The Harmony in Life Scale Complements the Satisfaction with Life Scale: Expanding the Conceptualization of the Cognitive Component of Subjective Well-Being

O. Kjell (), D. Daukantaitė, K. Hefferon and S. Sikström

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2016, vol. 126, issue 2, 893-919

Abstract: Conceptually, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS; Diener et al. in J Pers Assess 49(1):71–75, 1985 ) emphasizes evaluations comparing actual and expected life circumstances. Contrastingly we developed the Harmony in Life Scale (HILS) emphasizing psychological balance and flexibility in life. Study 1 (476 participants) developed the HILS. In Study 2 participants (N = 787, T1; N = 545, T2) answered well-being related questionnaires and generated words/texts related to HIL/SWL. The HILS yields satisfactory statistical properties, correlates as expected to well-being related scales, whilst HIL/SWL form a two-factor model. Hierarchical regressions reveal that HILS explains considerably more unique variance than SWLS in most included measures. Quantitative semantic analyses (employing latent semantic analyses) on words related to HIL/SWL reveal that they differ significantly in their semantic content. Word frequency analyses show that harmony significantly relate to peace, balance, etc. and satisfaction with job, money, etc. The HILS demonstrates validity, reliability, and uniqueness complementing the SWLS in forming a more holistic understanding of subjective well-being. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Keywords: Harmony in life; Satisfaction with life; Happiness; Subjective well-being; Sustainable well-being; Latent semantic analyses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-015-0903-z (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:spr:soinre:v:126:y:2016:i:2:p:893-919

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-0903-z

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().