Age-Related Differences in Lay Conceptions of Well-Being and Experienced Well-Being

Conceptions of well-being are defined as a system of beliefs concerning the nature and experience of well-being and can be described generally by the degree to which four dimensions, representing (1) the experience of pleasure, (2) avoidance of negative experience, (3) selfdevelopment, and (4) contribution to others, are emphasized. A first main objective of the current study was to investigate age-related differences in younger and older adults’ conceptions of well-being. A second main objective was to address whether conceptions of well-being are differentially associated with experienced well-being in younger and older adults. Results indicated several age-related differences in conceptions of well-being, with younger adults reporting more emphasis on the experience of pleasure and self-development, older adults reporting more emphasis on avoidance of negative experience, and younger and older adults reporting similar levels of emphasis on contribution to others. Results further indicated several age-related differences in associations between the experience of pleasure and avoidance of negative experience dimensions and well-being, with these two dimensions being more strongly and positively associated with well-being in older adults. Self-development and contribution to others were found to be positively associated with well-being regardless of age.     

Two Conceptions of the Physical

The debate over physicalism in philosophy of mind can be seen as concerning an inconsistent tetrad of theses: (1) if physicalism is true, a priori physicalism is true; (2) a priori physicalism is false; (3) if physicalism is false, epiphenomenalism is true; (4) epiphenomenalism is false. This paper argues that one may resolve the debate by distinguishing two conceptions of the physical: on the theory-based conception , it is plausible that (2) is true and (3) is false; on the object-based conception , it is plausible that (3) is true and (2) is false. the paper also defends and explores the version of physicalism that results from this strategy.     

Measuring Lay Conceptions of Well-Being: The Beliefs About Well-Being Scale

A number of explicit conceptions of well-being have been provided by philosophers and psychologists, but little is known about laypersons’ conceptions of well-being. Two studies investigating the content and measurement of lay conceptions of well-being are presented. Using exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic procedures, the 16-item Beliefs about Well-Being Scale (BWBS) was developed to measure lay conceptions of well-being along four theoretically-meaningful dimensions: (1) the Experience of Pleasure, (2) Avoidance of Negative Experience, (3) Self-Development, and (4) Contribution to Others. Initial evidence concerning the reliability and validity of the BWBS indicated that this new scale has acceptable psychometric properties. In both studies, associations between each subscale, representing the above four dimensions, and multiple self-report measures of experienced well-being were also examined. Each subscale was significantly associated with well-being, with Self-Development and Contribution to Others indicating stronger associations with measures of well-being than either Experience of Pleasure or Avoidance of Negative Experience. Implications for future research using this economical new scale are discussed.     

Explanation and Two Conceptions of the Physical

Any position that promises genuine progress on the mind-body problem deserves attention. Recently, Daniel Stoljar has identified a physicalist version of Russells notion of neutral monism; he elegantly argues that with this type of physicalism it is possible to disambiguate on the notion of physicalism in such a way that the problem is resolved. The further issue then arises of whether we have reason to believe that this type of physicalism is in fact true. Ultimately, one needs to argue for this position by inference to the best explanation, and I show that this new type of physicalism does not hold promise of more explanatory prowess than its relevant rivals, and that, whether it is better than its rivals or not, it is doubtful whether it would furnish us with genuine explanations of the phenomenal at all.     

Evidence of Associations Between Lay Conceptions of Well-Being, Conception-Congruent Behavior, and Experienced Well-Being

Individuals’ lay conceptions of well-being have been found to be associated with several indexes of positive psychological functioning, yet little is known about the mechanisms underlying these associations. In two studies, the current research examined whether conception-congruent behavior mediates associations between conceptions of well-being and two indexes of experienced well-being (subjective well-being and meaning in life). Study 1 addressed the above question using a prospective approach, whereby associations between conceptions of well-being, predicted engagement in hedonic and eudaimonic behavior, and predicted well-being were examined. Study 2 more directly addressed the above question using a daily diary approach, whereby conceptions of well-being, actual engagement in hedonic and eudaimonic behavior, and experienced well-being were assessed over a period of 1 week. In both studies, results indicated that associations between eudaimonic conception dimensions and experienced well-being were partially mediated by engagement in eudaimonic behavior. Hedonic conception dimensions were largely unrelated to hedonic behavior and well-being. The current findings thus suggest that eudaimonic behavior is one potential route through which eudaimonic conception dimensions exert their salubrious effects on well-being.     

Affiliative Need,Different Types of Social Support,and Physical Symptoms1

Less tangible types of social support (emotional, informational, and companionship) were shown to predict reports of physical symptoms as a joint function of both affiliative need and negative life events, while the effects of tangible support depended only upon the occurrence of negative life events (the prototypical buffering effect). Low affiliative need individuals tended to benefit from both types of support, while high affiliative need individuals benefited primarily from more tangible support. The results were discussed in terms of the proposal that low affiliative need individuals hold a more problem-focused view of social support, while high affiliative need individuals tend to take a less personally instrumental stance toward interpersonal interaction.     

Physical Characteristics of the Menstrual Cycle and Premenstrual Depressive Symptoms

ABSTRACT— Little is known about the associations between premenstrual depressive symptoms and specific physical symptoms of the menstrual cycle. In a nonclinical sample of 183 female university students, six physical symptoms of the menstrual cycle (headaches, skin changes, gastrointestinal problems, breast changes, and coagulation and heaviness of menstrual bleeding) were tested for their associations with premenstrual depressive symptoms. The physical symptoms explained nearly 30% of the variance in depressive symptoms. Moreover, when the summed score for all six physical symptoms was used as a predictor of depressive symptoms, a strong linear effect and a moderate curvilinear effect were observed. These results could not be explained by response bias or by the presence of a small group of highly depressed individuals. This study emphasizes the need to consider physical symptoms of the menstrual cycle to better understand premenstrual depressive symptoms, and suggests that the contribution of the menstrual cycle to depressive symptoms in the general population is underrecognized.     

Lay Explanations of Wealth: Attributions for Economic Success1

The explanations people give for wealth, or financial success, are not only of considerable political importance, but also offer an opportunity to assess some of the implications of attribution theory in a real-lie setting. In the present study, 324 subjects from all walks of life and a variety of socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds were asked to anonymously complete an extensive questionnaire assessing their (a) free response explanations of the most common sources of wealth, (b) estimates of necessary income levels for “wealth” and “a decent life,” and (c) attribution judgments for likely causes of wealth in five target categories of people. The target categories were manipulated in terms of social class and ethnicity, to include native born and migrant, and middle- and working-class characters, as well as attributions to an unspecified other. Results showed that judges used four major attributional categories in explaining wealth (external-social, internal/individual, family background, and luck-risk factors), and that both the target persons' class and ethnicity significantly influenced the attribution strategies used. In addition, the judges' socioeconomic background, demographic position, and voting preferences also significantly affected preferred attributions and estimates of income levels. These results are discussed in terms of the role of social, political, and ideological factors in everyday explanations, and their implications for some assumptions of attribution research are considered.     

Conceptions of Parenthood

The everyday concept "parent" includes a central prototype and less typical subtypes, such as stepparent, adoptive parent, and foster parent. We studied informants' concept of "parent" by constructing typical and atypical scenarios in which people become parents: planned and unplanned pregnancy, unmarried parents, abandonment, divorce, stepparent/child, adoption, pregnancies resulting from rape, and situations involving medical technology and contract motherhood. The parental role of each of the characters in the scenarios was characterized in terms of seven attributes of parenthood. Unmarried undergraduate informants rated the claim of each of the characters to be a parent of the child. Characters whose parental contribution was more similar to the prototype case were seen as having stronger claims. The most important attributes were, in order: intention to raise the child, gestation, genetic contribution, provision of nurture, and intention to create a baby. All informants appeared to make use of three principles involved in everyday, informal explanations of how a person becomes a parent. Parental consent, the predominant principle for both men and women, was given more weight by women; maternal investment in gestation was given equal weight by both sexes, and genetic contribution was given more weight by men.     

Lay theories of willpower

Some people believe that willpower relies on a limited resource and that performing cognitive work (such as using self‐control) results in mental fatigue. Others believe that willpower is nonlimited and that performing cognitive work instead prepares and energizes them for more. These differing lay theories of willpower determine whether or not one's self‐control performance actually does decrease or increase after use, with only limited willpower theorists showing a decrease (the ego depletion effect). Due to the self‐control requirements of everyday life, willpower theories also predict outcomes across domains of academics, health, goal progress, interpersonal relationships, and well‐being. Generally, limited willpower theorists' belief in their limited capacity results in poorer outcomes, particularly during times of high demand. By understanding how willpower theories form and function, interventions that encourage nonlimited willpower theories may be created to improve people's performance and well‐being.     

Lay Theories of Happiness

Over 230 young people completed a battery of questionnaires measuring personality, self-esteem, and happiness as well as one developed specifically for this study on their theories of the causes of happiness. The 36 causes factored into six internally coherent and interpretable factors. Self-reported happiness, extraversion and sex were correlated with the lay theory factors. Four of the six factors were modestly (r < 0.20) correlated with the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI) scores. Path analysis, using the OHI as the dependent variable, showed self-esteem, extraversion and neuroticism direct predictors of happiness but that among the lay theories, only lay theories about optimism and contentment were direct predictors. Personality and demographic variables did predict the lay theories but the latter did not act as moderator or mediating factors between the former and happiness. The role and function of lay theories with respect to happiness are discussed.     

Lay theories of suicide

The rank order of a set of 32 causal attributes for depression was similar to that for suicide, as judged by a sample of 66 undergraduates.     

Two Conceptions of Inequality

Abstract

Following Temkin's Inequality I take my point of departure in an individualistic approach according to which a situation is bad in respect of inequality to the extent individuals in it have egalitarian complaints. After having criticised some of Temkin's notions of inequality, I argue that there are two proper egalitarian conceptions, the Equal Share Conception and the Place Conception. The first concerns how much welfare an individual can claim to have in order to have what she should have in virtue of equality. The second concerns an individual's egalitarian complaint in so far as it depends on her place in a situation's distribution of welfare. I argue that the first conception can be employed in a defence of Telic Egalitarianism against Derek Parfit's Levelling Down Objection and that the second one can explain why this objection may seem so convincing. I also argue that Telic Egalitarianism, understood according to the first conception, in one respect is preferable to Parfit's Priority View.