Assessments of Societal Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

This chapter examines 10 methodological issues when assessing and analyzing societal well-being using self-reports. First, there are unit-of-analysis issues: deciding the appropriate level of analysis, accounting for individual-level score variability in societal-level scores, testing isomorphism across levels, and finding ways of aggregating and accounting for score variability. Second, there are comparability issues: researchers have sought to homogenize well-being scales with different response scales or use translated measures to compare across nations. Furthermore, there is the concern of whether well-being measures can capture the full range of well-being (both positive and negative aspects). The final set of issues are prediction issues: well-being measures may be more sensitive to negative than positive events/experiences, societal well-being may not always be linearly related to variables of interest, and domain-specific measures may be more sensitive than general measures of well-being, especially when tracking specific changes in well-being or comparing subgroups.

Can High Levels of Hindrance Demands Increase the Worker’s Intellectual Response?

“…These results confirm the U-shaped curvilinear relationship [30,33,34]. At the lowest values of overload, this variable acts as a hindrance demand, producing the reduction of intellectual engagement.…”

“…[14,15]. Expanding the demand concepts of this model and supporting the results of Tays et al [30], Taris et al [33], or Baumeiste [34], and recently Stroe et al [48] and Horan [49], the present work shows that the role of a demand is not static but fluctuates between obstacle and challenge depending on the level at which it is perceived by the employee.…”

“…The interest in maximizing the health and well-being of employees has been observed in previous empirical studies [30], but most of them proved a linear relationship between variables (for example, proposing positive links from labor resources to positive emotions of the worker). As a general rule, research results have shown that employees who perceive their resources as insufficient when responding to demands tend to reduce their levels of engagement [31].…”

Financial resources impact the relationship between meaning and happiness.

“…Although a large body of research has examined the influence of money on happiness (Tay et al, 2018) and a few studies have tested the influence of money on meaning (Hill et al, 2016; Ward & King, 2019), these are the first large-scale global studies to test whether the degree of financial resources moderates the relationship between meaning and happiness. Our findings show that, although the strength of the relationship differs widely across countries and measurement devices (varying from r = .13 using binary momentary measures worldwide to r = .62 using general evaluative measures in France), there is a consistent pattern: Meaning and happiness are more weakly associated for individuals with greater (vs. fewer) financial resources.…”

“…Are there factors that influence the extent to which individuals experience meaning and happiness together? Given society’s and individuals’ widespread absorption with money (Kasser, 2018) and the impact of this focus on well-being (e.g., people who are chronically focused on money rather than time report lower life satisfaction; Hershfield et al, 2016; Mogilner et al, 2018; Tay et al, 2018), we examine whether one’s financial resources relate to the association between meaning in life and happiness.…”