Religiosity,subjective well-being,and neuroticism

The objective of the current research was to estimate the relation between religiosity and both subjective well-being (SW-B) and neuroticism (N). A sample (N = 487) of Muslim Kuwaiti undergraduates took part in the study. Their age ranged between 18 and 31 years. They responded to six self-rating scales to assess religiosity, religious belief, physical health, mental health, happiness, and satisfaction with life, as well as the Factorial Arabic Neuroticism Scale (FANS) and the N subscale of the revised NEO. It was found that all the correlations between the six self-rating scales were significant and positive, whereas these rating scales were significantly and negatively correlated with both the FANS and N (NEO) scale. In applying the principle components analysis to the correlation matrix (8 × 8), a high-loaded and bipolar factor was extracted and labelled “Well-being and religiosity versus neuroticism.” The main predictor of religiosity in the stepwise regression was religious belief and satisfaction with life. The present findings are comparable with the wider literature on the association between religion and SW-B among English-speaking participants as well as a Kuwaiti Muslim context. By and large, those who consider themselves as religious were healthier, enjoying SW-B, and obtained lower scores on neuroticism.     

Understanding money's limits: People's beliefs about the income – Happiness correlation

It is claimed that the correlation between income and happiness is considerably weaker than people expect and recent research supports that contention. However, an important lesson from judgment and decision-making research is that judgments are constructed in response to the prevailing context, leaving open the possibility that some elicitation procedures may reveal accurate intuitions about income and happiness. We examined whether this is so. Study 1 participants ranked a set of empirical relationships according to the strength of correlation and we examined whether they ranked the income–happiness link where it actually falls in the set. In Studies 2 and 3, participants estimated the probability that someone with a higher income than another is also the happier of the two. The estimates of the participants were then compared to the actual probability based on the documented income–happiness relationship. Results indicate that, using these elicitation procedures, people have an accurate understanding of the relationship between income and happiness.     

Autobiographical narratives of spiritual experiences: Solitude,tragedy, and the absence of materialism

Two studies examined the interaction between subjective well-being (SWB) and meaning in life (MIL) vis-à-vis self-perceptions of actual or potential threats to one's physical and mental integrity, hereby defined as the hostile-world scenario (HWS). Study 1 (N?=?608) showed that the relationship between SWB and MIL strengthened as the HWS increased. Study 2 (Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe; SHARE-Israel; N?=?1665) similarly showed that SWB and MIL were strongly linked as lifetime cumulative adversity, the ultimate realization of the HWS, increased. Study 2 further showed that when one construct (whether SWB or MIL) was low, the other construct acted as a moderator of the effect of cumulative adversity on functioning. In conclusion, although SWB and MIL are more strongly linked under adverse circumstances, they are likely to compensate for each other, perhaps due to their unique operations.     

Subjective temporal trajectories for subjective well-being

Based on Diener's (Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.) tripartite model of subjective well-being (SWB), subjective evaluations of past, present, and anticipated future life satisfaction (LS), positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA) were evaluated in a cross-sectional undergraduate sample. Upward mean trends in subjective trajectories (past?<?present?<?future) were typical, on average, for each SWB component. As predicted, higher levels of present SWB were aligned with greater positive psychological, physical, and interpersonal functioning. In contrast, steeper upward subjective SWB trajectories were associated with greater distress and dysfunction. Of the three SWB components, unique links with indicators of functioning were most consistent for LS trajectories. We conclude that a temporally expanded conceptualization of SWB spanning subjective assessments of past, present, and anticipated future LS, PA, and NA provides a rich framework for studying the structure of SWB and the significance of how people perceive their well-being to be unfolding over time.     

Humble persons are more helpful than less humble persons: Evidence from three studies

Connections between humility and other prosocial qualities led us to develop a humility–helpfulness hypothesis. In three studies, humble persons were more helpful than less humble persons. In Study 1, participants (n?=?117) completed self-report measures of humility, the Big Five, and helpfulness. In Study 2, participants (n?=?90) completed an implicit measure of humility and were presented with an unexpected opportunity to help someone in need. In Study 3, participants (n?=?103) completed self-report and implicit measures of humility and were presented a similar helping opportunity. Humility and helpfulness correlated positively when personality and impression management were controlled. Humble participants helped more than did less humble participants even when agreeableness and desirable responding were statistically controlled. Further, implicit humility uniquely predicted helping behavior in an altruistic motivation condition.     

Character strengths and well-being among volunteers and employees: Toward an integrative model

The endorsement and deployment of character strengths in occupational contexts are two promising components for understanding how people create well-being. In this study, a model integrating character strengths, satisfaction with occupational activities, and meaning and well-being was proposed and tested in two samples of volunteers and a sample of working adults. The model fit the data well in all three samples. Results demonstrated that deploying strengths at work provided key links to satisfaction with voluntary and paid occupational activities and to meaning among both young and middle-aged volunteers, and adult working women. Among adult volunteers and paid workers, endorsing strengths was related to meaning, while both endorsing and deploying strengths were related to well-being. Together, these studies provide a model for understanding how strengths may play a role in how both volunteer and paid workers find meaning, well-being, and satisfaction.     

Influences on current mood of eliciting life-satisfaction judgments

Subjective well-being (SWB) has attracted a plethora of cross-disciplinary research in recent years. As measured in this research, SWB includes a cognitive and an affective component. We hypothesize that eliciting the cognitive component by means of life-satisfaction judgments activates thoughts about positive and negative life circumstances that influence the affective component (current mood or memory of the frequency of past positive and negative affects). Experiment 1 demonstrates an expected asymmetrical carryover effect in that current mood correlates higher with life-satisfaction judgments performed before than after the measurements of current mood. In Experiment 2, it is found that inducing current mood by means of rewarding performance does not influence the life-satisfaction judgments. In contrast and consistent with Experiment 1, Experiment 3 shows such an influence when current mood is induced by thinking about positive and negative life circumstances.     

Life satisfaction across adulthood: different determinants at different ages?

It is likely that with aging and changing life circumstances, individuals’ values shift in systematic ways, and that these shifts may be accompanied by shifts in the determinants of their subjective judgments of well being. To examine this possibility, the relations among the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) and a number of personality, affect, demographic, and cognitive variables were examined in a sample of 818 participants between the ages of 18 and 94. The results indicated that although many variables had significant zero-order correlations with the SWLS, only a few variables had unique utility in predicting life satisfaction. Invariance analyses indicated that while the qualitative nature of life satisfaction remains constant across adult age, the influence of fluid intelligence on judgments of life satisfaction declines with age. In contrast, negative affect is negatively associated with life satisfaction consistently across the adult age span.     

Judgments of Aggressive, Withdrawn and Prosocial Behavior: Perceived Control, Anger, Pity and Sympathy in Young Dutch Children

In two studies, we examined first- and second-grade children's judgments of aggressive, withdrawn, and prosocial behavior by means of fictional scenarios. In study I, we compared judgments of fictional aggressive children with those of fictional withdrawn children. Aggressive children were perceived as more responsible for their behavior and elicited more feelings of anger, while withdrawn children were more likely to be chosen as a friend and elicited more feelings of pity. In study II, we compared judgments of fictional aggressive, withdrawn, and prosocial children with each other. Again aggressive children elicited the strongest feelings of anger, while withdrawn children elicited the strongest feelings of pity. These withdrawn children were perceived as more similar to the prosocial children. In an attempt to test the ecological validity of our sympathy measure, we asked children to rate their peers on a three-point liking scale and checked the scores of those judged to be aggressive by their teachers. These aggressive children were found to receive the lowest liking scores. The results are discussed.     

The Relationship between Temperament and Life Satisfaction in Early Adolescence: Cognitive and Behavioral Mediation Models

This study investigated the interrelationships among temperament, social self-efficacy, social competence, and life satisfaction in a sample of 160 early adolescents. A model was proposed based on previous research by Argyle and Lu (1990, Personality and Individual Differences 11, pp. 1255–1261) in which social competence mediates the relationship between temperament (i.e. extraversion and neuroticism) and life satisfaction. However, this study extended the work of Argyle and Lu by including an objective measure of social competence, in addition to a measure of social self-efficacy, to test as a potential mediator between temperament and life satisfaction. Results indicated that social self-efficacy mediated the relationship between extraversion and life satisfaction, but not between neuroticism and life satisfaction. Teacher-rated social competence did not mediate the effects of temperament on life satisfaction. The importance of integrating theories of trait psychology and cognitive psychology in adolescent life satisfaction research is discussed.