Developing measures of perceived life quality: Results from several national surveys

Abstract

A~'n~cr. This report presents the current status of a series of studies oriented toward the assessment of perceived life quality. The conceptual model proposes that a person's overall sense of life quality is understandable as a combination of affective responses to life 'domains', which are of two types-role situations and values. Over 100 items used to measure a wide variety of domains and 28 items assessing perceived overall life quality are presented. Various subsets of these items were used in interviews with several representative samples of American adults. Based on these data the domain items were grouped into a smaller number of semi-independent clusters which were internally stable across 10 different subgroups of the respondents and whose interrelationships were highly replicable in independent national samples. A series of analyses, some replicated in more than one survey showed: (1) an additive combination of 12 selected domains explained 50-60 ~ of the variance in an index of overall life quality, (2) neither other domains nor several social characteristic variables contributed additional explanatory power, (3) this level of explanation was achieved in each of 22 subgroups of the population, and (4) additive combinations of domains worked as well as more complicated combinations. We are embarked on a major effort to develop measures of perceived life quality. The effort is part of the larger movement within the United States and a number of other countries to develop an expanded set of social indicators which can be monitored over time. It is hoped that through the generation and analysis of data from such indicators improvements can result in our understanding of the causes and directions of social changes, and in policymaking oriented toward efforts to improve the quality of life. Social indicators can be classified into two broad types: (1) those based on reports about experiences and characteristics of the reporter's own personal life, and (2) those based on reports of events or situations which are not part of the reporter's own life. Sometimes these two types of indicators have been referred to as 'subjective' and 'objective' respectively, though it can be argued that certain experiential measures are at least as objective as many of the so-called 'objective' measures. Examples of the first class of social indicators would include reports by respondents of their sense of safety when they go out alone at night, or their sense of satis

Predictor Variables Related to the Classification of Happy and Unhappy Elderly People: Discriminant Function Analysis

“…Emotional well-being was originally developed by Andrew and Withey [16] and translated into Korean language by Cha [17]. The scale consisted of four positive (happiness, love, pride, & satisfaction) and four negative (fear, sadness, anger, & guilt) emotions.…”

Variáveis biopsicossociais e atitudes frente ao tratamento influenciam a hipertensão complicada

“…To assess hypertensive patients' feeling in relation to their life, we used a diagram with seven pictures of faces, Andrews' Faces Scale, which is a visual scale with intervals of 7 points, consisting of stylized faces, referring to the mood that prevailed before the question "Which of these faces best represents your life as a whole?" 12 .…”

Association between Subjective Well-Being and Retirement among Older People

“…This scale was validated in Brazil by Albuquerque and Tróccoli [17] and consists of components related to life satisfaction, positive affect and negative affect [18]. The assessment consists of a Likert-like psychometric scale of five points.…”