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Many studies suggest that aging women have unique experiences in widowhood, which are different from those of aging men because of gender inequality. This study explored the 2014 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to discover whether gender influences the factors that affect subjective well-being of elderly widows and widowers (aged 65 and over). To look at subjective well-being, I used a feminist gerontological approach to explore possible gender differences and examined life satisfaction, a life satisfaction scale, and happiness, their corresponding predictive factors, and their importance for each of the measures of subjective well-being. This study found that there were gender differences in total household income and social support from friends. Although gender did not affect subjective well-being directly, there were gender differences in the ways that education, total household income, total wealth, and social support from children and friends affected the subjective well-being of widows and widowers. / Master of Science / Aging is getting increasing attention from scholars, policymakers, and the general public. However, the experiences of widowed elders are not at the center of attention, even though they constitute a considerable portion of the aging population. When scholars do focus on widowhood, the typical approach is to examine the negative sides of widowhood, such as depression. However, this study investigates the subjective wellbeing of widowed elders in terms of life satisfaction and happiness. Specifically, this study focuses on potential gender differences in sources of subjective well-being, and how these might relate to gender inequalities over the life course. The findings suggest that the ways education, income, wealth, and some sources of social support that affected life satisfaction and happiness did differ between widows and widowers. Women’s roles as wives and mothers and their domestic labor meant that income and social support from children were important to their life satisfaction and happiness; widowers’ life satisfaction was related only to income, although their happiness was sensitive to many factors. Further, even though elderly widows had much lower income and wealth, they still had comparable levels of subjective well-being as did elderly widowers. The results point to ways that inequality in terms of the gender division of labor shaped the sources of seemingly equal levels of subjective well-being.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka motivationshöjande frågeställningars eventuella koppling till det subjektiva välbefinnandet. Det var 47 deltagare i interventionsgruppen och 37 i jämförelsegruppen. Dessa fyllde i en självskattningsenkät, Mood adjectiv checklist scale, före och efter en 14 dagar lång interventionsperiod. Studiens motivationshöjande frågeställningar utformades med utgångspunkt i dels den positiva psykologin, som lägger fokus på att ta vara på det positiva hos människan, dels utifrån den kognitiva psykologin som menar att människan formas utifrån hennes tankesätt.  Resultatet visade att studiens motivationshöjande frågeställningar kan ha en viss positiv inverkan på sinnesstämning. Slutsatsen blev därför: att föra en inre dialog utifrån särskilt utformade frågeställningar kan öka det subjektiva välbefinnandet. Studiens resultat bidrar till teorin om att positiva psykologiövningar kan förbättra det subjektiva välbefinnandet.

The aim of this thesis is to compare subjective life satisfaction of children at 5th and 9th grades of primary schools in Hradec Králové. The thesis focuses mainly on the way of spending their leisure time, satisfaction with the social contacts and family background, interacting in school, psychosomatic problems and addictive risks. The work compares the responses of individual years and gender of respondents. The thesis finds no significcant diferences between 5th and 9th grade. The significcant diferences were found between gender of respondents. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Thesis advisor: John B. Williamson / This study assesses the influence of old-age pension policy on older adults' life satisfaction, and examines factors that shape this relationship. It theorizes that two distinct dimensions capture variation in the type of pension policy: individualization of risk (as opposed to socialization, or pooling, of risk) and redistribution of resources (that is, poverty prevention through income redistribution mechanisms such as non-contributory pensions). To empirically evaluate the presence of these two dimensions and to assess their influence of life satisfaction among older adults, this study analyzes data for 126,560 adults age 45 and over living in 91 countries over the period 1981-2008. Using principal component factor analysis, it finds support for the two-dimensional model of pension policy. Next, using three-level hierarchical linear regression, this study assesses the effects of pension policy individualization and redistribution on life satisfaction, generating three additional major findings. First, redistribution increases life satisfaction, but individualization--on average--has no significant effect on life satisfaction. Thus, the potential impact of individualization (whether positive or negative), and of the associated increased risk, choice, and opportunities for return, has been clearly overstated in theoretical debates on pension policy privatization. Second, the relationship between pension policy and life satisfaction is contingent on the macro-social context. Specifically, individualization that takes place in more affluent societies has beneficial impact on life satisfaction, while individualization unfolding in contexts of material scarcity has detrimental impact on life satisfaction. Further, the overall beneficial effects of redistribution on life satisfaction are substantially higher in the context of traditional cultures and lower in the context of secular-rational cultures. A third finding is that governmental commitment to social security (i.e., government expenditures on social security as a percentage of total government expenditures) also shapes the relationship between the type of pension policy and life satisfaction: Higher government commitment to social security substantially improves the life satisfaction outcomes of individualization. Findings from this study are used to integrate and advance theory on comparative public policy and the larger macro-social context shaping subjective well-being. Policy implications for pension reform are discussed, highlighting redistribution of resources and alleviation of need as more efficient avenues to increase older adults' life satisfaction than privatization or pooling of risk. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

A travers cette thèse, nous étudions l'envie et explorons l'impact de cette dernière sur le bien-être et le comportement individuel. Cette thèse se compose de quatre chapitres. Dans un premier chapitre, nous définissons l'envie en nous référant à des travaux réalisés en philosophie et en psychologie. Nous concluons que l'envie est une émotion déclenchée par la prise de conscience d'un attribut désiré, possédé par autrui et qui se caractérise par une douloureuse tristesse incluant des sentiments d'hostilité. Ensuite nous élaborons un protocole expérimental dont l'objectif est d'étudier l'impact de l'envie sur le bien-être et sur le comportement individuel. Nous capturons l'envie à travers des méthodes d'évaluation subjective et nous examinons si l'envie incite les sujets à réduire la dotation de leur partenaire malgré le coût personnel induit par la réduction. Nous observons que l'envie est fortement présente mais n'explique pas pourquoi les sujets réduisent la dotation des autres. Les inégalités de dotations mesurées en termes relatifs modulent les décisions des sujets à réduire la dotation d'autrui. Dans le chapitre trois, nous nous intéressons à l'impact de l'effort sur l'envie. Pour cela nous élaborons deux traitements. Dans un traitement, les sujets reçoivent des dotations de manière aléatoire alors que dans l'autre traitement les dotations sont attribuées en fonction de la performance de chaque sujet lors d'une tache effectuée avant l'expérience. Nous trouvons que l'effort n'affecte pas la satisfaction des sujets mais partiellement leur comportement : les sujets ne sont pas plus nombreux a réduire les gains des autres mais ils en réduisent une plus grande partie. Enfin, nous nous intéressons à un type de sujets particulier dans lequel l'envie est susceptible d'être ressentie fortement : les sportifs. Nous concluons que la pratique d'activités sportives pousse les agents à ressentir de l'envie et les incite à entreprendre des actions de réduction. / Throughout this dissertation we aim at identifying envy and investigating its impacts on both individual well-being and behaviour. This dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the definition of envy by referring to both researches on philosophy and psychology. We convey that envy can be defined as an emotion triggered by the awareness of a desired attribute enjoyed by another person characterised by a painful sadness including feelings of hostility. In the second chapter, we implement an experiment so as to investigate the impact of envy on individual well-being and behaviour. We capture envy through referring to self-report methods and explore whether envy pushes subjects to reduce their opponent's endowment at a personal cost. We observe that envy is highly present but does not explain why subjects reduce others' income. Inequalities between subjects' endowments measured in relative terms modulate subjects' decisions to reduce others' income. In chapter three, we study how effort affects envy and whether the impact of envy on both individual well-being and behaviour is amplified or weakened by effort. To fulfil our purpose, we implement two different conditions. In one condition endowments are randomly attributed to subjects and in the other condition endowments are allocated according to each subject's performance in a task. We observe that effort does not affect subjects' satisfaction and partially their behaviour : subjects do not reduce more often their opponent's endowment but they cut a higher portion of their opponent's endowment when endowments are attributed according to individual effort. In the final chapter, we focus on a specific category of subjects in which envy is ought to be experienced intensively : subjects practicing sport activities. We observe that sport practice pushes subjects to experience envy and exerts them to engage in reduction decisions.

<p>Dette studiet undersøkte om det finnes en positiv relasjon mellom korsang og det subjektive velbefinnendet. I undersøkelsen deltok 84 sangere fra 5 kor på både avansert og amatørnivå. Deltagerne fylte i et Mood Adjective Checklist-skjema (MACL: L. Sjöberg, E. Svensson & L.-O. Persson, 1979) før og etter korøvelsen på to forskjellige korøvelser. Resultatene indikerte at korsang påvirket deltagerne signifikant i form av økt velbefinnende, og at sangere mellom 32 og 51 år hadde den største økningen i grad av velbefinnende før og etter korøvelse. Det fantes derimot ingen signifikant forskjell i velbefinnende mellom amatørkor og avansert kor. Resultatene står som et bidrag til tidligere forskning innenfor området, men kan på grunn av det lave deltagerantallet ikke anses være generaliserbart.</p>

Vi ställs dagligen inför väldigt många val och beroende på vilka val vi väljer att göra kommer dessa till stor del att påverka hur vi lever vårt liv och även hur tillfreds vi kommer att vara med livet. Vi baserar många av våra val på känslomässiga förutsägelser som är våra antaganden om hur framtida händelser kommer att påverka oss känslomässigt. Våra känslomässiga förutsägelser är dessvärre ofta påverkade av olika bias som gör att vi missbedömer hur starkt och under hur lång tid vi kommer att reagera känslomässigt på kommande händelser, vilket i sin tur påverkar vilka val vi kommer att göra. Den här uppsatsen kommer att undersöka hur våra känslomässiga förutsägelser påverkar vårt subjektiva välbefinnande och även hur förståelse för detta skulle kunna användas i psykologisk coachning i form av interventioner för att hjälpa människor att göra fler val som leder till ett ökat subjektivt välbefinnande.

This study examined the role of personality variables in the relationship between subjective well-being and loss of relationships through death or parental divorce. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of extraversion, neuroticism, and locus of control as moderating variables between loss of relationship and subjective well-being in college students. Given the prevalence of loss through either death or parental divorce in college students and potential long-term effects on subjective well-being, the current study attempted to further knowledge in this area. Thus, this study aimed to better understand how life events are moderated by personality in influencing an individual’s subjective well-being. This study predicted that individuals who had experienced a loss of relationship would have a lower subjective well-being than individuals who had not experienced a loss of relationship. This hypothesis was not supported by the data which found that individuals who experienced a loss of relationship did not report lower levels of subjective well-being than individuals who had not experienced a loss of relationship. Additionally, it was expected that individuals who reported higher levels of neuroticism and who had an internal locus of control would have a lower subjective well-being. Again, these hypotheses were not supported, and the results indicated that individuals with higher levels of neuroticism also reported higher levels of positive affect and neuroticism was positively correlated with life satisfaction. Furthermore, individuals who reported higher levels of extraversion did not report lower levels of negative affect or life satisfaction. Finally, this study hypothesized that a loss of relationship through death would result in lower levels of subjective well-being. However, the results of this study indicated that individuals with a loss of relationship through death did not report lower levels of subjective well-being when compared to individuals without a loss of relationship through death. The results of this study further the literature on loss of relationship through death and parental divorce and on subjective well-being. This study provides support for the subjective well-being research and provides contrasting findings in regards to personality variables. Limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are also addressed.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how older adults adjust to getting older and the losses that come with aging. This study examines how E.T. Higgins's theory of self-discrepancy mediates the relationship between role loss and subjective well-being. Subjective well-being (SWB) is defined as overall life satisfaction, the presence of positive affect and the absence of negative affect. This hypothesis, grounded in both self-discrepancy and life span developmental theory, is that the level of discrepancy between the actual and ideal self mediates the relationship between role losses and mental health. This study examined three models with each investigating how self-discrepancy mediates the relationship between role loss and a different outcome variable for each model: positive affect, negative affect, and satisfaction with life. The sample consisted of adults over the age of 60 living in both community and institutional settings. Several path analyses models were run to examine the tenability of the hypotheses within the three models. This study did not support any of its hypotheses of the indirect and direct effects mediation models with the outcome variables of positive affect, negative affect and satisfaction with life scale. However, it did show support for the self-discrepancy theory. Consistent with the theory, this study showed that those reporting more self-discrepancy reported less satisfaction with life, less positive affect, and more negative affect. This study also showed levels of SWB in non-clinical samples of older adults. This study supported the idea that more self-discrepancy is related to lower levels of SWB. This is important in a clinical setting to know for treatment of older adults suggesting that clinicians help their clients work towards less self-discrepancy and in turn, greater SWB.