The Relative Importance of Personality,Financial Satisfaction,and Autonomy for Different Subjective Well-Being Facets

Abstract

Using a nationally representative sample (N?=?507) from Singapore, this study examined whether personality, financial satisfaction, and autonomy were important to subjective well-being (SWB), and how the importance of these predictors varied across different SWB facets—life satisfaction, happiness, positive feelings, and negative feelings. The findings indicated that neuroticism, financial satisfaction, and autonomy, were important predictors of happiness. Personality was most important for affective well-being (i.e., positive and negative feelings), whereas financial satisfaction was most important for life satisfaction. Specifically, neuroticism accounted for substantial variance in positive and negative feelings, and was the strongest correlate among the Big Five traits. In contrast, financial satisfaction explained most of the variance in life satisfaction. This highlights that the importance of well-being predictors depended on the facet of well-being examined. The findings suggest that residents in an affluent nation like Singapore do not emphasize only postmaterialist values (e.g., autonomy) and disregard materialist concerns (e.g., financial satisfaction). Though certain SWB facets (positive and negative affect) are largely influenced by dispositional factors, other facets (life satisfaction and happiness) are closely related to factors (e.g., financial satisfaction, autonomy) that may be affected by social policies. Policymakers can thus target those aspects to enhance people’s SWB.     

The Adolescent Activities Checklist: Reliability,standardization data,and factorial validity

This study was conducted to provide standardization data and information on the reliability and factorial validity of the recently developed Adolescent Activities Checklist (AAC). A total of 563 adolescents in grades 7 through 12 served as subjects. Significant main effects for gender, race, and grade were obtained in a multivariate analysis of variance. On the basis of this information, standardization data were established for these three variables. Further investigation indicated that the internal consistency of the AAC was high. In addition, results of a principal components analysis conducted on the frequencies of the Unpleasant and Pleasant Activities subscales revealed four and three factors, respectively. For unpleasant activities, the major dimensions were found to occur in three situations-namely, social interactions, family situations, and school situations. Stressful events also occurred as one of the four unpleasant activities dimensions. For pleasant activities, three dimensions appeared: heterosocial behavior, reinforcing interpersonal situations, and social reinforcement.     

Anger, Blame, and Dimensions of Perceived Norm Violations: Culture, Gender, and Relationships

From a social cognitive perspective on anger, we attempted to examine the structure of perceived norm violations and their relationships with anger. We asked 884 university students from 4 countries (United States, Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong) to rate their experiences of being harmed in terms of norm violations, angry feelings, blame, and relationship with the harm doers. We found 2 culturally common dimensions in perceived norm violations (informal interpersonal norms and formal societal norms), and these dimensions substantially increased both angry feelings and blame in almost all cultural groups. The violation of interpersonal norms generally evoked anger more frequently than that of societal norms, but there were interactions between culture and relationship closeness and between gender and relationship closeness.     

When Effort Is Enjoyed: Two Studies of Intrinsic Motivation for Personally Salient Activities

Distinctions between two philosophical conceptions of happiness, hedonism and eudaimonism, were applied to the study of intrinsic motivation. Modified versions of the Personally Expressive Activities Questionnaire (PEAQ) were used in two studies to contrast activities, all of which were enjoyed, but which differed in the level of effort involved. In Study 1, 173 college students were free to choose any type of activity that met the selection criteria. In Study 2, the activities chosen by 95 undergraduates were limited to activities associated with a particular leisure time or hobby activity in which the respondents engaged on a regular basis. Consistent results across the two studies indicate that High Effort–Liked activities, in comparison to Low Effort–Liked activities, were associated with greater interest, flow, and feelings of personal expressiveness, greater perceived competence, and higher scores for both self-realization values and importance. These differences are discussed for their implications for the conceptual understanding of intrinsic motivation.     

Emotional understanding: A matter of age,dimension, and point of view

Emotional understanding is one important aspect of emotional development. Following previous research that suggested that the child's understanding of feelings in self and others increases in complexity with age, we investigated the way that general age trends must be qualified by reference to specific aspects of emotion and to the perspective-taking requirements of the task. In the present study, 70 children (34 boys, 36 girls), chosen from one of four grades (kindergarten, third, sixth, and ninth), were intervewed about 4 dimensions of emotional understanding: Knowledge, Causality, Control, and Multiple Feelings. Children's understanding was assessed from 3 diffferent points of view: Feeling in the self, feelings in the parent, and how the parent understood the child's feelings. As in other studies, older children tended to use increasingly abstract and complex criteria in their understanding of feelings. There was considerable cross-dimension consistency in level of response, although slightly digfferent patterns of intercorrelations were obtained at different ages. Questions requiring two perspectives were more difficult, regardless of whether they focused on self or on others. There was an age X dimension X point of view intreaction, such that the difference between self and other emotional undeestanding increased across age groups for the Knowledge dimension and decreased for the remaining 3 dimensions.     

Dimensions of alexithymia and their relationships to anxiety and depression

Investigators have suggested that alexithymia is a multidimensional construct and that it is responsive to situational stressors. We tested these hypotheses in a sample of 110 freshman medical students. We conducted factor analyses on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the state portion of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and then used LISREL to examine the relationships among the various factors. The results indicated that the TAS consists of several independent dimensions and that the dimensions associated with difficulties identifying and communicating feelings are positively related to depression and anxiety. Thus, the evidence now affirms that alexithymia (as measured by the TAS) is multidimensional and that certain dimensions are state dependent.     

THE PAST,PRESENT, AND FUTURE ALL MATTER: HOW TIME PERSPECTIVE IS ASSOCIATED WITH OPTIMISM AND SENSATION SEEKING AMONG YOUNG ADULTS

We used a multidimensional model of time perspective to examine how feelings and thoughts about the past, present, and future were related to optimism and sensation seeking among young adults. The dimensions of time perspective assessed were time feelings, the positive and negative emotions one has about the past, present, and future; time frequency, the amount of thinking about each time period; and time orientation, the relative emphases toward the time periods. Optimism and sensation seeking were self-reported and participants included 463 young adults. Variable-based analyses indicated that reporting more positive and less negative feelings about the time periods or emphasizing the present and future simultaneously were associated with greater optimism. For sensation seeking, boredom susceptibility was especially associated with the time perspective dimensions. Person-centered analyses based on time feelings and time frequency yielded four profiles (i.e., Mindful, Discontent, Bleak, and Indifferent) that were associated with both optimism and sensation seeking.     

The spirited, the observant, and the disheartened: social concepts of optimism, realism, and pessimism

The social concepts of optimism, pessimism, and realism were investigated by assessing the prototypical acts (thoughts, feelings, goals, and actions) that laypersons assign to optimists, pessimists, and realists responding to a controllable and an uncontrollable situation. Optimists and realists, but not pessimists, were seen as adjusting their behavior to the situation. However, whereas optimists were characterized by flexibility in thoughts and feelings but invariance in goals and actions (i.e., they pursued their goals in both controllable and uncontrollable situations), the act profiles assigned to realists varied on all of these dimensions. The profile assigned to pessimists was characterized by cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioral invariance, encompassing negative construals of the situation, giving up, and a focus on distress.     

An investigation of factors influencing accountability and performance ratings

The authors explored whether accountability has implications for performance ratings and investigated factors that may influence both accountability and performance ratings. Specifically, they investigated (a) whether feelings of accountability are directly related to performance ratings, (b) whether experimental manipulations that have been proposed to manipulate accountability in fact do so, and (c) the role of motivation-related constructs. They developed and tested a model of factors proposed to influence accountability and performance ratings. Results from 334 raters in an upward feedback situation in a classroom context provide empirical support that feelings of accountability influence rating level, as do perceptions of anonymity and the importance raters place on their jobs. However, neither anonymity nor importance perceptions were related to feelings of accountability.     

The Implications of Two Conceptions of Happiness (Hedonic Enjoyment and Eudaimonia) for the Understanding of Intrinsic Motivation

The distinction between hedonic enjoyment and eudaimonia was evaluated in three data sets involving use of the Personally Expressive Activities Questionnaire—Standard Form (PEAQ-S) with college student samples (n > 200 in each sample). Indices of these two conceptions of happiness were strongly and reliably related across the three samples. Differences between these two conceptions of happiness were evaluated in two ways. First, we examined and compared correlations of hedonic enjoyment and eudaimonia with variables related to intrinsic motivation. Zero-order correlations involving hedonic enjoyment were significantly stronger with respect to measures of self-determination and interest than were the corresponding correlations involving feelings of personal expressiveness (eudaimonia). In contrast, correlations involving eudaimonia were significantly stronger with measures of the balance of challenges and skills, self-realization values, effort, and importance than were the corresponding correlations with hedonic enjoyment. Second, we empirically distinguished between activities for which both hedonic enjoyment and eudaimonia are present (intrinsically motivated activities) and activities for which hedonic enjoyment alone is present (hedonically enjoyed activities). Intrinsically motivated activities were judged to be significantly higher with respect to measures of the balance of challenges and skills, self-realization values, effort, importance, interest, and flow experiences. No differences between the two categories of activities were found for self-determination and the frequency with which activities were performed. Given these distinguishable patterns in the two conceptions of happiness, a reconceptualization for the understanding of intrinsic motivation is proposed.     

Structure and Semantic Differential Placement of Specific Causes: Academic Causal Attributions by Chinese Students in Hong Kong

The present study explored the structure and dimensional meaning of causal attributions for actual academic performance. Chinese high school students were asked to rate the importance as well as dimensional meaning (along locus, controllability, stability, and globality dimensions) of thirteen specific causes. A principal components analysis of the importance ratings generated four factors among which three were loaded on partially overlapping dimensions and the fourth was unrelated to any dimension. Results also revealed that effort, interest in study, study skill, and ability in study shared common characteristics in that they were the most important causes and were very internal, controllable, stable, and global. The findings were discussed in terms of socio-cultural values in the Chinese culture.     

The Common Beliefs Survey-III and the Situational Self-Statement and Affective State Inventory: Test-Retest Reliability, Internal Consistency, and Further Psychometric Considerations

The Common Beliefs Survey-III (CBS-III), a factored measure of general irrational beliefs, has satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. The Situational Self-Statement and Affective State Inventory (SSSASI), also with acceptable basic psychometric properties, assesses specific thoughts and feelings in response to vignettes describing frustrating events. Both inventories are potentially useful in assessing dimensions important to REBT, but information on test-retest reliability is needed. The CBS-III and the SSSASI were administered to 101 undergraduate students on two occasions, two or three weeks apart. Satisfactory test-retest reliability coefficients were obtained on all subscales of both inventories, but in the case of the SSSASI reliabilities were generally stronger when the same form of the test was used on both occasions (Form 1 presented the thoughts before the feelings, whereas Form 2 presented the feelings before the thoughts). Further exploration showed that responding to the thoughts before the feelings significantly attenuated scores on the feelings, but responding to the feelings before the thoughts had no effect on scores on the thoughts. This unexpected finding also held true in a previously unexamined data set obtained with a different sample of students several years earlier. Taking careful stock of one's emotional reactions before embarking on cognitive modification interventions seems essential to REBT, and it follows that asking questionnaire respondents to rate their affective states before they rate their self-statements could be desirable conceptually. These results provide empirical support for that strategy.     

Physical, Sociocultural, and Behavioral Factors Associated with Body-Esteem in 16-Year-Old Swedish Boys and Girls

Body Mass Index (BMI), weight loss attempts, pubertal timing, body ideal internalization, and peer appearance teasing were examined in relation to three dimensions of body-esteem; weight-based body-esteem (Weight), appearance-based body-esteem (Appearance), and beliefs about how others view one’s body and appearance (Attribution). Participants were 758 Swedish 16-year-olds. Results showed that the factors examined varied in importance depending on gender and body-esteem dimension. Whereas a majority of the factors examined were related to the Weight dimension, fewer were related to the Appearance dimension, and almost none were related to the Attribution dimension. Furthermore, the factors examined were generally able to explain a much greater amount of variance in girls’ body-esteem than boys’.     

Patterns of situational appraisal in experiences of worry and anxiety

Abstract

Three studies investigating differences in people's appraisals of worry and anxiety situations are presented. First, data from a study by Reisenzein & Spielhofer (1994) were reanalyzed. Second, two further studies were conducted to replicate the findings of the reanalysis and to explore whether any additional appraisal dimensions were relevant for a differentiation of worry and anxiety situations. In sum, results showed that appraisals associated with situations in which worry and anxiety were experienced differed on eight appraisal dimensions. Compared to experiences of anxiety, experiences of worry were more often associated with positive self-evaluation, positive social-relationship evaluation, feelings of closeness, and sentiments of importance, and less often associated with feelings of inferiority. Moreover, in worry experiences, focus was often not on the self, but on other persons. Finally, with respect to temporal dimensions, worry situations were less often associated with notions of suddenness and momentariness than anxiety situations. Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to models of emotional appraisal and research on worry and generalized anxiety disorder.     

Ambivalence,conflict, and decision making: attitudes and feelings in Germany towards NATO's military intervention in the Kosovo war

Two hundred and thirty‐four persons were surveyed to assess personality aspects (action versus state orientation, need for cognition, faith in intuition) and emotional aspects of their attitudes towards the NATO military intervention in the Kosovo war in the spring of 1999. Additionally, in an imagined scenario they were asked to decide whether they would sign a petition addressed to the German government protesting against military intervention. Three ways of dealing with this decision were differentiated: (1) decisive action, (2) avoiding the decision conflict, and (3) elaborating the decision problem with the goal of building up feelings to guide action (amplification). Correlations between the variables were evaluated using path analysis in order to predict the decision strategy from personality dimensions and attitude variables (ambivalence, involvement). High action orientation caused low attitude ambivalence and high personal involvement in the topic. Strong ambivalence prevented swift action and supported a tendency towards elaboration and amplification of feelings. Involvement had a favorable effect on action readiness and a negative effect on conflict‐avoiding strategies. Moreover, it moderated the effects of ambivalence on the preference for conflict management strategies. The results confirm theoretical approaches that stress the importance of affect for acting and deciding. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Brand Personality Structures in the United States and Korea: Common and Culture‐Specific Factors

The symbolic meaning of commercial brands (often called brand personality) can represent the values and beliefs of a culture. When a set of global brands were rated on the same personality attributes in the United States and Korea, 6 common dimensions of brand personality and 2 factors unique to each culture were observed. The 2 culture‐specific factors in Korea (Passive Likeableness and Ascendancy) support our general hypothesis that Korean brand personality structure carries cultural meaning, reflecting the importance of Confucian values in Korea's social and economic systems. Although their cultural meaning is less clear, the 2 unique factors (White Collar and Androgyny) that emerged in the U.S. sample suggest changing cultural values associated with occupational status and gender roles.     

Alexithymia in the interpersonal domain: A general deficit of empathy?

Alexithymia and empathy have been related but very little is known on shared variance between their respective affective and cognitive dimensions. We examined this question with correlations, as well as both exploratory and confirmatory analyses, and controlled for anxiety and depression. The responses of 645 young adults to self-report questionnaires of alexithymia (TAS-20), empathy (IRI), anxiety (STAI-T) and depression (BDI-13) were examined. We observed associations between the proposed cognitive components of alexithymia (externally-oriented thinking) and that of empathy (perspective taking, fantasy) as well as empathic concern, which were insensitive to anxiety or depression. In contrast, associations between the proposed affective components of alexithymia (difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings) and empathy (personal distress) were largely due to shared covariance with anxiety. A model encompassing an affective and a cognitive (including empathic concern) latent factors emerged, even after controlling for dysphoric affects. These findings suggest specific associations between cognitive and affective components of both constructs that were dissimilarly affected by anxiety and depression. The allocation of empathic concern to the cognitive factor is also discussed.     

Positive affectivity and lifestyle in adulthood: do you do what you feel?

There is much evidence for the adaptive value of positive affect. Empirical work examining different facets of positive affect and their consequences for psychological adaptation remains sparse, however. This study (young, middle-aged, and older adults; N = 293) investigated the links between two dimensions of positive affect (positive involvement and pleasant affect) and two lifestyles (hedonic and growth related), each indicated by general value orientations, self-reported everyday activities, and activity aspirations. Structural equation models showed that pleasant affect and positive involvement constitute distinct dimensions evincing different age trends and relating differentially to hedonic and growth-related lifestyles. Specifically, pleasant affect, but not positive involvement, was related to a hedonic lifestyle, whereas positive involvement, and not pleasant affect, was associated with a growth-related lifestyle. These findings underline the importance of considering two dimensions of positive affect--pleasant feelings and positive involvement--separately when studying the link between affect and lifestyle.     

Should I follow my feelings? How individual differences in following feelings influence affective well-being,experience, and responsiveness

Individuals high in the propensity to follow their feelings notice their feelings and use the information provided by their feelings. We investigate the hypothesis that following feelings is a multidimensional, rather than a unidimensional, construct. We reasoned that people follow their positive feelings because these feelings signal the presence of rewards that should be approached and follow their negative feelings because these feelings signal the presence of threats that should be avoided. Because approach and avoidance stem from independent motivational systems, we hypothesized and found that following positive feelings and following negative feelings are separable dimensions. In part 1, we developed a measure, called the Following Affective States Test (FAST), to assess these dimensions and provided psychometric data supporting its adequacy. In part 2, we continued to validate the scale and found that this new conceptualization clarifies the debate concerning whether following feelings is psychologically beneficial. In part 3, we tested the utility of the FAST by demonstrating that it predicts the degree to which individuals notice, react to, and use positive and negative affective information.