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A cross-national model of subjective well-being in adolescence
Abstract
Proposes a model of subjective well-being (SWB) with 2 levels: The background level and the agentic level with the latter mediating the effects of the former. Given the potential importance of sociocultural factors in the production of SWB in adolescents, we examine whether particular predictors of SWB (i.e., strain, global control expectancy, emotion-oriented coping, problem-oriented coping) differ across sociocultural contexts and thus, test the generality of our 2-level model. A cross-cultural study including Eastern and Western European countries and the US represents a unique opportunity to test the generality of the proposed model, because these countries represent a comparative framework with a sufficient amount of both similarities and differences on various dimensions. The measures used include: the Berne Questionnaire on Adolescents' Well-Being, the Strain Inventory, the Coping Reactions Questionnaire, and the Bernese Questionnaire on Adolescents' Perception of Control. This study supports the generality of the 2-level model of SWB in adolescence by providing evidence of its cross-cultural invariance. There were consistent patterns in predictive effects from the variables of both levels (background and agentic) on SWB in adolescents across all of the samples.
... Personality: Aside from genetic factor, personality also plays a fundamental role in determining happiness. Existing literature have confirmed that four personality traits (which include self-esteem, optimism, extraversion, and a sense of personal mastery or control) consistently characterise happy people (Brebner et al., 1995;Carver & Gaines, 1987;Grob et al., 1999;Hill et al., 2014;Myers & Diener, 1995). Personality studies on happiness have established a position that people differ in their experience of happiness due to the different ways they process and personally experience a situation, rather than the objective situation itself. ...
Happiness as a psychosocial reality has both objective and subjective dimensions. These traits make happiness varied, temporal, yet concrete as individuals and social categories transit from one stage of growth and development to another. Happiness is indispensable for personal and collective survival across relationships and spaces. As such, staying happy is considered beneficial, helpful and worth pursuing by individuals and groups. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, ‘Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be’. As much as individuals possess the capability to deploy their individual agencies to experience happiness and transit the same at different degrees in their network of relations and circumstances, society shapes and positions her members in diverse ways to conceive and express happiness in different spaces. The intersections between structures and individual agencies is central in sociological theorising and body of knowledge about the human society. Thus, happiness is one among the different emotional and relationship realities that has attracted the attention of a handful of sociologists.
This chapter brings to the fore happiness as a sociological phenomenon. The Chapter starts with a conceptualisation of happiness and proceeds with an overview of early contributions from social philosophers and sociologists to our understanding of happiness. Other sections of the Chapter are devoted to the elements of happiness, the objectivity and subjectivity and an overview of empirical evidence on happiness from a biopsychosocial stance. The last section concludes the Chapter and justifies the need for sociologists to pay more attention to the social dynamics of happiness as well as subjective well-being from a life course position.
... Bradburn(1969) on the other hand has viewed a person"s position on the dimension of psychological well being as not just the excess of positive affect over the negative, but also frequency in the experiences of positive affect relative to the negative. Results from some cross cultural studies indicate that children with high subjective well being, reported less strain, higher personal control, resorted to higher problem oriented coping and less emotional oriented coping strategies ( Grob et al., 1999). Shapiro, Schwartz and Austin,( 1996) say that belief of individuals about their sense of controllability over what happens to them in their life is a core element into understanding how they live in the world.Primary control or attempting to control through a person"s direct intervention is associated with the internal locus of control and is seen to be linked with academic success, higher self motivation, social maturity, lower incidence of stress and depression , and longer life span . ...
Adolescents develop many habits, patterns of behavior and relationships that affect their future quality of life.Studies exploring self and health belief systems are keys to understanding the challenges to wholesome development of adolescents health status.Psychologicalwell-being has been given special emphasis intheirqualityof life as it consists of meaningfulness and satisfaction in life, emotional stability andhappiness in life. It is essential to help the adolescence to develop skills to handle a wide variety of choices, challenges and stressors in his/her life for better health. This study investigates health related behavior, health locus of control, self-esteem and resilience as predictors of psychological wellbeingamong school and college going adolescents. The study sample consisted of 119 adolescent students from various schools and colleges of Southern India. The sample age ranged between 14 -19 years. Subjects were administered the Health Behaviour scale, Multidimensional health locus of control scale, Resilience scale, self-esteem scale. The collected data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression. The results indicated that self-esteem, health locus of control and resilience were effective in predicting psychological well-being of adolescents. On the basis of the finding, it was suggested that teachers should endeavor to teach fundamentals of self-esteem, health locus of control and resilience to the students while school counselors and psychologists should develop programmes to fosterpositive psychological strengthslike resilience, health locusof control and self-esteem.
... Many researchers have proposed the idea that subjective well-being and happiness refer to achieving and successful handling of personal and divergent goals imposed by authority, attaining socially defined values, adapting to one's social environment, satisfaction of everyday needs, participating in interesting activities, positive evaluation of daily events, meaningful use of time, good health, and accepting oneself (Grob, et al., 1999;Havighurst, 1972). Heady and colleagues (1984) have suggested that a positive sense of well-being appeared to depend on a wider range of personality variables-extraversion and optimism as well as personal competence and a supportive social network. ...
Nowadays, the search for happiness and its determinants are important to be investigated among youth, which is a period of transition from childhood to adulthood, in the Thai context. This study aims to assess level of happiness and investigate determinants of happiness among Thai youth in Kanchanaburi province. External and internal factors of individuals are expected to influence on youths’ happiness. The results showed that average level of youth happiness is above the neutral feeling or ‘not unhappy and happy’. In addition, factors about feeling of relative poverty and perceived social environment are strongly influenced on the level of happiness among youth. This study suggested that youth-related policies should consider social equality and social participation of youth in order to improve their quality of life.
This chapter focuses on the virtuous relation between volunteering and subjective well-being (measured as life satisfaction). This chapter reports the results of the Aspects of Daily Life survey and confirms that carrying out voluntary activities has an effect on the propensity to express high scores of satisfaction, regardless of income, education, place of residence, religion, or personal dispositions such as optimism. Volunteering directly or within organized groups and the field of activity are irrelevant to reach the highest level of well-being. Territorial differences emerged, with residents in the northern areas of Italy the most satisfied and those living in the southern areas and the islands the less satisfied. Regardless of the geographical location, the highest proportion of the very satisfied respondents was among those who lived in small municipalities. Overall findings provide empirical support to the hypothesis that doing others good is a way to do oneself good: a virtuous matching that, while generating social and relational capital for society, also generates individuals more in tune with themselves and their life environment.
In this chapter I discuss research self-concept theory in relation to wellbeing and positive mental health. I start out by discussing self-concept theory in general. I then focus on the research related to the wellbeing effects of specific self-concept dimensions such as the ideal self, the social self, the deserved self, the minimum-needs self, the predicted self, the competent self, the aspired self, and the true self. Then the focus turns to self-concept dynamics in discussing how self-concept differentiation versus integration (and self-enhancement versus self-consistency) influence wellbeing outcomes.
Although adolescents’ exposure to harmful online content has been linked to decreased subjective well-being and offline risky behaviors, there is limited research on the factors that underlie such problematic online behavior. Using the conceptual framework of Problem Behavior Theory, this study examined the role of risk (i.e., emotional problems, sensation seeking) and protective (i.e., the quality of family environment, social support from friends) factors in exposure to harmful online content among 4473 12- to 16-year-olds (M = 13.9, SD = 1.3, 49% girls) in the Czech Republic, Finland, and Spain. Individual country samples included 1848 adolescents from the Czech Republic (age: M = 14, SD = 1.4; 51% girls), 788 from Finland (age: M = 13.9, SD = 1.3; 52% girls), and 1837 from Spain (age: M = 13.5, SD = 1.2; 47% girls). In all of the sampled countries, emotional problems and sensation seeking served as risk factors, whereas good family relationships were protective. In some countries, the effects of emotional problems and sensation seeking were moderated by the quality of the family environment and social support from friends. These moderating effects suggest that individual risk factors for exposure to harmful online content may be buffered by a positive family environment and friends’ support. The findings revealed similarities in the risk and protective factors underlying online problem behavior across three different countries. They demonstrate that the mechanisms proposed by Problem Behavior Theory can help to understand the etiology of adolescent problem behavior across different countries as well as offline and online contexts.
This study explored grade and gender differences of secondary school students’ attitudes toward life and well-being, as well as relationships between these two variables in Taiwan. One thousand and seventy-seven students from seventh to twelfth grades were randomly selected to complete a questionnaire to measure their attitudes toward life and well-being. It was found that the seventh grade students had significantly higher scores on attitudes toward life and well-being than their counterparts. Compared with their male counterparts, female students had significantly higher attitudes toward life scores on the factors of caring for others and clarifying life goals, and on the well-being factors of successful interpersonal communications and satisfaction with personal life. Students’ attitudes toward life were strongly and positively associated with their well-being (r = .90). The structural equation modeling results revealed that students’ attitudes toward life on the subscale of satisfied about one’s performance was the strongest predictor of their well-being (β = .38); that students’ well-being on the subscale of Self-satisfaction was the strongest predictor of their attitudes toward life (β = .50). The above findings provide valuable insights into Taiwanese secondary school students’ grade and gender differences of attitudes toward life and well-being as well as relationships between the two. These might further offer empirical evidences for planning and implementing effective pedagogical strategies or career counseling aimed at increasing students’ positive attitudes toward life and well-being.
Interest in child and adolescent perceptions of the quality of their lives has grown over the last several decades. The purposes of this chapter are thus threefold. First, we summarize the developing body of research on the nature, measurement and correlates of children’s perceptions of the quality of their lives. Second, we offer recommendations for needed future research. Finally, we suggest implications for policies related to the promotion of children’s quality of life.
The specific situation of the Slovak Republic (SR), which was found five years after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe 20 years’ ago, determines the content of the present chapter. The first section describes the approach to the understanding of wellbeing in the Slovak research, including an attempt to contribute to the definition and measurement of wellbeing. The second part presents the results of the comparative research regarding wellbeing of Slovak youth in the first decade of the new Slovak Republic and the youth from three European countries’ Switzerland, Austria and Germany. The third part compares wellbeing of selected groups with wellbeing values within the survey conducted since 2003 by European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) on representative samples of people from 28 EU countries, including Slovakia.
This chapter describes the effects of self-concept on subjective well-being. Social psychologists have long recognized that the self-concept is not a unidimensional construct. The self-concept is multidimensional in that in the mind of every person there may be multiple selves (Brewer & Nakamura, 1984; Garza & Herringer, 1987; Hoelter, 1985; Markus, 1977; McCall & Simmons, 1978). The self-concept is divided in terms of psychological life domains. Thus, a person may have a self-concept in relation to education, family, health, job, friends, and romantic relationships, among others. In other words, the psychological world of a person is divided into life domains, and within each life domain, the person has certain self-related beliefs and values (Burke & Tully, 1977; Campbell, Converse, & Rodgers, 1976; Griffin, Chassin, & Young, 1981). In addition to segmenting life experiences in life domains, people also have a self-concept of their overall life, a global domain that captures one’s emotional state as a function of one’s global feelings about one’s major successes and failures in life.
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