Individual differences in the relationship between domain satisfaction and happiness: The moderating role of domain importance

Tiefenbach, Tim; Kohlbacher, Florian

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2015.05.040

Cited by 31 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…To further explore why the importance weighting procedure was not able to account for additional variance in global life satisfaction, we took a close look at the single domains: At least one previous study claimed that importance weighting varies between domains ( Tiefenbach & Kohlbacher, 2015 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… Wu and Yao (2006) claimed to have found evidence for the merit of importance weighting in such moderated regression models using a sample of 130 undergraduate students, but once again, this sample size seems fairly small for reliably assessing the evidence for between-subject interactions. Tiefenbach and Kohlbacher (2015) analyzed a larger sample of 2,900 Japanese adults and arrived at a more qualified conclusion that importance ratings moderated the association between domain satisfaction and happiness in some but not all domains. Note that it is close to impossible to actually interpret the estimates from their moderated regression analysis because the model included satisfaction with “purpose in life (regarding work, hobbies, and social contributions)” as a predictor of the outcome, which was happiness.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Individual Importance Weighting of Domain Satisfaction Ratings does Not Increase Validity

Rohrer

Schmukle²

2018

Collabra: Psychology

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Bottom-up models of life satisfaction are based on the assumption that individuals judge the overall quality of their lives by aggregating information across various life domains, such as health, family, and income. This aggregation supposedly involves a weighting procedure because individuals care about different parts of their lives to varying degrees. Thus, composite measures of well-being should be more accurate if domain satisfaction scores are weighted by the importance that respondents assign to the respective domains. Previous studies have arrived at mixed conclusions about whether such a procedure actually works. In the present study, importance weighting was investigated in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID; N = 5,049). Both weighted composite scores and moderated regression analyses converged in producing the conclusion that individual importance weights did not result in higher correlations with the outcome variable, a global measure of life satisfaction. By contrast, using weights that vary normatively across domains (e.g., assigning a larger weight to family satisfaction than to housing satisfaction for all respondents) significantly increased the correlation with global life satisfaction (although incremental validity was rather humble). These results converge with findings from other fields such as self-concept research, where evidence for individual importance weighting seems elusive as best.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Individual Importance Weighting of Domain Satisfaction Ratings does Not Increase Validity

Rohrer

Schmukle²

2018

Collabra: Psychology

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“…Nonetheless, parallel results for several of the life domains were observed in the longitudinal analyses spanning a 9‐year period. Previous studies have found that domain satisfactions collectively explain substantial amounts of variance in current LS evaluations, with multiple domain‐specific evaluations making unique predictive contributions to LS (e.g., Casas et al, 2015; Loewe et al, ; Tiefenbach & Kohlbacher, ). The present study extends this previous work by demonstrating such patterns based on individuals' evaluations of how their lives are unfolding over time, and based on a longitudinal analyses in which the domain‐specific predictors were separated from the criterion by an extended period of time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bottom‐up or top‐down? Examining global and domain‐specific evaluations of how one's life is unfolding over time

Busseri

Mise

2019

Journal of Personality

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Objective We employed bottom‐up and top‐down perspectives to evaluate the link between how individuals view their lives as unfolding over time overall and in multiple life domains. Method Participants from an American adult lifespan sample (n = 1,003, mean age = 54.39 years, 49% female, 94% Caucasian) evaluated their recollected past, current, and anticipated future satisfaction in seven life domains (health, work, finances, contribution to others, relationships with one's children, close relationships, sex life) and for their lives overall (life satisfaction) at two time points separated by 9 years. Results Mean‐level trends varied by life domain and age. In cross‐sectional and longitudinal analyses, domain‐specific beliefs about changes in one's life explained substantial amounts of variance in perceived changes in overall life satisfaction, and multiple domains had unique predictive effects. Domain‐specific beliefs also substantially mediated the predictive effect of age on perceived change in life satisfaction. Conclusions Findings provide consistent support for the bottom‐up perspective and limited support for the top‐down model. Accordingly, individuals seem to derive beliefs concerning how their lives overall are unfolding over time based on perceived changes across multiple life domains.

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“…There has not been any consistency in the inclusion of life domains in previous studies on importance weighting. For example, Tiefenbach and Kohlbacher (2015) studied domain importance by using eight domains: finance, health, purpose in life, family, friends, region, job, and workplace. Rohrer and Schmukle (2018) included 10 domains: housing, area, job, finances, hobbies, marriage, family, friends, health, and faith.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Validity of Importance Weighting in Subjective Well-Being Research

Hsieh

2020

Journal of Applied Social Science

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The practice of giving certain life domains (such as health, family life) more weight in calculating an overall score, known as importance weighting, has been a subject of debate in subjective well-being (SWB) research for decades. In this paper, we present evidence by analyzing data from 513 Chinese adults to caution readers that findings of importance weighting in the SWB studies should be interpreted carefully. Given the many unsettled issues in assessing importance weighting, findings are often not clear-cut or definitive and overgeneralization can mislead our understanding of well-being. Future research on the topic of importance weighting should acknowledge study assumptions and limitations to avoid potential overgeneralization of findings.

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Individual differences in the relationship between domain satisfaction and happiness: The moderating role of domain importance

Cited by 31 publications

References 29 publications

Individual Importance Weighting of Domain Satisfaction Ratings does Not Increase Validity

Individual Importance Weighting of Domain Satisfaction Ratings does Not Increase Validity

Bottom‐up or top‐down? Examining global and domain‐specific evaluations of how one's life is unfolding over time

Validity of Importance Weighting in Subjective Well-Being Research

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