Structure of Well-Being

Ronald S. Burt, James A. Wiley, Michael J. Minor and James R. Murray
Additional contact information
Ronald S. Burt: University of California, Berkeley
James A. Wiley: Human Population Laboratory, California State Department of Health
Michael J. Minor: National Opinion Research Center
James R. Murray: National Opinion Research Center

Sociological Methods & Research, 1978, vol. 6, issue 3, 365-407

Abstract: A third aspect of individual well-being within a society is analyzed in terms of twelve sequential national probability surveys of individual well-being in the United States from April 1973 through May 1974. This third aspect, in contrast to (1) absolute levels of well-being and (2) feelings of power over individual well-being (i.e., anomie, alienation, and soon), concerns the cultural framework of interrelated dimensions, here discussed as the "structure of well-being," in terms of which individuals evaluate well-being within a society. Alternative structures of well-being for the United States are drawn from existing research and examined for adequacy in describing covariation among twelve indicators of satisfaction with various aspects of life activities. A structure composed of four dimensions; positive affect, negative affect, satisfaction with domains, and general satisfaction, is found to be most adequate of the alternatives. The expected relative stability of the structure of well-being over the twelve sequential national surveys is demonstrated. Implications of the analysis for the study of individual well-being are discussed.

Date: 1978
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004912417800600305 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:somere:v:6:y:1978:i:3:p:365-407

DOI: 10.1177/004912417800600305

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Methods & Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().