Transcript Personality, Culture, and Subjective Well

Personality, Culture, and
Subjective Well-Being:
Emotional and Cognitive
Evaluations of Life.
Diener. Oishi and Lucas (2003)
Subjective Well-Being (SWB)
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Definition:
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“People’s emotional and cognitive evaluations of
their lives, includes…happiness, peace,
fulfillment and life satisfaction” (Diener, Oishi
and Lucas, 2003).
History of Research on SWB
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Influences from:
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Sociologists and Quality of Life Researchers
Mental Health
Personality Psychologists
Social and cognitive psychologists
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History Continued
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Theories that have contributed to SWB:
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Humanistic Psychology
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Temperament, adaptation to conditions, goal
striving  all influence levels of SWB
History Continued
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Measurement of SWB:
Broad survey measures
 Experience Sampling
 Informant reports
 Life satisfaction surveys
 Measurement of satisfaction and fulfillment in
various life domains.
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Why is SWB important?
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It is the measure of the QOL of both an
individual and societies.
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“Positive SWB…necessary for the good
life…but not sufficient for it” (Diener, Oishi
and Lucas, 2003).
Factors influencing SWB
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MANY!
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This article focuses on two:
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Personality and Culture
Early work on SWB
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Focussed on EXTERNAL factors
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However, these only contribute to a small
amount of the variance in well-being measures.
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Research has shown that SWB if fairly STABLE
over time, and is often strongly correlated with
personality traits (which are considered by many
stable entities).
Personality and SWB
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Much work so far has focussed on the traits of
Extraversion and Neuroticism.
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This data is mostly very consistent.
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Extraversion is found to correlate with pleasant affect
and Neuroticism with negative affect.
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There are also a number of broad dimensions and
narrower traits that have shown correlations with SWB
constructs.
Careful of causality!
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Should take care when determining the direction
of causality from correlations.
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Not necessarily personality causing SWB effects.
Personality theories of SWB
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Researchers must develop theories that can
explain why certain individuals are chronically
happier and more satisfied with their lives.
Temperament Theories
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Temperament theories on personality and SWB
have focussed primarily on three aspects of
individual differences in well being:
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baseline levels of affective and cognitive well
being
emotional reactivity
cognitive processing of emotional information
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Interaction of Personality and Life
Events
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Findings that different events and life
circumstances affect well-being differently
depending on one’s personality.
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However, some research is not consistent with
this.
Culture and SWB
 Differences
in mean levels of SWB
between nations.
Causes of Societal Mean-level
Differences in SWB
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Likely due to a number of factors.
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Correlation between wealth of nations and their
mean levels of SWB.
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Differences between developed and developing
countries in the effect size of income on SWB.
Other causes
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Cultural differences in:
Self-enhancement
Approach vs Avoidance orientation
Tradeoffs between SWB and Other
Values
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People are sometimes willing to sacrifice
immediate happiness for the sake of achieving
other goals that are valued in their culture.
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People in various societies differentially value
happiness.
Measurement Validity
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Researchers must be careful in their choice in
measures across cultures.
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Measures in Western countries may not be valid
in non-Western countries.
Are the correlates of satisfied people
the same across cultures?
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SWB correlated with self-satisfaction and self
freedom more in Individualistic Western
Nations as oppose to Collectivist Nations.
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SWB correlated with financial satisfaction more
in poorer nations than wealthier ones.
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No difference across cultures in correlations
between SWB and friends/family.
Universal vs Variable causes of SWB
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Are there human universals for happiness or do
causes vary with culture?
Heterogeneity of Cultural Effects
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There is variation of SWB within every
culture.
Conclusion
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Substantial individual differences in SWB
Mean-level differences of SWB across cultures.
Some universal factors for SWB but also differences in
goals and values between individuals and across
cultures.
Diener, Oishi, and Lucas (2003) conclude by saying
that:
“people all over the world most want to be happy by
achieving the things they value”