeoffs on self-conscious emotions, life role satisfaction, and spouse/partner work satisfaction. Across multiple samples, we augment and refine extant tradeoff measures to include minor tradeoffs (e.g., limiting networking, missing a family event) in addition to the more frequently researched major tradeoffs (e.g., quitting a job, choosing not to have children) and test their effects. Work compromising tradeoffs (i.e., sacrificing work for family/personal activities) were associated with negative self-conscious emotions and lower levels of job, career, and life satisfaction indirectly through professional self-discrepancy, suggesting that making work compromises for family affects how individuals see themselves as professionals. Family/personal compromising tradeoffs (i.e., sacrificing family/personal activities for work) were associated with negative self-conscious emotions and lower levels of job, career, family, and life satisfaction indirectly through family and professional self-discrepancy, suggesting individuals view their family and professional selves less favorably when they make family/personal compromises for work. Despite negative effects for the employees, our results suggest work tradeoffs are beneficial for spouse/partner work hours and satisfaction.     

Links Between Parents’ and Children’s Levels of Gratitude, Life Satisfaction, and Hope

Decades of research confirm familial links in mental illness, but little is known about the relationships between parents’ and children’s levels of positive emotions. The current study used a past, present, and future framework of positive emotions to explore parent and child levels of gratitude, life satisfaction, and hope. Correlations between self-reported levels of gratitude, life satisfaction, and hope were analyzed in a sample of 148 fourth and fifth grade students and their biological parents (137 mothers, 109 fathers). Findings include statistically significant relationships between (1) mother and child gratitude (but not father and child gratitude) and (2) child life satisfaction and both mothers’ and fathers’ life satisfaction. No significant relationships emerged between parent hope and child hope, although higher parent life satisfaction was associated with higher child hope. Research is needed to investigate the causes of the links identified in the current study.     

Precariousness and Quality of Life—a Qualitative Perspective on Quality of Life of Households in Precarious Prosperity in Switzerland and Spain

Households’ resources and constraints are key components of quality of life (QOL). QOL also depends on how these are evaluated. In times of crisis one expects subjective wellbeing and quality of life to decline. We argue that the quality of life depends on objective living conditions, their subjective evaluation and the ability to maintain or improve the situation of “embedded individuals”. This ability, in turn, depends on the opportunities provided by the state, labour markets, families and communities. We analyse qualitative interviews (2008–2010) with around 25 households in precarious prosperity in two cities (Pamplona, Spain and Lausanne, Switzerland) to elaborate their QOL. Few sampled Swiss households witnessed a decline in socio-economic status, contrary to the Spanish. Domains important to these households for QOL varied according to the opportunity structures: in the Spanish sample QOL was related to the opportunities for income, work, and security to plan ahead; in the Swiss sample to health, work-life balance and loneliness. In both samples, QOL varied according to scope of agency, people’s position within the life course, the households’ past experiences, current situation and future perspectives. Lack of future perspectives and opportunities lowered QOL; reframing, adaption and accepting the situation sometimes moderated QOL. We conclude that apart from living conditions and/or subjective wellbeing, households’ agency within opportunity structures is a promising direction for further research in QOL.     

Is Easy Access Related to Better Life? Walkability and Overlapping of Personal and Communal Identity as Predictors of Quality of Life

Two studies (N?=?190 and N?=?447) were conducted to investigate the link between living in walkable neighborhoods and satisfaction with life in a city. Additionally, we explore possible mediators of this relationship. In both studies walkability was a significant predictor of perceived quality of life in a city, and overlap between personal and communal identity (in Study 1 and Study 2) and city identification (Study 2) were mediators of the walkability—quality of life relation. Implications for research on environmental qualities of neighborhoods and on self-concept and communal identity are discussed.     

How Does the Life Satisfaction of the Poor,Least Educated,and Least Satisfied Change as Average Life Satisfaction Increases?

We study subjective life satisfaction inequality in the United States using panel data from the 2005 to 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We aggregate individual level data to the state level and study how the average self-reported life satisfaction of various income, education, and life satisfaction groups changes with the average self-reported life satisfaction of the state. We find that the subjective life satisfaction of the least satisfied does not increase in equal proportion with the average life satisfaction of society, suggesting that increasing satisfaction levels are likely to lead to greater life satisfaction inequality. However, the life satisfaction of the poorest and least educated does increase in equal proportions with average life satisfaction.     

Are Happiness and Life Satisfaction Different Across Religious Groups? Exploring Determinants of Happiness and Life Satisfaction

This study explores whether different religions experience different levels of happiness and life satisfaction and in case this is affected by country economic and cultural environment. Using World Value Survey (from 1981 to 2014), this study found that individual religiosity and country level of development play a significant role in shaping people’s subjective well-being (SWB). Protestants, Buddhists and Roman Catholic were happier and most satisfied with their lives compared to other religious groups. Orthodox has the lowest SWB. Health status, household’s financial satisfaction and freedom of choice are means by which religious groups and governments across the globe can improve the SWB of their citizens.     

Can a Happy Relationship Predict a Happy Life? A Population-Based Study of Maternal Well-Being During the Life Transition of Pregnancy,Infancy, and Toddlerhood

The association between overall life satisfaction (LS) and relationship satisfaction (RS) was investigated longitudinally among mothers (N=67,355), using data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Data were collected twice during pregnancy, and at 6 and 36 months postpartum. Satisfaction increased during pregnancy, with RS decreasing immediately following birth and LS showing an initial increase followed by a decrease postpartum. The results showed that LS and RS levels were quite stable over time (.46-.75), as was their cross-sectional associations (.42-.59). Structural equation modeling using a cross-lagged longitudinal model evidenced cross-concept cross-time effects for both LS and RS. The strengths of the cross-effects were asymmetrical and life-phase specific, with RS predicting change in LS more than LS predicted changes in RS during pregnancy and infancy. Having a satisfying romantic relationship is important for retaining and increasing future life satisfaction.     

It's a Total Way of Life? Catholic Priests,Women's Ordination,and Identity Work

Research has shown Catholic priests to be polarized on a few issues, including women's ordination. Explanations have been offered for why priests are initially polarized—particularly the influence of ordination cohort—but not for how attitudes are maintained over time. Using 31 in‐depth interviews with Catholic priests in the United Kingdom, I find that priests are indeed polarized into groups I call “Total Identity Priests” and “Plural Identity Priests.” Taking the example of women's ordination, I show that these two groups of priests maintain their anti‐ or pro‐women's ordination attitudes (respectively) via patterned, everyday identity work, in which they mobilize available cultural schemata. I highlight four areas in which their identity work differs: explicit identity talk, narratives of calling, clericalism and titles, and clothing. This identity work serves to summarize, communicate, and reinforce their personal identities, which in turn reinforce their existing attitudes towards women's ordination.     

Risking ‘Safety’: Breast Cancer,Prognosis, and the Strategic Enterprise of Life

Living in modern biopolitical risk culture might be seen as synonymous with living in prognosis time, in the sense that risk of illness is endlessly forecast (prognosticated) in the broad social arena. ‘Safety,’ in this context, is framed as the anticipatory guarding against risk or disease in order to ‘make live.’ Thinking of risk and safety in these ways is limited, however, in that the prognosis cannot account for the individual’s life or death drama. This paper asks: how are we to understand the constellation of risk, prognosis, and safety in relation to ‘the subject in breast cancer prognosis’?     

To Preserve or Enhance Life? Nietzsche’s Perspectivist Understanding of Life and Morality

Instead of denouncing sincere Christianity, as it is often assumed, Nietzsche inveighs vehemently against insincere Christianity that interpreters take as evidence for his nihilism. This essay argues that Nietzsche’s perspectivism affirms the positive value of Christian morality as an instrument for life preservation, which is a relative standard for judging various perspectives on life. It also analyzes the negative value of Christian morality as the impediment to life enhancement, which is the absolute standard for evaluating those perspectives. As this study finally argues, it remains to the Overman to once and for all overcome the impediments to life brought on by Christian morality in the creation of a new morality, if in fact what the Overman creates is indeed a new morality.     

Finding Female Fulfillment: Intersecting Role-Based and Morality-Based Identities of Motherhood, Feminism, and Generativity as Predictors of Women’s Self Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction

Focused on 113 U.S. mothers of college-aged daughters, we extend the existent role-based identity literature to address role- and morality-based identities and their ties to women’s fulfillment. Specifically, women’s identities as mothers, feminists, and generative individuals were assessed for their associations with each other, as well as their unique and combined associations with women’s self satisfaction and life satisfaction. Across the results, generativity yielded the greatest significance. Women with higher generativity identity report having higher self satisfaction and life satisfaction; women who were highly committed to mothering have stronger associations between generativity and life satisfaction. Women with strong generativity identities also tend to identify themselves as feminists. Feminist and mothering identity were not related to one another nor directly tied to satisfaction with one’s self nor life. Implications are discussed regarding continued assessment of role- and morality-based identity intersections as well as to the functions and limitations of the three identities and their assessment featured herein.     

Changes in Body Mass Index and Quality of Life—Population-Based Follow-up Study COURAGE and COURAGE-POLFUS,Poland

Applied Research in Quality of Life - The study aimed to verify an association between changes in body mass index (BMI) and quality of life (QoL) in a 4-year follow-up in a population-based study...     

The Amazing Life and Times of Oliva Espín

ABSTRACT

Oliva Espín is a prolific feminist and multicultural writer and psychologist who has significantly contributed to feminist therapy throughout her career. This biographical article highlights her many contributions to feminism, feminist psychology, and humankind.