Applied Research in Quality of Life最新文献

Antecedents of wellbeing across different socio-cultural contexts is a question that psychologists and other social scientist continue to grapple with. Although evidence supporting higher educational levels as being beneficial for wellbeing is significant, there are still contradictory findings, necessitating further exploration into this relationship. Moreover, current evidence seems to focus mostly on data derived from Western samples and have adopted limited measures of wellbeing. The present study explores the relationship between schooling and a subset of 31 wellbeing-related categories in the Gallup World Poll conducted over three years (2020–2022), encompassing 386,654 individuals in 142 countries. The findings indicate that overall participants with higher levels of education fare better than those with lower levels of education. However, disaggregation and comparison across key social indicators, specifically, country/region of residence, sex and age showed that there were instances where higher levels of education were less beneficial for wellbeing. While acknowledging the importance of education for wellbeing, our findings suggest the need to consider how unique socio-cultural factors might further complicate the benefits of education. We also suggest that governments might need to consider what policies are necessary to make the benefits of education more apparent and ubiquitous.

Individual differences in personal belief in a just world (PBJW) and growth mindset can predict people’s emotions and actions when faced with difficulties, but little is known about how the two attributes influence each other during adolescence. This study analyzed the longitudinal trajectories of PBJW and growth mindset scores and the bidirectional longitudinal associations between them with structural equation modeling. Chinese adolescents (N = 10,350, M_age = 16.62, SD = 0.81, 62.2% males, at Wave 1) completed self-report questionnaires on three occasions over 3 academic years. The results of latent growth models (LGMs) indicate that both PBJW and growth mindset scores increased linearly over the study period. In the cross-lagged panel models (CLPMs), a bidirectional interaction between PBJW and growth mindset scores was detected. In the random intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs), the results suggest that being treated more fairly reinforced individuals’ belief in the malleability of personal abilities at the within-person level, but not vice versa. Overall, the effect of PBJW on growth mindset scores was robust, whereas the effect of growth mindset scores on PBJW was only present at the between-person level. These results provide evidence of an interaction between PBJW and a growth mindset, and highlight the need to distinguish between- and within-person effects.

A large volume of research highlights the adverse effects of relative deprivation on subjective well-being. Across different empirical settings and modelling approaches, a conceptual common denominator exists: the bulk of prior studies assumes that lower social status, by definition, implies higher relative deprivation, resulting in reduced well-being. In the present study, we take issue with this assumption and propose that lower self-ascribed positions on the status hierarchy are necessary but insufficient in and of themselves to undermine well-being. The critical, yet often neglected, factor in the literature is perceived societal unfairness. That is, one must believe that personal predicament as gauged by status disadvantage is, at least partly, due to some exogenous or impersonal forces (e.g., discrimination, limited opportunity). Our central argument is that the magnitude of the focal relationship between relative deprivation and well-being should be more pronounced among those who hold higher perceptions of unfairness. Using three independently collected probability datasets on the South Korean population—Social Science Korea (2017), Seoul Survey (2018), and Korean Social Integration Survey (2018)—we systematically test this hypothesis. Results from multilevel models robustly demonstrate that the connection between lower social status and lower well-being is significantly stronger among individuals who assess their society to be more ‘unfair,’ suggesting that future research should incorporate the level of perceived unfairness as a consequential moderator.

The work investigates the evolution of subjective well-being research based on bibliometric analysis and text mining techniques. It provides a comprehensive overview of the publications from 1966 to 2022 inclusive. 12,376 publications were downloaded from the Scopus database. The paper affords information regarding the evolution of the field in terms of identifying key publications and authors as well as how certain topics have evolved over time. Using topic modeling and text analysis techniques, the main research topics are identified. The analysis, which highlights a rapid growth in publications observed since 2000, demonstrates how the concept of well-being from a subjective point of view is widely studied by researchers in various fields. Moreover, if before this concept was mainly analyzed in the psychological field, nowadays there are journals that devote more space to these issues in terms of individual happiness and social issues.

Organizational and family support may be invested to reduce workers’ family-to-work conflict and increase their and their family members’ family satisfaction. However, data on the extent to which workplace and family support, family-to-work conflict, and family satisfaction were linked during the COVID-19 pandemic for workers and their families is still limited. This study explored the actor and partner effects between perceived workplace support for families and perceived family support, family-to-work conflict, and family satisfaction, in different-sex dual-earner parents with adolescents and the mediating role of parents’ family-to-work conflict. In the Metropolitan Region of Chile, 430 dual-earner parents and their adolescent child (mean age of 12.8 years, 53.7% female) were recruited for the study. Mothers and fathers responded to measures of family-to-work conflict and perceived workplace support for families and the Perceived Family Support Scale. The three family members answered the Satisfaction with Family Life Scale. Analyses were conducted using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model and structural equation modeling. Results showed that mothers’ and fathers’ perceived workplace support for families and perceived family support helped reduce their family-to-work conflict; no other association involving parents’ perceived workplace support for families was significant. By contrast, direct actor and partner effects were found between parents’ perceived family support and the three family members’ family satisfaction. Family-to-work conflict showed two significant mediating roles: One intraindividual in fathers and one intraindividual from fathers to adolescents. These findings indicate that resources both parents gain from perceived family support positively affect the three family members’ family satisfaction by different mechanisms and underscore the importance of family support for family satisfaction during the pandemic.

This cross-national study investigated the mental health and wellbeing literacy of adults through a series of discrimination tasks which assessed their ability to correctly discriminate statements of mental health and wellbeing. A cross-national sample of 1044 adults aged 18 years and older were recruited through Qualtrics Panels. Participants resided in Australia, the United Kingdom, Singapore, South Africa and Malaysia. Quota sampling was undertaken within countries for sex and age-groups (18 to 39 years, 40 to 59 years, and 60 + years). Participants were assigned into one of two conditions in which mental health and wellbeing statements were either negatively or positively framed. In the first task, participants reported moderate levels of mental health and wellbeing literacy and there was consistency between nations in participants’ discrimination of statements. In the second discrimination task, participants now classified most statements indicators as reflecting “both mental health and wellbeing”. The findings suggest that while community members can mostly discriminate between statements of wellbeing and mental health, they will generally define these statements as reflecting dimensions of both mental health and wellbeing. For community members, it may be less important to discriminate between mental health and wellbeing but instead simply focus on overall psychological health which reflects both absence of pathology and presence of wellbeing.

There are considerable interindividual differences in adjustment processes in satisfaction with life (SWL) following critical life events. We focused on a collective life event, the German reunification in 1989/90, which prompted fundamental changes in the political, social, and economic conditions to investigate the heterogeneity of short- and long-term trajectories of SWL and their association with sociodemographic factors and internal migration. Using data (short-term: 1990–1994, long-term: 1990–2019) from the German Socioeconomic Panel (N = 5548), we applied growth mixture modelling with categorical time for short-term and continuous (quadratic) time for long-term trajectories. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine associations of the trajectories with internal migration (West German (reference)/East German non-migrants, East-West/West-East migrants), baseline characteristics (sex, age, education, marital status, employment status, household income) and changes (becoming not employed, becoming divorced/separated, change in household income). The best models indicated four classes both long- and short-term, with the majority showing high stable SWL (86.7% (short-term) vs. 62.3% (long-term)); other classes were ‘improvement’ (2.5%, vs. 16.4%), ‘decline-improvement’ (5.2% vs. 9.4%), and ‘decline’ (5.6% vs. 11.9%). For short-term trajectories, East German non-migrants and East-West migrants were more likely to show unstable trajectories. Long-term, both East German non-migrants and East-West migrants had higher odds of increasing SWL, whereas West-East migrants had higher chances for decline-improvement. Differential associations with baseline sociodemographic characteristics and changes thereof were found. The study highlights distinct SWL trajectories following the collective event of German reunification. These trajectories vary based on short- versus long-term perspectives, sociodemographic background, and internal migration patterns.

The study contributes to research on Universal Basic Income (UBI) by examining mental health trajectories in working individuals who received a monthly UBI payment of €1,000 for the duration of one year. We assessed data from 357 recipients of additional income provided by a crowdfunding association in Germany. Participants reported their life satisfaction, well-being, work motivation, and needs satisfaction at up to three semi-annual measurement occasions, the first of which was scheduled at the onset of UBI payments. Specifically, we focused on the effects of autonomous work motivation as (a) a predictor of change in life satisfaction and well-being and (b) a mediator between needs satisfaction at work and mental health. We conducted Latent Growth Curve Models (LGCM) and Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models (RI-CLPM). Results of the LGCM indicated growth in life satisfaction and well-being during UBI payment. Autonomous motivation was a robust, positive predictor of initial levels of life satisfaction and well-being, both as time-invariant covariate (TIC) and time-varying covariate (TVC). Moreover, low initial autonomous motivation was associated with greater increase of life satisfaction and well-being. Using a RI-CLPM, we found strong support for the mediating effect of autonomous motivation. Furthermore, gender and income were significant predictors of initial life satisfaction and well-being in most of our models. Women and low-income earners tended to report lower levels of life satisfaction and well-being. The results are discussed focusing on the role of autonomous motivation for psychological health in the context of UBI and occupational health promotion more generally.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound effect on health workers; one of the most affected occupational groups. In Sierra Leone, health workers were already scarred by the 2014 Ebola outbreak that claimed many lives; this study aimed to explore the experiences of health workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to this context. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 health workers from three regions in Sierra Leone. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. The study revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial negative impact on the emotional and mental well-being of health workers, with exposure risk being the primary source of stress. The experiences of the 2014 Ebola outbreak shaped their perceptions of COVID-19 while stigma from the community and social circle was perceived as discriminatory and stressful. As the COVID-19 outbreak unfolded, health workers noticed a lower mortality rate relative to their expectations and this strengthened their conviction that the outbreak was less severe than the Ebola outbreak. Health workers believe that lessons from the Ebola outbreak were instrumental in managing COVID-19 effectively. The findings highlight the critical importance of supporting the emotional and mental health of health workers during infectious disease outbreaks, especially in low-income settings where mental health resources are sparse. Preparedness for future disease outbreaks should incorporate lessons learned from site-specific previous outbreaks, i.e., in Sierra Leone, from both the COVID-19 and Ebola, and establishing dedicated counseling and emotional support programs for health workers during crises.

This qualitative study explored the role of neglected properties and neighborhood environment characteristics on a sample of New Orleans, Louisiana residents’ health and well-being, sense of community, sense of safety, and civic engagement. We hypothesized that residents would identify conditions of their neighborhood's physical environment, including neglected properties, as one factor that impacted their health and other aspects of well-being. Seventy-four (N = 74) participants, including women, men, youth, young adults, and community leaders, took part in 11 focus groups (n = 51) and 23 key informant interviews. Thematic content analysis through inductive and deductive coding cycles of interview transcripts revealed five main categories related to urban neighborhood-built and social environments: 1) health and well-being, 2) sense of community, 3) sense of safety, 4) civic engagement, and 5) youth and family violence. Ten themes were developed and included, for example, the role of neighborhoods in delineating access to health-promoting characteristics and resources; the role of neighborhood social networks as crime prevention strategies; resident-led decision-making in neighborhood improvements; the negative impact of neglected properties; and the role of the local government in improving physical infrastructure. These findings affirm that residents were aware of and impacted by the cyclical nature of built environment neglect on health and well-being, community violence, neighborhood cohesion, civic engagement, and youth violence. Participants recommended improving neighborhood conditions to shift resident mindsets about the health of neighborhoods, reduce violence, and improve quality of life.