The present thesis concerns middle-aged women’s subjective well-being (SWB). The interest is focused on the importance of childhood factors, social circumstances, and personality for middle-aged women’s general SWB. Data were taken from the longitudinal research program Individual Development and Adaptation (IDA, Magnusson & Bergman, 2000) and concerned a sample of about 300 women. The main analyses were made on data collected at age 43, but data collected at age 13 and age 49 were also used to elucidate the purposes of this thesis. The results can be summarized as follows: 1) In a Swedish sample of middle-aged women, social circumstances had only a moderate effect on general SWB variables. The strongest relationship was found between marital status and global life satisfaction. When personality factors were controlled for, they wiped out nearly all relationships between the social circumstances variables and SWB, except for those between global life satisfaction and marital status or unemployment; 2) The level of general SWB was found to be considerably higher for Swedish employed women as compared to their counterparts in Lithuania and different socio-demographic variables predicted SWB in those two countries. For the Swedish sample, family-oriented variables were the strongest predictors of SWB, while for the Lithuanian sample income and educational level were more important; 3) Results from applying longitudinal structural equation modeling suggested that optimism in adolescence influenced optimism in middle age, which in its turn had both a direct influence on global life satisfaction and an indirect influence via the negative affect dimension. In relation to a number of different adjustment factors measured in adolescence it was found that optimism was the only factor that was constantly related to SWB 30 years later; 4) Typical patterns of general SWB were identified. Cluster analyses at age 43 and age 49 separately resulted in similar well-functioning six cluster solutions at both ages, indicating structural stability across six years. In addition to the typical high/low/average SWB clusters that could be to some degree expected from variable-oriented results, a cluster with intense affect and one with very low GLS emerged. All clusters except the latter one showed individual stability across six years.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka relationer mellan subjektivt välbefinnande, optimism och copingstrategier. Ett ytterligare syfte var att undersöka eventuella skillnader mellan män och kvinnor angående dels vilka copingstrategier som används, dels skillnader i sambandet mellan copingstrategier, optimism och subjektivt välbefinnande. Studien var baserad på ett stickprov med 106 studenter på grundnivå i olika ämne vid en högskola. Kortversioner av frågeformulären som mäter copingstrategier, optimism och subjektivt välbefinnande delades ut och besvarades enskilt. En multipel korrelationsanalys visade på en modell i vilken coping och optimism förklarade 20% av variansen i subjektivt välbefinnande. Vidare visade resultatet att det inte finns skillnader mellan män och kvinnor när det gäller subjektivt välbefinnande och optimism. Däremot fanns det könsskillnader angående emotionellt stöd, instrumentellt stöd, ventilering av känslor och humor. Copingstrategier medierade inte effekterna av optimism på subjektivt välbefinnande. Subjektivt välbefinnande påverkas till stor del av individens syn på framtiden och livet.

Vilka faktorer som påverkar vår upplevelse av välbefinnande och lycka väcker stort intresse hos människor. Upplevt välbefinnande (subjective well-being) kan definieras som en individs subjektiva uppfattning om sin livstillfredställelse. Grunden för denna uppfattning bygger på hur den enskilda individen skattar och utvärderar sitt liv. Stabilitet i upplevt välbefinnande påverkas av såväl situationsbundna faktorer som personlighet och affekt. Syftet med denna kvantitativa rapport var att utifrån data från forskningsprogrammet IDA undersöka sambandsstrukturen mellan de olika delarna i begreppet upplevt välbefinnande: områdesspecifikt välbefinnande å ena sidan och generellt välbefinnande med allmän livstillfredställelse, positiv affekt och negativ affekt å andra sidan. Samt att hitta eventuella könsskillnader i dessa samband. Resultatet visade på starka samband mellan generellt och områdesspecifikt välbefinnande. Det allra starkaste sambandet konstaterades mellan tillfredställelse med familjeliv och allmän livstillfredställelse. Sambandet mellan yttre villkor för arbetstillfredställelse och generellt välbefinnande var starkare för män än för kvinnor, medan partialsambandet mellan tillfredställelse med partnerrelation och allmän livstillfredställelse var starkare för kvinnor. Diskussion förs kring resultatens överensstämmelse med tidigare forskning.

Happiness research is advancing as an academic discipline as well as on the political agenda. An aspect, largely ignored in the field, is what impact an individual’s construction of the good life has on his or her subjective well-being. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how people in different situations in life and with different backgrounds construct the idea of a good life and the importance these constructions may have in explaining subjective well-being. Despite the differences between themselves, the respondents’ constructions of the good life were shown to have a lot in common. Some factors in the good life were shared by the respondents, such as relations to other people, access to food, water and housing, whereas in other aspects, such as money and time, the constructions of the good life differed quite a lot from one another. When evaluating their own lives the respondents used quite different criteria mostly corresponding to their idea of the good life. If this is a general pattern, possible to replicate in other studies, one may in the future be able to draw the conclusion that the construction of the good life has an effect on our subjective well-being.

In this study 170 Swedish University students participated and evaluated themselves on Subjective well-being with affect balance measured both in frequency and in intensity, and on the five-factor personality factors. The results clearly indicate that intense positive emotions and intense negative emotions correlate positively, and that women experience emotions more intensely than men. Further, measuring affect balance in frequency leads to gender differences in happiness while intensity affect balance does not. Neuroticism (inverted) and extraversion are both strong predictors of happiness, but when using frequent affect-balance, neuroticism evidently stands out as the better of the two. Extraversion and to some extent neuroticism are intensifying people’s emotions. The findings suggest future research to distinguish between intense and frequent affects when calculating Subjective well-being.

This study aims to describe the quality of life of Turkey in comparison with the European Union Member States including the other candidate countries Bulgaria and Romania. The main question in the study is to determine where Turkey stands in terms of quality of life domains in the membership process to the European Union. For this aim, &ldquo / The European Quality of Life Survey&rdquo / that has been launched in 2003 including 28 countries in Europe has been used. The survey consists of eight life domains including different objective and subjective indicators to measure the quality of life in these countries. The findings revealed that although Turkey displays similar patterns with the other candidate countries, it lags behind the European Union Member States in most of these eight quality of life domains.

ABSTRACT THE DETERMINANTS OF LIFE SATISFACTION IN POST-SOVIET AZERBAIJAN Galip, Hilal MSc., Department of Sociology Supervisor: Dr. Adnan Ak&ccedil / ay September 2007, 99 pages The study aims to investigate main determinants of life satisfaction in newly independent country, Azerbaijan. Taking into consideration of local and cultural characteristics of the region, this research will give the opportunity for making cross-cultural analysis to understand subjective well-being of people living in the country in transition. Moreover, it provides deeper interpretation of daily experiences of people in different fields of life compared to Soviet period. In the survey, 1030 households were selected according to multistage cluster sampling and face to face interviews were conducted with those families. In addition, fifty in-depth interviews were applied to people who are coming from different social backgrounds. All macro societal changes influences subjective well-being of the Azerbaijani people and the further analysis of data will help to taking picture of the society and individuals in a closer perspective. Within this framework, this paper attempts to figure out the quality of life in Azerbaijan from the eyes of Azerbaijani people.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of gender, relationship status, romantic relationship satisfaction, and career commitment in three components of subjective well-being, namely life satisfaction, negative affect, and positive affect among senior university students. The sample of the study was composed of 400 (172 females, 228 males) fourth grade students from five faculties of Middle East Technical University. The participants were administered four instruments, namely Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), Relationship Assessment Scale (RAS), and Commitment to Career Choices Scale (CCCS). Three separate simultaneous multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the predictive power of the independent variables that are relationship status, romantic relationship satisfaction, the dimensions of career commitment that are vocational exploration and commitment and tendency to foreclose on the independent variables that are positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. The results of the multiple regression analysis revealed that gender, relationship satisfaction, and vocational exploration and commitment significantly predicted life satisfaction of the students. In addition, results yielded that romantic relationship satisfaction, vocational exploration and commitment, and tendency to foreclose significantly predicted negative affect of the students. Finally, vocational exploration and commitment and relationship status were significant predictors of positive affect of students.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cinematherapy and its interaction with subjective well-being levels on self-perception and its dimensions. Additionally, the study aimed to select cinematherapy movies in accordance with self-perception dimensions, and their therapeutic functions. Moreover, the role of cognitive-emotional identification beside similarity identification was investigated. Three conditions were constructed by clinical and non-clinical samples consisted of 34 participants aged between 15 and 18. Clinical cinematherapy condition was composed of 10 out-patient psychiatric participants, and 24 high school students were assigned to non-clinical cinematherapy and control conditions. Cinematherapy conditions received 3-session cinematherapy intervention in which viewing and elaboration of cinematherapy movies took place. Control condition watched episodes of a documentary with no elaboration part. According to results, in pre-treatment measures, clinical sample had more negative self-perception and self-concept scores in scholastic competence, physical appearance, and global self-worth than non-clinical sample. Additionally, clinical sample had lower levels of subjective well-being than non-clinical sample. As a result of cinematherapy application, athletic competence positively changed in non-clinical sample. Besides, cinematherapy positively affected self-perceptions of participants with low levels of subjective well-being in clinical sample. For participants with low subjective well-being levels in non-clinical cinematherapy condition, athletic competence increased while global self-worth decreased. According to identification results, cinematherapy conditions had higher similarity identification scores than control condition and non-clinical cinematherapy condition had higher fictional involvement scores than clinical cinematherapy condition. The applications and findings were discussed in terms of sample characteristics and cinematherapy procedures.

<p>In this study 170 Swedish University students participated and evaluated themselves on Subjective well-being with affect balance measured both in frequency and in intensity, and on the five-factor personality factors. The results clearly indicate that intense positive emotions and intense negative emotions correlate positively, and that women experience emotions more intensely than men. Further, measuring affect balance in frequency leads to gender differences in happiness while intensity affect balance does not. Neuroticism (inverted) and extraversion are both strong predictors of happiness, but when using frequent affect-balance, neuroticism evidently stands out as the better of the two. Extraversion and to some extent neuroticism are intensifying people’s emotions. The findings suggest future research to distinguish between intense and frequent affects when calculating Subjective well-being.</p>