Unemployment alters the set point for life satisfaction
Article Abstract:
Author Abstract: According to set-point theories of subjective well-being, people react to events but then return to baseline levels of happiness and satisfaction over time. We tested this idea by examining reaction and adaptation to unemployment in a 15-year longitudinal study of more than 24,000 individuals living in Germany. In accordance with set-point theories, individuals reacted strongly to unemployment and then shifted back toward their baseline levels of life satisfaction. However, on average, individuals did not completely return to their former levels of satisfaction, even after they became reemployed. Furthermore, contrary to expectations from adaptation theories, people who had experienced unemployment in the past did not react any less negatively to a new bout of unemployment than did people who had not been previously unemployed. These results suggest that although life satisfaction is moderately stable over time, life events can have a strong influence on long-term levels of subjective well-being.
Publication Name: Psychological Science
Subject: Psychology and mental health
ISSN: 0956-7976
Year: 2004
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Values as moderator in subjective well-being
Article Abstract:
Individual differences were examined within the processes of subjective well-being (SWB) via a diary study approach. SWB is consisted of an individual's cognitive evaluation of life, the lack of negative emotions and the presence of positive emotions. The results suggested a relationship between value orientations and individual differences in SWB patterns. Individual differences were found mostly in domains associated with global life satisfaction. Moreover, the degree of success in individuals' valued domains was found to affect intraindividual changes in satisfaction.
Publication Name: Journal of Personality
Subject: Psychology and mental health
ISSN: 0022-3506
Year: 1999
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Who is happy?
Article Abstract:
Studies on people's subjective well-being (SWB) reveal that happiness and life satisfaction are available in equal measures to all individuals, irrespective of their socio-economic, ethnic or gender backgrounds. Frequent positive affect, rare negative affect and a global sense of satisfaction with life relating to SWB can be ascertained by assessing behavioral traits, close relationships, work experiences, culture and religious affiliation of people.
Publication Name: Psychological Science
Subject: Psychology and mental health
ISSN: 0956-7976
Year: 1995
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