2021 j… · web view2021. 4. 7. · i have compared the words used in the big five inventory...

Australian Centre on Quality of Life Bulletin Archive

http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#bulletins

ACQol Bulletin Vol 5/01: 311220 to Vol 5/13: 250321

ACQol Bulletin Vol 5/13: 250321Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Lifehttp://www.acqol.com.au/Editor: Robert A. Cummins [[email protected]]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#bulletins

The ACQol Bulletin Team250321

It is timely to record my thanks to our team members, whose collective efforts result in the weekly Bulletin. Their identities are recorded below. Of special note are our two new Co-Editors, Marcin Rzeszutek and Małgorzata Pięta, from the University of Warsaw. Marcin and Malgorzata have a special research interest in Trauma Recovery, and will be contributing an occasional article on this topic (see below). They are also setting a precedent. If other members would like to consider a similar role on the Bulletin team, please contact the Editor. Editor: Robert A. Cummins [[email protected]]Professor Emeritus, School of Psychology, Deakin UniversityExecutive Web Developer: Iestyn Polley [[email protected]]Information Technology Team member, Deakin UniversityWebMaster: Tanja Capic [[email protected]]Doctoral Candidate, School of Psychology, Deakin UniversityMembership Registrar: Sangeetha Thomas [[email protected]]Doctoral Candidate, School of Psychology, Deakin UniversityExecutive Data Analyst: Sarah Khor [[email protected]]Doctoral Candidate, School of Psychology, Monash UniversityPublishing Consultant: Josipa Crnic [[email protected]]Scholarly Librarian, Deakin UniversityBulletin Co-Editor– Media: Tanika Roberts [[email protected]]Full-time recruitment consultant, Byron BayBulletin Co-Editors – Trauma Recovery: Marcin Rzeszutek [[email protected]]Assistant professor, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw

mailto:[email protected]


Małgorzata Pięta [[email protected]]Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw

Paper for private studyThe attached paper, on the topic of life quality, is sent to you for your personal private study and discussion within ACQol. You are prohibited from further distributing this paper to any

other person.

HPMood vs Core Affect

Background: The stimulus for this week comes from Jozef Dzuka <[email protected]>, who asks: “Is it not better to use, instead of HPMood, the HPCaffect (C=core)?” [Jozef the cites the following as context]

Cummins:“1. SWB comprises two components. One is a stable mood affect called Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood). This HPMood is a composite of three basic affects (Russell 1980), as content, happy, and alert (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007), which are located close to one another on the affective circumplex. This stable mood represents the unchanging, affective-mood setpoint for each person. HPMood is the low-intensity, positive/activated affect which permeates all self-evaluations (Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a), and serves to keep people normally feeling positive about them self.” (ACQol Bulletin Vol 5/11: 110321) Please see Table from Ekkekakis (2013, p. 47) below: Table 2.1 Tentative distinctions between core affect, emotion, and mood

Reference: Ekkekakis, P. (2013). The measurement of affect, mood, and emotion: A guide for health-behavioral research. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Comment on Jozef’s proposal There are various points of contention in the above depiction, but primary is the description of Core Affect as a separate dimension from Emotion and Mood. There is no empirical evidence to support this proposition (see below). Moreover, Ekkekakis cites no references to support such discriminant validity. In fact, he cites no specific supportive references for the component statements in this table at all. Rather, his table is the intellectual construction arising from a brief preceding review, which omits key references offering contradictory evidence for his scheme.

The construct of Core Affect has undergone a major conceptual change from its original form by James Russell, who also provided the foreword to this book. Understanding this history explains why the term HPMood, rather than an alternative linking to core affect, is the most appropriate nomenclature for the revised construct. The account that follows draws heavily on an expanded version available as (Cummins 2014c).

A history of Core AffectThe term core affect was coined by Russell and Feldman Barrett (1999), and expounded by Russell (2003), to describe a neurophysiological state experienced as a basic feeling. He considered pure core affect to be the simplest psychological feeling: “The subjective experience [of core affect] is simple and primitive and therefore irreducible to anything else

psychological” (p. 148). He describes it as analogous to felt body temperature in that it is always there, it can be accessed when attention is drawn to it, extremes are most obvious, and it exists without words to describe it.

The theoretical context of this description is his circumplex model of affect (Russell 1980). This is a mathematically derived classification of all affects, each one positioned on the circumference of a circle. The circle contains two orthogonal axes (pleasant/unpleasant and activation/deactivation). Each affect is positioned according to its blend of the two axes.

A central aspect of core affect is its presence in both emotions (acute affect generated bysome percept and involving cognition) and mood (chronic affect generated automaticallywithout a percept). In terms of emotion, Russell follows Oatley and Johnson-Laird (1987), in considering that an emotion is linked to a percept, and comprises is an amalgam of two processes. First is an attribution of affective quality directed at the percept in terms of its pleasant-unpleasant and activating-deactivating character. This is a “cold” (unemotional) perception which is made “hot” (emotional) by being combined with a change in core affect. Thus, changed core affect, he claims, is central to all emotion-laden percepts. However, this claim has not been empirically verified, and is now disputed.

In terms of core affect as mood, in its simplest and pure form it is nonreflective, defined as “prolonged core affect without an object” (Russell & Barrett,1999, p. 806). It is always present and is represented as a single point that moves about within the circumplex, with such movements or changes in core affect, driving emotional responses to percepts. As such, core affect can vary in intensity and stability. Intensity varies directly with the rapidity and extent of change from one point to another. If core affect is intense, then it can be the focus of consciousness; when it is weak it recedes into the conscious background. However, the claim that core affect ‘moves’ has not been empirically verified and is now disputed (see later).

Observation: While the Affective Circumplex has survived critical appraisal, surprisingly little of the core affect description provided above is based on empirical evidence involving discriminant validity. This uncertainty also applies to the claim that core affect is variable. Notably, some six years later Russell changed his view of core affect (Russell 2009).

Core affect post 2009Russell’s more contemporary views of core affect have increased the complexity and centrality of core affect. Here, core affect has become an optional feature of emotion Russell (2009) p. 1265. In this revised view, the simple trait-like property of core affect hasbeen virtually abandoned and the emphasis has shifted to “psychological construction.” This is an umbrella term for a host of mechanisms that purport to explain not only emotions but a much larger set of psychological components. Indeed, so inclusive is the concept of psychological construction, that many of its components “have no name” (p. 1279). These changes are in sympathy with Barrett’s (2009) Conceptual Act Model. In this view, changes in core affect comprise a “core affective reaction” to an object or stimulus “directing the body to prepare for some behavioral response toward that object” (Barrett, 2009, p. 383). Again, there is no empirical evidence for this proposition.

Indeed, various critiques have been offered in relation to this revised view of core affect (see Frijda, 2009). One of particular relevance is the claim that core affect is both a “psychological primitive” and as a highly complex interactive system (see Yik et al., 2011). This seems contentious since primitive systems are generally characterized by simplicity not

complexity. Other changes also make it clear that the original concept of Core Affect has been abandoned by its author.

The emergence of HPMoodShortly after Russell’s 2003 description of Core Affect, Melanie Davern (2004) was engaged with her PhD thesis at Deakin University. She was the first researcher to examine core affect and personality in terms of their relative capacity to capture Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) variance. From a pool of 31 affects, she found only 6 made a significant, unique contribution to Global Life Satisfaction (GLS) as: content, happy, energized, satisfied, stressed, and pleased. Collectively, these six affects accounted for 64 % of the variance in GLS. Davern concluded that SWB judgments mainly comprise pleasant affect, and not cognition as had been commonly claimed and cited (Andrews and Withey 1976, Diener 1984).

In a subsequent study, Davern, Cummins, and Stokes (2007) used these six affects together with the seven discrepancies of Multiple Discrepancies Theory (Michalos 1985), extraversion, and neuroticism (Costa and McCrae 1980), in a hierarchical regression to predict SWB. The results were confirmed by a subsequent study using Structural Equation Modelling. About 90% of the variance in SWB was contributed by three affects (happy, content, excited), with a small contribution from MDT (Michalos, 1985) and none from personality. This was the first demonstration that affect, not personality, is the dominant determinant of life satisfaction and SWB. These findings have been essentially replicated (Blore, Stokes et al. 2011, Tomyn and Cummins 2011a). When Davern (2004) named her combination of three affect ‘Core Affect’ it was in sympathy with Russell’s (2003) terminology. However even at that time, the description of core affect as changing in response to percepts did not fit the evolving Davern model. The form of core affect envisioned by Davern et al. (2007) was as unchanging, being uninfluenced by percepts. This essential feature differentiated the mood from emotion. Crucially, Davern et al also considered the three discovered ‘core affects’ to describe a form of enduring, positive-activated mood that was defended by Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis (Cummins, 1995, 2010). Thus, a new term was required that described a basic, unchanging form of mood affect, and the term Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood) was coined (Cummins, 2010) to describe a feeling state that is somewhat consistent with Russell’s original view, but which is very different from both Russell (2009) and the view provided by Ekkekakis (2013). In contrast to the vague and unreferenced terms used in Table 2.1, the following specific characteristics, all empirically verified, define HPMood:

1. Definition. Russell (2003) describes core affect as analogous to felt body temperature in that it is always there, it can be accessed when attention is drawn to it, extremes are most obvious, and it exists without words to describe it. This idea has been simplified (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007) and theoretically contextualized (Cummins 2017a) into a simple, genetically determined mood that does not change for each person.

2. This Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood) comprises three affects (content, happy, alert) (Cummins 2010a), all closely related to one another on the affective circumplex (Hartley-Clark 2014). The purpose of HPMood is to provide a weak, positively activated, affective background to consciousness, such that HPMood is present in most thoughts that concern self-evaluations. Because of this, people generally feel positive about themselves.

3. The level of SWB is remarkably stable because it has HPMood at its core, and HPMood is stable. Variation in the level of SWB is caused by its emotion content (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007), which is coincident with HPMood in consciousness. Thus, a response to SWB, such as ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole’, is an amalgam of HPMood and emotion (Capic, Li et al. 2018).

4. The idea that ‘core affect’ is variable (Ekkekakis 2013, Table 2.1) comes from observing variation in the level of SWB. However, this variation is due to the emotion component. The level of HPMood remains stable.

5 While its emotion content allows the level of SWB to vary, such variation is attenuated by homeostatic control which strives to maintain the level of SWB close to setpoint for each person (Cummins 2017a). Because of this homeostatic control, the chronic level of SWB normally varies by only a few percentage points for each person (Anglim, Weinberg et al. 2015).

6. This stability is consistent with HPMood being the phenotype of an individual difference, representing a set-point for each person. Such setpoints have been demonstrated (Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018).

7. In 1999, Diener observed “There is a glue that holds together certain of the discrete emotions. The explanation of the co-occurrence of emotions and moods has the potential of shedding light on the most fundamental nature of affect” (p. 803). This ‘glue’ is HPMood, acting as an individual difference, and adding a personal constant of shared variance to each self-evaluation. In samples comprising several individuals, this shared variance within different self-evaluation variables, cause such variables to correlate with one another (Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a). Meehl (1990) labelled this correlational imperative the ‘Crud Factor’.

Conclusion: Homeostatically protected Mood (HPMood) shares some of its character with Russell’s original 1903 description of ‘core affect’, but much less with the description of core affect offered by Ekkekakis (2013). The fact that HPMood is theoretically embedded in Homeostasis Theory, is the basis of setpoints, and empirically conforms to expectations arising from these associations, makes it a superior scientific construct to core affect.

References: see end of Bulletin

Trauma RecoveryBulletin Co-Editors: Marcin Rzeszutek [[email protected]]

Małgorzata Pięta [[email protected]]

Posttraumatic growth: do we always (need) growth after trauma?

A huge amount of research indicates that experience of traumatic events leads to negative changes in mental functioning of trauma victims, out of which posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most prevalent (e.g; Kessler et al., 2017). Negative consequences of trauma are not only intuitively obvious, but also very well described in the literature. However, recently scientific attention has been shifted away from obvious negative consequences to paradoxical positive outcomes of traumatic experiences, which form the

phenomenon of posttraumatic growth (PTG), firstly described by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996).

The introduction of PTG stimulated a substantial increase in research on positive outcomes of traumatic life events and PTG research became one of the leading fields in positive psychology (Seligman, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Interest in PTG also resulted in the construction of various theoretical models of PTG (e.g., Tedeschi, & Calhoun, 1996, 2004, Schaefer, & Moos, 1998, Janoff-Bulman, 2004, Maercker, & Zoellner, 2004). Unfortunately, the multiplicity of theoretical approaches to PTG did not translate satisfactorily into a consensus on how to conceptualize and measure this construct. More specifically, there is still no unequivocal answer to the fundamental question of what PTG really is (Jayawickreme, & Blackie, 2014). Although Tedeschi and Calhoun’s (1996, 2004) functional-descriptive model of PTG is still the most popular conceptualization of this positive phenomenon in the literature, almost from its foundation this model was also widely criticized, as well as the general line of research on PTG, which arises from this model (Infurna, & Jayawickreme, 2019). The major shortcoming deals with utilizing almost exclusively retrospective and self-reported inventories measuring PTG with cross-sectional design (Frazier et al., 2009; Jayawickreme, & Blackie, 2014). Therefore, it is not known whether any enduring measurable change occurs in the long run and whether it is stable, or if declared changes (positive or negative) are really revealed in the everyday behavior of people retrospectively declaring them (Infurna, & Jayawickreme, 2019).

The second major problem related to the question whether PTG among people experienced trauma translates into their well-being (Zoellner, & Maercker, 2006). Despite intuitively obvious view on adaptive role of PTG, both positive, negative, and null relationships between PTG and well-being after trauma have been documented (Infurna, & Jayawickreme, 2019). The role of this latter problem best summarize following words by Zoellner and Maercker (2006, p. 631): “(…) If posttraumatic growth is a phenomenon worthy to be studied in clinical research, it is assumed to make a difference in people's lives by affecting levels of distress, well-being, or other areas of mental health. If it does not have any impact, then, PTG might just be an interesting phenomenon possibly belonging to the areas of social, cognitive, or personality psychology (…)”.

To sum up, PTG construct aroused great scientific, social and even pop-cultural attention (see: e.g. Kelly Clarkson or Taylor Swift songs on the Nietsche phrase: what does not kill us makes us stronger). However, several methodological and theoretical shortcomings still preclude us from knowing the answer to the question of why some people break down in the face of trauma, while others grow (Rzeszutek, & Gruszczyńska, 2018). Secondly, we do not entirely know why sometimes PTG is adaptive and sometimes maladaptive outcome of coping with trauma among survivors. Finally, there is a need to overcome existing stereotypes about the consequences of traumatic events, which are usually perceived as something negative only. On the one hand, positive changes after trauma may arouse astonishment or lack of acceptance among some people. On the other hand, we must realize that many people do not growth after trauma and we do not have to “force” growth after life various crises and adversities (see: positive thinking tyranny). It seems that a lot is to be done, but substantial progress in scientific studies on PTG is needed to fill in aforementioned research gaps goal.

References:Frazier, P., Tennen, H., Gavian, M., Park, C., Tomich, P., & Tashiro, T. (2009). Does self-reported

posttraumatic growth reflect genuine positive change? Psychological Science, 20, 912–919. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02381.x

Infurna F., & Jayawickreme, E. (2019). Fixing the Growth Illusion: New Directions for Research in Resilience and Posttraumatic Growth. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721419827017

Janoff-Bulman, R. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: three explanatory models. Psychological Inquiry. 15(1), 30–34.

Jayawickreme, E., & Blackie, L. (2014). Posttraumatic growth as positive personality change: Evidence, controversies, and future directions. European Journal of Personality, 28, 312-331.

Kessler, R.C., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Alonso, J., Benjet, C., Bromet, E.J., Cardoso, G., Koenen, K. C. (2017). Trauma and PTSD in the WHO World Mental Health Surveys. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 8(sup5).

Maercker, A., & Zoellner, T. (2004). The Janus face of self-perceived growth: Toward a two-component model of posttraumatic growth. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 41 48.

Rzeszutek, M., & Gruszczyńska, E. (2018). Posttraumatic growth among people living with HIV: A systematic review. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 114, 81-91. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2018.09.006.

Schaefer, J., & Moos, R. (1998). The context for posttraumatic growth: Life crises, individual and social resources, and coping. In: R. G. Tedeschi, C. L. Park, L. G. Calhoun (Eds.), The LEA series in personality and clinical psychology. Posttraumatic growth: Positive changes in the aftermath of crisis (pp. 99-125). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Seligman, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5-14.

Tedeschi, R., & Calhoun, L. (1996). The Posttraumatic Growth Inventory: Measuring the positive legacy of trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 9, 455–471.

Tedeschi, R., & Calhoun, L. (2004). Posttraumatic growth: Conceptual foundations and empirical evidence. Psychological Inquiry, 15, 1-18.

Zoellner, T & Maercker, A. (2006). Posttraumatic growth in clinical psychology - a critical review and introduction of a two component model. Clinical Psychology Review, 26 626–653. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2006.01.008

Recommended citation for either of the above articles[authors] 2021. [article title] In: ACQol Bulletin, [Vol, Issue]. Editor, Cummins, R. A. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University.http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#Open-access

Further discussion of both papers, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: [email protected]

Substantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 28th March, will be published in the following Bulletin. Such comments may offer a novel extension to the view that has been put, an alternative and informed view, or offer a critique, all in the spirit of scientific

understanding.

ACQol members are invited to send papers, queries, or comments on the topic of life quality, for distribution and discussion by members under these same conditions.

Website additions and changesTanja Capic <[email protected]>

WebMaster

Open-Access additions: Datahttp://www.acqol.com.au/data-portalMultiple Cross-Sectional

The Macau Quality of Life Report Project

http://www.acqol.com.au/data-portal#collapse3

http://www.acqol.com.au/data-portal

The Macau Quality of Life Reports were commissioned by the deFiccao Projectos Multimedia (owner of Macau Business magazine - http://www.macaubusiness.com/magazine) to Lotus Consultants, the Consulting arm of the University of Saint Joseph.

From 2007 to 2012 a total of twelve surveys were conducted with the support of the Macau Foundation, Wynn Resorts and the Orient Foundation. The project was led by Prof. Richard Whitfield, as CEO of Lotus Consultants at the time, which involved also Dr. Ricardo Rato and Mr. Michael Lio as researchers and Ms. Jeannie Lam providing administrative support. All data were collected via telephone interviews. 376 valid responses were gathered for the first survey, and 1000+ for each of the subsequent surveys (from a Macau population of around 300,000 adults). The interviewers were thoroughly trained and closely monitored students from the University of Saint Joseph. Each survey is represented by an excel data file, data dictionary, and a report.

Brief report Sourced from the Analysis & Policy Observatory

Elasmar, N. (2021). Reducing the Harm Caused by Gambling. Melbourne, Victorian Government Printer https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2021-03/apo-nid311482.pdf.

Is the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation effectively reducing the severity of gambling harm? Gambling is legal in Victoria, and easy to access. However, it can cause serious harm for individuals, their family and friends, and for the wider community. Gambling harm costs all Victorians around $7 billion a year, through damage to relationships, health and wellbeing, monetary losses and other social costs. The Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation (the Foundation) was established in 2012 to reduce gambling harm.

We conclude that The Foundation does not know whether its prevention and treatment programs are effectively reducing the severity of gambling harm because the Foundation lacks an outcome-based framework to develop programs and measure their results. In addition it does not always use this evidence to improve program design and service delivery.

Media news Tanika Roberts [[email protected]]

Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– Media

Barbies May Do Damage That Realistic Dolls Can't Undohttps://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/beauty-sick/202103/barbies-may-do-damage-realistic-dolls-cant-undo Renee Engeln

Dolls are one of the most popular types of toys for young girls. Many dolls marketed to young girls have ultra-thin, adult bodies with large breasts and extremely narrow waists. These dolls tend to have body sizes that would translate to a dangerously thin body in a


https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2021-03/apo-nid311482.pdf


human woman. Although parents can find dolls with more realistic, child-like proportions, Barbie remains the best-selling doll in the world. Body image struggles are common among pre-adolescent girls and are linked to long-term outcomes that include eating disorders and depression. Researchers argue that 6 to 11 years old is a key time period when it comes to the development of girls’ body image. During this time, girls may begin to internalize an ultra-thin, unrealistic body ideal.

Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. https://fortinberrymurray.us13.listmanage.com/subscribe?u=6a411e8ce902df7c73232a8f2&id=4ee17adb2b&mc_cid=e1cac10cf4&mc_eid=e9a2e6453f

-----------------------ReferencesAndrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: American's perceptions of life quality.

New York: Plenum Press.Anglim, J., Weinberg, M. K., & Cummins, R. A. (2015). Bayesian hierarchical modeling of the temporal

dynamics of subjective well-being: A 10 year longitudinal analysis. Journal of Research in Personality, 59(3), 1-14. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2015.08.003

Barrett, L. F. (2009). Variety is the spice of life: A psychological construction approach to understanding variability in emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 23(7), 1284-1306. doi:10.1080/02699930902985894

Blore, J. D., Stokes, M. A., Mellor, D., Firth, L., & Cummins, R. A. (2011). Comparing multiple discrepancies theory to affective models of subjective wellbeing. Social Indicators Research, 100(1), 1-16. doi:10.1007/s11205-010-9599-2

Capic, T., Li, N., & Cummins, R. A. (2018). Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators. Social Indicators Research, 137(1), 1-28. Retrieved from 10.1007/s11205-017-1585-5

Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. (1980). Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 668-678.

Cummins, R. A. (2010a). Subjective wellbeing, homeostatically protected mood and depression: A synthesis. Journal of Happiness Studies, 11, 1-17. doi:10.1007/s10902-009-9167-0

Cummins, R. A. (2014c). Core Affect. In A. C. Michalos (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Quality of Life Research (pp. 1298-1302). New York: Springer http://springerreference.com/docs/html/chapterdbid/411604.html.

Cummins, R. A. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. In D. S. Dunn (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies Online. Retrieved from http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199828340/obo-9780199828340-0167.xml

Cummins, R. A., Capic, T., Hutchinson, D., Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M., Olsson, C. A., & Richardson, B. (2018a). Why self-report variables inter-correlate: The role of Homeostatically Protected Mood. Journal of Wellbeing Assessment, 2, 93-114. doi:10.1007/s41543-018-0014-0

Cummins, R. A., Li, L., Wooden, M., & Stokes, M. (2014a). A demonstration of set-points for subjective wellbeing. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15, 183-206. doi:10.1007/s10902-013-9444-9

Davern, M. (2004). Subjective Wellbeing as an Affective Construct. Doctoral Thesis. Deakin University http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#theses, Melbourne. Retrieved from http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/theses/index.htm

Davern, M., Cummins, R. A., & Stokes, M. (2007). Subjective wellbeing as an affective/cognitive construct. Journal of Happiness Studies, 8(4), 429-449. doi:10.1007/s10902-007-9066-1

Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542-575. Diener, E. (1999). Introduction to the special section on the structure of emotion. Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology, 76(5), 803-804. Ekkekakis, P. (2013). The measurement of affect, mood, and emotion: A guide for health-behavioral research.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Hartley-Clark, L. (2014). Investigating the Affective Core of Subjective Wellbeing: the Circular Way: PhD

thesis. Australian Centre on Quality of Life http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#theses, Deakin University, Melbourne Campus http://dro.deakin.edu.au/view/DU:30074804.

https://fortinberrymurray.us13.listmanage.com/subscribe?u=6a411e8ce902df7c73232a8f2&id=4ee17adb2b&mc_cid=e1cac10cf4&mc_eid=e9a2e6453f



Meehl, P. E. (1990). Why summaries of research on psychological theories are often uninterpretable. Psychological Reports, 66, 195-244.

Michalos, A. C. (1985). Multiple Discrepancies Theory (MDT). Social Indicators Research, 16, 347-413. Oatley, K., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1987). Towards a cognitive theory of emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 1,

29-50. Russell, J. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1161-

1178. Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review, 110(1),

145-172. Russell, J. A. (2009). Emotion, core affect, and psychological construction. Cognition & Emotion, 23, 1259-

1283. Russell, J. A., & Feldman Barrett, L. F. (1999). Core affect, prototypical emotional episodes, and other things

called emotion: Dissecting the elephant. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(5), 805-819. Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2011a). Subjective wellbeing and homeostatically protected mood: Theory

validation with adolescents. Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(5), 897-914. doi:10.1007/s10902-010-9235-5



other person.

The art of asking questions and avoiding response error

Background: While many social science researchers generate items for scales or questionnaires, few are trained in the process. They simply rely on common sense when choosing the words and sentence construction to convey their questions. Moreover, constructing such items is generally easy and quite entertaining to do. Such researchers are well versed in the area under enquiry, their questions seem straightforward and clear, and they feel pleased with themselves as they scan the items they have generated. Their ignorance is both bliss and a major source of error variance.

There are many ways that ‘errors’ can be introduced into survey results. In this context ‘error’ refers to ‘the difference between actual survey data collected and used for analysis, and the value that was intended to be estimated’ (Hansen, Hurwitz et al. 1951). Hansen et al. identify various kinds of common survey errors, such as the failure of random sampling or the introduction of sampling bias. More interestingly, however, they also identify ‘non-sampling errors.’ These may be mechanical errors of data processing, again not very interesting. But a second form of non-sampling error is more challenging to both understand and defend against. This is error introduced during the process of data collection: response error. That is, the actual response to an item is different from the response that would have been given if the respondent had answered validly and reliably. Response error may be caused by several factors such as poor questionnaire design, the approach to data collection, the characteristics of the respondents, etc.


It is possible to recognise and remove some types of response error data after they have been collected. Careful examination may identify respondents who have been engaged in random responding or determined consistency, such as marking the top of all rating scales (for advice on removing such errors see ‘data cleaning’ in International Wellbeing Group (2013). But there are other types of response errors that cannot be so detected. Among these are responses that are valid positive responses as determined by the respondent, but which are invalid as veridical responses to the question asked.

Consider what transpires when the respondent to a questionnaire encounters an item they do not understand. This is a quite common experience for adult respondents with low literacy, and probably most children. So, what do they do? The naïve researcher expects that the respondent will either ask for an explanation or leave the response blank. Unfortunately, this is not what usually happens.

If this situation happened in a friendly conversation, the person might feel they could ask for an elaboration, or answer in a vague way while changing the topic, etc. But in the formality of a questionnaire there is no such escape and asking for help draws attention to their inadequacy. So, they may just skip the question if it is in written form. But many people feel awkward in taking such action, feeling that they should complete the task they have agreed to perform. So, they determine to give it their best shot, and purposefully select a response on the presented scale. In other words, they will provide a thoughtful positive response to a questionnaire item, despite having no idea what the item means (Bishop, Tuchfarber et al. 1986, Schuman and Presser 1996). This is not a trivial concern. Schwarz (1995) estimates that about 30 % to 50 % of the respondents will provide an answer to meaningless questions invented by the researcher (p.7).

There is a substantial literature on this topic, which had its research hay-day around the 1950s to 1980s. It has produced a cohesive body of understanding about how and why people respond to questionnaire items in the way they do. This literature contains some very distressing information, such as the above example.

This critical issue of response errors, for questionnaire construction, surely trumps concerns such as sampling techniques or data weighting. If respondents are not providing valid information then their data, and their derivative results, are simply invalid. Moreover, if the data represent thoughtful and positively oriented responses, representing the best responses that the person can make under the circumstances, then such data will likely be indistinguishable from valid responses made with understanding. So, the only defence against the generation of such data lies in prevention; by paying critical attention to the detailed nature of the questionnaire structure and administration.

It seems extraordinary that, despite a wealth of relevant literature. this critical issue receives such limited attention within contemporary research papers. It is essential knowledge that seems to have gone missing, and needs to be revived. Schwarz (1995) is a source of inspiration for this revival, replacing the un-inspirational ‘non-sampling error in surveys’ with ‘the art of asking questions.’

Reference: Schwarz, N. (1995). "What respondents learn from questionnaires: The survey interview and the logic of conversation." International Statistical Review/Revue Internationale de Statistique 63(2): 153-168.

Author summary: "Response errors may be due to the questionnaire design, the interviewing approach, the characteristics, attitudes, or knowledge of the respondent, or a great many other causes. Regardless of the source, any systematic attempt to control or measure response errors must be based on a clear formulation of the way they arise" (Hansen et al., 1951, p. 147).

Comment on Schwarz (1995)The author opens by noting the seminal review by Sudman and Bradburn (1974), who were among the first to emphatically demonstrate that “questionnaire construction and question formulation lie at the heart of the problem of generating [response errors]” (p.13). Hence Schwarz’s reference to the ‘art of asking questions.’ Much as in a verbal conversation, the questionnaire interacts with respondents. The questions provide information upon which the respondents formulate their answer. While this may seem straightforward when the question is simple and the respondent fully competent to respond, this is obviously not so if the question is not understood.

Under these conditions, the willing respondent will look more carefully at the question to find clues that might assist them formulate their response. These clues will be found in aspects of the task other than the specific form of words forming the question. An initial source of information comes from memory. Have they encountered a similar question and how did they respond? Also shaping their planned response is a concern to present themselves in a positive light. Schwartz summarizes “interpreting the question, generating an opinion or a representation of the relevant behavior, formatting the response, and editing the answer are the main psychological components of a process that starts with respondents' exposure to a survey question and ends with their own response” (p.4).

The author demonstrates how rating scales using unipolar or bipolar formats produce systematically different responses, and that ambiguously named scale anchors do likewise. Frequency scales are especially prone to response errors. This is due to memory constraints, together with using the scale range of values as a guide to what is normal. There is also the issue that, in uncertainty, respondents tend to select a value at, or just above the mid-point, to meet their need to project themselves as ‘normal’ and positive.

A further example of induced response error involves item-ordering. The manual for the Personal Wellbeing Index (section 2.3.2.1) advises that, if the GLS (Global Life Satisfaction: ‘satisfaction with life as a whole’) item is to be used, it must precede the domain questions. This is because, if the specific domains are asked first, they will be used to influence the more general responses to GLS. Schwarz (1995) concurs (p.18). He reports that if the order of items is general (GLS) then specific (e.g., marital satisfaction), the two responses correlate .18. If the order is specific to general, the correlation is .67.

Finally, there is the basic issue of what words to use to enhance the probability of understanding. Of course, each single word must be known by the reader, but that is not all. Questions can be both simple and incomprehensible. “What have you done today?”.

There are many sources of information on the assessment of reading level and an excellent article describing the Flesch–Kincaid readability tests (Flesch 2007) is available from Wikipedia. The average 5th grade (11y) child understands text with a readability score of 90-100. The average adult reads at a score-level of 60-70, which is the average attainment of 8th & 9th grade (13- to 15-year-old students) in the USA. Text at this level is called ‘Plain

English’ and the two publications with the largest circulations, TV Guide (13 million) and Readers Digest (12 million), are written at the 9th-grade level (DuBay 2006). In stark contrast, the least readable scientists are economists (Flesch score = 41.70), psychologists (42.25), chemists (42.81), and mathematicians (43.35).

So, the psychologists who are creating the questionnaires for general population samples have a professional writing style which is among the least readable. They are also generally untrained in ‘the art of asking questions’, so their professional writing style is likely to be reflected in the way they ask questions.

I have pursued this lead using the information provided by Education First (2019). This advises that “With 3,000 words, you can understand 90% of everyday English conversations, English newspaper and magazine articles, and English used in the workplace.” So, let us assume that people with less than 3,000 words could be classified as functionally illiterate. I have compared the words used in the Big Five Inventory (John, Naumann et al. 2008) with the list of 3,000 words provided by Education First. I terminated my search after locating 11/44 (25%) of the Big Five items which contained a word that does not appear in the Education First list. These words are: Talkative, Thorough, Unselfish, Ingenious, Enthusiasm, Disorganized, Perseveres, Aesthetic, Inhibited, Outgoing, Distracted. There may well be more. This is disconcerting affirmation of the above analysis.

In summary, when respondents feel they must respond to a questionnaire item they do not understand, they may not respond randomly. Rather, they will work hard at making sense of the question, drawing on other information provided by questionnaire. However, given that we, as researchers, are not fully aware of what this information is, we are often surprised by the answers - and blame the respondents. An alternative approach is to assist understanding on both sides of the research fence by constructing our questionnaires with the specific intent of minimizing response errors.


Further discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: [email protected]

Substantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 21st March, will be published in the following Bulletin. Such comments may offer a novel extension to the view that has been put, an alternative and informed view, or offer a critique, all in the spirit of scientific

understanding.



WebMaster

Open-Access additions: Useful sites

http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#usesful-sites

Legal Assistance for Elder Abusehttps://arashlaw.com/practice-areas/elder-abuse-attorneys/

Senior citizens are easily capable of falling victim to financial exploitation in many different ways. Elders can be taken advantage of by their family members, caregivers, friends, and fiduciaries. Any elderly victim of financial exploitation should seek legal help from a proven California financial elder abuse attorney.

PWI translations: Serbian http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures

This SERBIAN translation of the PWI-SC is now available. It was produced by Veljko Jovanović [email protected] , Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad.

Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy Observatory

Timmins, N. and G. Tetlow (2021). Jobs and benefits: The Covid-19 challenge. London, Institute for Government and Social Security Advisory Committee.https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resourcefiles/2021-03/apo-nid311248.pdf

1. There is a need to reassess the concept of social security When people find themselves out of work, the UK’s income-replacement rates are low by the standards of many other developed countries. And over the past couple of decades, the UK has lost the concept of ‘social security’ in its benefit system. Universal Credit is key in providing security to millions of those in paid work. When it is fully rolled out more than seven million households will be in receipt of at least some support from it – roughly a third of the working-age population. Over time – and these calculations preceded the pandemic – 40% of adults are likely to be.

2. Training and employment services need to become stronger and more flexible The pandemic has dramatically reinforced some trends already under way – for example the shift to on-line retail, working from home and, perhaps, towards greener energy. This in turn creates new challenges. A significant number of those who become unemployed may need to change the sector in which they work, or the location of their work, and possibly both. Support for people to cope with that needs to be strengthened, and in ways that make it more adaptable for future challenges.

Media newsTanika Roberts [[email protected]]


Undoing the Damage Caused by a Narcissist ParentSuzanne Degges-White


https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resourcefiles/2021-03/apo-nid311248.pdf


http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures

https://arashlaw.com/practice-areas/elder-abuse-attorneys/

http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#usesful-sites

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/lifetime-connections/202103/undoing-the-damage-caused-narcissist-parent

Every parent tends to think their child is the best, the brightest, and the most perfect specimen of humankind in the earliest days of parenthood. We need to feel that our kids are special and significant to the world to manage the 24-hour-a-day care that infants and children require from the get-go. It is hard work and we need to believe that our work has meaning. This narcissistic focus on the beauty of a newborn, though, should not grow into a narcissistic attachment that continues throughout the child’s life. Narcissistic parents can do a significant level of emotional damage to their children. Narcissistic parents are driven to control their children and wield their power in the family hierarchy; they use their children in a variety of ways to maintain the narcissist’s sense of self and inflated ego. Some of the dangerous behaviors that narcissistic parents practice have been identified by researchers and include the following.


Membership changesSangeetha Thomas <[email protected]>[email protected]

Membership RegistrarWelcome to new memberhttp://www.acqol.com.au/members

Ms. Joanna CarusoResearch and Evaluation Officer, SAHMRIKeywords: Obesity, Tobacco, Public health policy

-----------------------ReferencesBishop, G. F., Tuchfarber, A. J., & Oldendick, R. W. (1986). Opinions on fictitious issues: The pressure to

answer survey questions. Public Opinion Quarterly, 50(2), 240-250. DuBay, W. H. (2006). Smart language: Readers, Readability, and the Grading of Text. Costa Mesa: Impact

Information.Education First. (2019). Resources for Learning English: Author https://www.ef-australia.com.au/english-

resources/english-vocabulary/top-3000-words/.Flesch, R. (2007). Flesch–Kincaid readability test https://rockstar-english.com/lessons/advanced/12-

Flesch_Kincaid_Readability_Test.pdf.Hansen, M. H., Hurwitz, W. N., Marks, E. S., & Mauldin, W. P. (1951). Response errors in surveys. Journal of

the American Statistical Association, 46(254), 147-190. International Wellbeing Group. (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Retrieved from

http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measuresJohn, O. P., Naumann, L. P., & Soto, C. J. (2008). Paradigm shift to the integrative Big Five trait taxonomy:

History, measurement, and conceptual issues. In O. P. John, R. W. Robins, & L. A. Pervin (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (3rd ed.) (pp. 114–158). New York: Guilford Press.

Schuman, H., & Presser, S. (1996). Questions and answers in attitude surveys: Experiments on question form, wording, and context. New York: Academic Press.

http://www.acqol.com.au/members




Schwarz, N. (1995). What respondents learn from questionnaires: The survey interview and the logic of conversation. International Statistical Review/Revue Internationale de Statistique, 63(2), 153-168.

Sudman, S., & Bradburn, N. M. (1974). Response effects in surveys. Chicago: Aldine.



other person.

Subjective wellbeing and cognition

Background: Interpretation of the attached paper depends on understanding the composition of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB). This composition will now be explained, followed by an examination of the evidence used to support the incorrect view, that SWB is a cognitive variable.

Contemporary understanding of SWB rests on two studies, both of which used longitudinal data to examine changes in measured SWB over time (Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018). The methodology involves analysis at level of individual respondents, and is described in detail by Capic and Cummins (2021). This iterative analytic process progressively removes data that lie outside a calculated normative range (data-stripping). The assumption is that such outlying data represent responses dominated by emotion. The aim is to eliminate these responses, leaving the data which most closely reflect the level of setpoints. What remains at the end of this process is a sub-sample dataset exhibiting a tight, normal distribution of responses, with a mean of 80 percentage points (pp) and a x2SD range from 70 to 90pp. This result was repeated in three separate analyses of three separate datasets. The more detailed interpretation of these results is as follows:

1. SWB comprises two components. One is a stable mood affect called Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood). This HPMood is a composite of three basic affects (Russell 1980), as content, happy, and alert (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007), which are located close to one another on the affective circumplex. This stable mood represents the unchanging, affective-mood setpoint for each person. HPMood is the low-intensity, positive/activated affect which permeates all self-evaluations (Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a), and serves to keep people normally feeling positive about them self.

2. The second component of SWB is emotion. This is the unstable component that was removed during data-stripping. Emotions are acute, high or low intensity, cognitive-affective responses to thoughts and percepts (Russell 2003), see also (Ellsworth 1994, Rutledge, Skandalia et al. 2014). Emotions supply information used to guide responses to changing conditions.

From this description, a simple measure of SWB contains both HPMood and emotion. Thus, the measured level of SWB will be determined by both components simultaneously. One


consequence is that the relative composition of SWB as ‘affective’ or ‘cognitive’ cannot be determined by a single measurement of the construct because both variables are embedded in the single response.

3. Affect may also be measured as a self-report variable, for example ‘How happy do you generally feel?’, or ‘How happy do you feel right now?’ Each response to such questions will reflect the specific affect in question, but will also reflect the level of HPMood, and the level of emotion at the time of questioning. As described for SWB, these components form an amalgam within the single stream of consciousness.

Under emotionally neutral conditions, where the level of emotion approximates the level of person’s setpoint, the dominant influence on the level of both SWB and positive affects will be HPMood. The situation for negative affects is less certain because negative affects can never approximate the positivity of the setpoint. Moreover, if the measurement is made coincident with a SWB level <50pp, then homeostatic control (Cummins 2017a) has failed, and a situation of psychopathology exists (Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2016). Under such conditions, the influence of HPMood is much diminished, and the normal psychometric relationship between self-report variables becomes unpredictable.

This background will now be used to assess the paper under examination.

Reference: Sohier, L., et al. (2020). "Well-being during the transition from work to retirement." Journal of Happiness Studies 22: 263–286.

Author summary: We investigate the consequences of retirement from work for the overall well-being of individuals aged 50 and above. Well-being is captured by two different concepts: life satisfaction and agency-freedom, i.e. the evaluation of a person’s ability to do the things s/he wants to do and be who s/he wants to be. We use three observation periods of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe and include nine European countries … When retiring, people do not immediately report (on average) a different level of life satisfaction, but after 2 years, life satisfaction decreases compared to the beginning of the retirement…. If well-being is expressed as agency freedom, well-being is immediately positively affected, and this effect does not change after 2 years of retirement.

Comment on Sohier et al (2020)The opening of this paper is full of promise as “Retirement from work is a very important event in life. The retiree has to face many changes, e.g. changes in spending time, changes in social life and financial changes” (p.263). This statement identifies the three life domains (‘golden triangle’) which together dominate the shared variance in Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) (Cummins 2018e). This opening seems to suggest that these three domains, measured by the Personal Wellbeing Index (International Wellbeing Group 2013) as achieving, relationships, and standard of living, will be examined in relation to retirement. Disappointingly, however, this is not the direction the paper takes.

The authors measure SWB, but misinterpret it as ‘cognitive’ (see background). This is an important and common misinterpretation in the literature, which has caused many authors to create invalid conceptual models. To determine the origin of this wrong idea, the two publications cited by Sohier et al as justification will be examined, together with any secondary reference citations used to support the ‘cognition’ idea. This examination will concern the following questions: (a) What is the basis for claiming that SWB is ‘cognitive’? and (b) what is proposed to be the nature of the SWB affective component?

[as a reminder: Homeostasis theory proposes two measurable components. One is pure affect in the form of HPMood, the other is emotion having a mixed affective/cognitive composition]

The two papers considered as primary sources for the ‘cognitive’ claim by Sohier et al (2020) are Luhmann, Hofmann et al. (2012) and Stiglitz, Sen et al. (2010). This latter document makes many assertions that SWB is cognitive, in whole or in part, but cites no supporting references. Only the former document will be further considered.

From their meta-analysis, Luhmann, Hofmann et al. (2012) claim to have demonstrated that ‘wellbeing’ has separately measurable cognitive and affective components (abstract), which they refer to as ‘cognitive well-being (CWB)’ and ‘affective well-being (AWB)’. They cite (Lucas, Diener et al. 1996) as evidence that “AWB and CWB are distinct constructs” (p.593) [see ‘A’ below: to be evaluated]. They define CWB and AWB “according to the definition of SWB by Diener (1984)” (p.494). [see ‘B’ below: to be evaluated]

Luhmann, Hofmann et al. (2012) define AWB as comprising “positive and negative emotions and moods” (p.593) but cite no supporting reference. Neither do they elaborate how the single variable ‘AWB’ is created, although their Table 1 shows that AWB includes many different ‘affective’ variables. Assuming they generated AWB by simply combining these affective results, the AWB variable is uninterpretable. Not only is it invalid to combine positive and negative affects (Bradburn 1969, Andrews and Withey 1976, Diener, Lucas et al. 2002) but also severe affective negativity (depression) is a state of homeostatic failure and psychometric disorder (Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2016). Conclusion: Their measure of ‘affective wellbeing’ cannot be validly interpreted.

Luhmann, Hofmann et al. (2012) state CWB refers to both Global Life Satisfaction (GLS) and SWB, as well as of specific life domains (e.g., job satisfaction) (p.593), but cite no supporting reference. They interpret SWB as cognitive “as defined by (Diener 1984)” (p.596) [see B below: to be evaluated].Conclusion: Their interpretation of GLS and SWB as ‘cognitive’ depends on Diener (1984).

Secondary references from Luhmann et al. (2012)(A) Did Lucas, Diener et al. (1996) demonstrate AWB and CWB as distinct constructs, as claimed by Luhmann, Hofmann et al. (2012)? Lucas, Diener et al. (1996) state: “Researchers have identified two facets of subjective well-being: a cognitive judgment of life satisfaction (Andrews and Withey 1976) [see C below: to be evaluated] and an emotional aspect consisting of independent positive affect and negative affect components (Diener & Emmons,1984)” (p.616). To consider emotion as purely affective is incorrect. Emotions are cognitive-affective responses to thoughts and percepts (Ellsworth 1994, Russell 2003, Rutledge, Skandalia et al. 2014).

Conclusion: Lucas et al’s interpretation of SWB as ‘cognitive’ depends on Andrews and Withey (1976).

(B) How did Diener (1984) determine SWB is ‘cognitive’? Their only relevant substantive statement is: “The third dimension of subjective well-being identified by Andrews and Withey (1976) is life satisfaction. This component is a cognitive judgmental evaluation of one's life” (p.550). Conclusion: Diener’s conclusion that SWB is ‘cognitive’ depends on Andrews and Withey

(1976).

(C) Did Andrews and Withey (1976) identify “two facets of subjective well-being: a cognitive judgment of life satisfaction…and an emotional aspect” as claimed by (Diener 1984, Lucas, Diener et al. 1996)? Andrews and Withey performed a factor analysis, which produced three factors. They identified factors 2 and 3 as affect. In relation to factor 1 they state “Because of our belief that assessments of life-as-a-whole involve both cognitive and affective elements, we called the first factor Cognitive evaluation … While the name, Cognitive evaluation, provides a needed label, it may imply a greater conceptual clarity than we believe actually exists” (p.86). Conclusion: Andrews and Withey did not discover a valid ‘cognitive judgement of life satisfaction’.

SummaryNot one of these cited references offers empirical support for the contention that SWB is a cognitive evaluation. In the context of homeostasis theory, discussed in ‘Background’, this is not surprising. While some cognition does exist within the emotion component of SWB demonstrated through ‘data stripping’, such content cannot be demonstrated by simply using SWB responses as data. The fact that almost 50y of systematic research on SWB has failed to demonstrate cognition is strongly supportive of this theoretical prediction.

In relation to Sohier, Van Ootegem et al. (2020), the original paper under examination in this issue of the Bulletin, the authors follow Stiglitz, Sen et al. (2010) and build their theory on the false supposition that SWB is cognitive.




understanding.



Year-End Labour Market Review: Insecure Work and the Covid-19 Pandemic.Nahum and Stanford (2020)https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2020-12/apo-nid310244.pdf

Australia’s labour market experienced unprecedented volatility during 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and resulting recession. In the first part of the year, employment declined faster and more deeply than in any previous economic downturn, as workplaces were closed to control the spread of infection. Then, after May, employment rebounded strongly. The subsequent recovery has replaced over 80% of the jobs lost in the initial downturn.

However, the pandemic also highlighted stark fissures in Australia’s labour market. The employment and income impacts of the pandemic were starkly unequal, across different groups of workers.

•Workers in insecure jobs lost work far more severely than those in standard,permanent positions. Casual workers lost employment 8 times faster than those impermanent jobs. Part-time workers lost work 3 times faster than full-time. Insecure self-employed workers lost work 4 times faster than those in more stable small businesses.

•The rebound of employment since May has been dominated by insecure jobs. Casualjobs account for 60% of all waged jobs created since May. Part-time work accountsfor almost three-quarters of all new jobs. And very insecure positions (including own-account contractors and ‘gigs’) account for all of the rebound in self-employment.



Does a Meaningful Job Need to Burn You Out?https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/does_a_meaningful_job_need_to_burn_you_outBy Michael F. Steger

Meaningful work, in a sense, is where the work itself is rewarding and worth doing—regardless of pay. And that’s the downside. Those who find their work to be most meaningful—those who are most driven, most passionate, most committed, most fulfilled by what they do—are working for reasons much loftier than their paycheck. They know that what they do matters, is important, and is very much worth the bumps and stumbles along the way. People driven by meaningful work are always stepping up to new challenges and stepping in to fill gaps. They are not the ones who say “not my problem,” or “that’s not what I’m paid to do.” They refill the printer, unclog the office sink, volunteer to organize the retreat, and bring real food instead of a bag of bagel crisps. This can lead to burn out, here are 3 suggestions to avoid this happening.



Membership RegistrarWelcome to new membershttp://www.acqol.com.au/members

Dr Anju KeetharuthResearch Fellow, University of SheffieldKeywords: Valuation, health economics and utilities, mental health, psychometrics, instrument development






Dr. Marcin RzeszutekAssistant Professor, University of Warsaw, Faculty of PsychologyKeywords: Trauma, Post-traumatic growth, Well-being, Illness.

-----------------------ReferencesAndrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: American's

perceptions of life quality. New York: Plenum Press.Bradburn, N. M. (1969). The structure of psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine.Capic, T., & Cummins, R. A. (2021). Discovering and confirming setpoints for

Homeostatically Protected Mood: An explanation of the methodology. In R. A. Cummins (Ed.), Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 6th Edition, Chapter 9, pp. --. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University, Burwood Campus. http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#Open-access.

Capic, T., Li, N., & Cummins, R. A. (2018). Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators. Social Indicators Research, 137(1), 1-28. Retrieved from 10.1007/s11205-017-1585-5


Cummins, R. A. (2018e). The Golden Triangle of Happiness: Essential resources for a happy family. International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies, 9(4), 12–39.

Cummins, R. A., Capic, T., Hutchinson, D., Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M., Olsson, C. A., & Richardson, B. (2018a). Why self-report variables inter-correlate: The role of Homeostatically Protected Mood. Journal of Wellbeing Assessment, 2, 93-114. doi:10.1007/s41543-018-0014-0

Cummins, R. A., Li, L., Wooden, M., & Stokes, M. (2014a). A demonstration of set-points for subjective wellbeing. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15, 183-206. doi:10.1007/s10902-013-9444-9


Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542-575. Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Oishi, S. (2002). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness

and life satisfaction. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 63-73). New York: Oxford University press.

Ellsworth, P. C. (1994). William James and Emotion: Is a Century of Fame Worth a Century of Misunderstanding? Psychological Reviews, 101(2), 222-229.

International Wellbeing Group. (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Retrieved from http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures

Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1996). Discriminant validity of well-being measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 616-628.

Luhmann, M., Hofmann, W., Eid, M., & Lucas, R. E. (2012). Subjective well-being and adaptation to life events: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(3), 592-615.

Richardson, B., Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. D., Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2016). The Psychometric equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for normally functioning and homeostatically defeated Australian adults. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15 (1), 43-56. doi:http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-015-9613-0

Russell, J. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1161-1178.

Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review, 110(1), 145-172.

Rutledge, R. B., Skandalia, N., Dayanc, P., & Dolana, R. J. (2014). A computational and neural model of momentary subjective well-being. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/31/1407535111.full.pdf.

Sohier, L., Van Ootegem, L., & Verhofstadt, E. (2020). Well-being during the transition from work to retirement. Journal of Happiness Studies, 22, 263–286.

Stiglitz, J., Sen, A., & Fitoussi, J.-P. (2010). Report by the commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress. Paris: Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress http://www.stiglitz-sen-fitoussi.fr/documents/rapport_anglais.pdf

ACQol Bulletin Vol 5/10: 040321 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Lifehttp://www.acqol.com.au/Editor: Robert A. Cummins [[email protected]]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#bulletins

Note 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only.


other person.

The search for trivial novelty vs theory

Background: It is easy to whinge [British: to complain fretfully : whine] about the state of journal literature in psychology. This is most particularly true of the psychological, sociological, and economics literature that pertains to subjective life quality – the major topic area for the Bulletin. The proportion of such studies reporting something worth reporting vs. reporting empirical trivia is far too high, and this unenviable proportion may even be increasing. What can be done – can anything realistically be done - to reverse this trend?

Perhaps a useful starting point for such a discussion is to identify the drivers of this trend. They include the following:

(a) The sense among academics, that the quantity of publications is a major criterion for promotion prospects.

(b) The rise and rise of ‘author pays-to-publish’ journals which have a conflict of interest in profit vs. quality.


(c) The increasing use of complex, multivariate, correlation-based statistics, used to bamboozle editors, reviewers, and readers with trivial, atheoretical, and unrepeatable results.

(d) The intense, and increasing, time-pressure on academics, which drives quantity rather than quality.

(e) The evident failure of the review process for manuscripts, driven by all the above. For evidence, see past issues of this publication.

So, easy to whinge. Harder, by far, to find a solution.

Reference: Burghardt, J. and A. N. Bodansky (2021). "Why psychology needs to stop striving for novelty and how to move towards theory-driven research." Frontiers in psychology 12: 609802.

Author summary: Psychological science is maturing and therefore transitioning from explorative to theory-driven research. While explorative research seeks to find something “new,” theory-driven research seeks to elaborate on already known and hence predictableEffects … Especially, theory-driven research needs to be judged by its methodological rigor. A focus on innovativeness, which is typical for explorative research, will instead incentivize bad research practices (e.g., imprecise theorizing, ignoring previous research, parallel theories). To support the advancement of psychology, we must drop the innovation requirement for theory-driven research and instead require the strongest methods, which are marked by high internal and external validity. Precise theorizing needs to substitute novelty. Theories are advanced by requiring explicit, testable assumptions, and an explicit preference for one theory over another … An important obstacle to further theory-driven research is to measure scientific merit using researchers’ number of publications, which favors theoretically shallow and imprecise writing.

Comment on Burghardt & Bodansky (2021)The discipline of psychology is a very Broad Church. Researchers may engage many different areas of expertise including mathematics, philosophy, biology, sociology, religion, and no doubt others as well. Often in combination. So, the following comments on Burghardt & Bodansky are primarily directed to the areas of psychology which concerns the science of subjective life quality, commonly referred to as Subjective Wellbeing (SWB).

The authors’ description of the ‘the current replication crisis’, most certainly applies to contemporary SWB research. Moreover, their scholarly choice of words, to describe the state of academic publishing, could be put in far more earthy terms. The simple reality is that most of the articles published add nothing of substance to scientific understanding. The time is right for serious discussion to be directed to this most undesirable state-of-affairs, with a view to both understanding the drivers of the situation and finding realistic solutions. Unfortunately, Burghardt & Bodansky provide a weak guide.

As an overview, their article is a mixture of philosophy of science and bureaucratic statements of proper scientific behavior in the conduct and reporting of scientific investigations. The result is a sophisticated account in these terms, but one that lacks the grit to stir passion for change.

Their opening paragraph contains an excuse for why psychology ranks so low among the sciences. “experimental psychology has only had 150–180 years to develop …[and]

psychology explores a highly complex research object.” (p.2). This is not only an embarrassing excuse (150 years is not long enough) but also demeaning of the other sciences – they have been so successful because they are easier to figure-out. Few psychological scientists would subscribe to this view.

Of more substance, the authors note evident problems in ‘counting the number of publications’ as a measure of academic worthiness (honorary authorship, salami publishing, reusing variables within differently named constructs, etc). Their solutions are to make the ‘contributions of individual authors identifiable’, to ‘create optimal scientific environments with maximum overlap between what is good for science and the scientist’, and to make ‘promotion and hiring criteria based on behavior that supports the integrity of science in the long run’ (p.3). Unfortunately, none of these suggestion have practical value. Honorary authorship can be easily disguised by vague wording, the real-life circumstances of the ‘optimal’ environment are undefined, and whatever consoling platitudes are stated by hiring agencies, applicants all know that the number of their publications will be counted. Burghardt & Bodansky do not acknowledge the political forces listed in ‘background’.

In terms of the direction psychological science has taken, the authors lament ‘the endless search for novel results’, which they blame on ‘exploratory science.’ Rather, they suggest, “We need to request replications that generalize our findings to new stimuli, individuals, measurements, and contexts, overcoming the popularity of innovation” (p.9).

To assist this transition, they recommend a shift to ‘paradigmatic science’ (Kuhn 1996) described as “solving puzzles … [which requires that] … researchers have a rather clear understanding of what they expect to find prior to conducting their studies” (p.4). In other words, “the methods of data analysis should be defined prior to the analysis …and preregistrations seem to be an ideal tool to force researchers to take a stand” (p.8).

Preregistration is an example of attempting to manage a creative process through bureaucratic control. As their first publication act in relation to an intended study, researchers must devise a plan for implementation and analysis and, to ensure that they stick to it, pre-publish their plans. An excellent discussion and critique of preregistration is available at (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preregistration_(science). Some of the reasons this is a really bad idea, are:

1. Researchers are constantly fighting to find time to read the literature in their area. Very few amongst them will take the time and effort to match the publication they have read with its prepublication counterpart. And, even if this was done, and a mismatch was found, no useful action can be taken. The only point of success is for the author, who has converted one publication into two (pre and actual published), but for no scientific advantage whatsoever.

2. The strict implementation of a prepublication proposal may well damage the advance of scientific understanding (see Bem 2002). If, for example, the actual data analysis reveals a new and unexpected result, that result should NOT be ignored (Coffman and Niederle 2015). Of course, if an unexpected p<.05 emerges in an atheoretical space, then it should be acknowledged, but then ignored in the discussion. But if a data trend is discovered, such as an unexpected stability of data over time, then science will be advanced by giving this result full attention, quite possibly as an alternative to the original intention of the study.

3. The bureaucratic process assumes that the best science occurs before data collection. It imagines that scientists think about the problem, construct hypotheses, devise a study, etc. This is not the only way to do science, and is not always the best path to understanding. A different perspective advises as follows: Construct hypotheses. Testing these will be your fall-back position for the paper if nothing more interesting happens. Study your results, looking for anything out of the ordinary. If an interesting trend or result appears, take it seriously, you may have discovered something of great interest to understanding. Check you results, and repeat the study, or find comparable data and seek replication. If you succeed, write the discovered result as a paper in addition to the one first conceived.

This form of advice is the opposite of that offered by Burghardt & Bodansky. They regard ‘unpredicted results’ as something to be ignore, rather than celebrated with intellectual interest. They claim that encouraging the pursuit of such results ‘has the tendency to hinder incremental work’. Whether there are data to support this claim is unclear. What the data do support, strongly, is the reverse. A dedication to reiterative studies leads to mindless repetition of obvious results, such as money makes poor people happier in Bhutan, in Paraburdoo, in Barranquilla, and so on. As a counter to infatuation with ‘paradigmatic science’, the self-description of how Skinner (1956) developed his new theory of learning is a wonderful account of how exploratory research can pay off. He describes his make-shift program of progressive research, undertaken over many years with no hypotheses, frequent experimental failure, serendipity, and the intellectual determination to find order. The result was a grand new theory of operant conditioning.

Conclusion: While bureaucrats love to think that they can specify rules for scientific conduct, which will lead to strengthened science in psychology, hard evidence for the efficacy of this approach is lacking. An alternative approach to this issue is to consider the drivers of poor science, such as the logistic and political issues listed in ‘background’. Additionally, at least for research into subjective wellbeing (SWB), some crucial basic issues are clearly responsible for diminishing the scientific value of publications. These issues are as follows:

1. Nomenclature anarchy. At the 101 level of any science, having a single term to describe a single construct is essential. SWB research has not yet achieved this level.

2. Results compared against a normative standard: Researchers report their results on measures of SWB as though their values exist in a vacuum. They do not. Australian normative values are available from Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. (2021). Of course, for all sorts of reasons, other results will not be expected to match these norms, but that does not matter. The comparisons will add to understanding about the validity and reliability of SWB measures in different circumstances.

3. Reporting basic statistics: An essential aspect of research is to compare results from different studies. For this purpose, there are three fundamental results that should be displayed in every empirical study for each dependent variable: its mean, standard deviation, and correlation with the other DVs.

4. Using standardized units of measurement: International Wellbeing Group (2013) (p.18) provides a simple formula which converts the mean of any subjective measurement scale into a standard 0 to 100 percentage point metric. Reporting data in this form facilitates the comparison of results between studies.

The only way forward on these mechanical issues is through journal editorial policy.




understanding.



WebMaster

Open-Access additions: Theseshttp://www.acqol.com.au/publications#theses

Author: Francesca Parente <[email protected]>

PhD Thesis: Measures of Quality of Life and Sustainable Development inMetropolitan Areas [in Italian]

Year: 2012

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the study of the quality of life levels in the Italian metropolitan areas. To do so, a multidimensional index of sustainable wellbeing is here proposed. This has been elaborated taking into account multiple aspects of citizens wellbeing, as much as limited data availability allowed.

Drawing upon the wide methodologies proposed within the international debate, and providing a short overview of the existing literature on the analysis of sustainable wellbeing in urban contexts, an effort was made to depict the reality of metropolitan areas, going beyond the sole economic aspect and including the social and environmental ones. Moreover, output indicators –providing information on the real wellbeing level of citizens– have been preferred over those on input means used by them to achieve that level.

The methodological approach here used is the capability approach, formulated by the Nobel prize Amartya K. Sen during the 80s. The choice was determined by the evidence that this approach can be considered a dynamic process, and not a static measurement, in which means and available resources are just tools to achieve wellbeing but not measures themselves. Aristotle said that “wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else” and Sen’s capability approach fully embraces that belief.

In addition, this approach serves as a robust and multidimensional theoretical framework, which strives to take into account the whole complexity of the studied subject. Indeed, it aims at considering

http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#theses

the uniqueness of individuals, along with all the external and conditioning factors. It also seeks to examine the spaces within which the subject operates, in order to highlight potential deviations. Its final goal is then to shed some light on the ties among these three components: individual diversities, background contexts (e.g. society, family), and spaces. First chapter includes a theoretical introduction to main issues of this work: quality of life and sustainable development, as viewed in the light of the reference methodology of human development economics.

Second chapter provides an historical overview of indicators for economic wellbeing and quality of life, elaborating on the vital importance of a proper formulation of these measures with respect to economic policies. It also considers the more recent evidence based practices, and especially the English case.

Third chapter tries to summarize the wide literature on metropolitan areas: relevance of this territorial partition, multiple theories and methods of delimitation, and the Italian specificities.

Fourth and last chapter finally shows the conducted analysis and its results. It focuses on the 15 metropolitan areas currently legally recognized in Italy.

NOTE: Members are invited to submit additional higher degree theses for publication in the ACQol website.


Social Science Research Council (2021). Surveillance and the ‘New Normal’ of Covid-19:Public Health, Data, and Justice. Brooklyn, NY, Author https://apo.org.au/node/311154?mc_cid=b49da0979e&mc_eid=abe0153fe9.

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered the way nations around the world use technology in public health. As the virus spread globally, some nations responded by closing businesses, shuttering schools, limiting gatherings, and banning travel. Many also deployed varied technological tools and systems to track virus exposure, monitor outbreaks, and aggregate hospital data.

Even as the frenzy of emergency responses begins to subside, the emergent forms of surveillance that have accompanied this new normal persist. As a consequence, societies face new questions about how to manage the monitoring systems created in response to the virus, what processes are required in order to immunise populations, and what new norms the systems have generated. How they answer these questions will have long-term impacts on civil liberties, governance, and the role of technology in society. The systems implemented amid the public health emergency could jeopardise individual freedoms and exacerbate harms to already vulnerable groups, particularly if they are adapted to operate as permanent social management tools. At the same time, growing public awareness about the impact of public health technologies could also provide a catalyst for strengthening democratic engagement and demonstrating the urgency of improving governance systems. As the world transitions in and out of pandemic crisis modes, there is an opportunity to think broadly about strengthening public health systems, policymaking, and the underlying structure of our social compacts.



https://apo.org.au/node/311154?mc_cid=b49da0979e&mc_eid=abe0153fe9

https://apo.org.au/node/311154?mc_cid=b49da0979e&mc_eid=abe0153fe9


How Emotion Regulation Influences Social Anxietyhttps://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/lab-real-world/202102/how-emotion-regulation-influences-social-anxietyCourtney Beard Most people have experienced social anxiety at some point—whether it’s before a work presentation or first date, or when meeting new people. While the experience of anxiety itself is not usually problematic, it’s often our response to the anxiety that creates a problem. So, when does social anxiety cross over into disorder territory (aka SAD)? Recently, there has been a lot of interest in the role of emotion regulation in SAD. The process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998) identifies five distinct stages where strategies can be implemented to influence one’s emotional experience and expression. This process model is a useful conceptualization of the factors that maintain social anxiety, and also helps explain why social anxiety co-occurs with other disorders.


Report from the ACQol siteGoogle Analytics inclusive period: February 2021

Number of individual users who initiated at least one session during the date range: 1,225Number of sessions: 1,155



Mr Daniel PankowskiPhD Candidate; Lecturer, University of Warsaw; University of Economics and Human Sciences in WarsawKeywords: Health Psychology; Health-related Quality of Life; Adaptation to chronic disease; Depressive Symptoms; Anxiety

Mr Gordon RossOwner Director Ross Psychology, Ross PsychologyKeywords: Behaviour change

Ms Bulent KayaAkdeniz UniversityKeywords: Older adults, Quality of life, Gerontology





Ms Kimberley McClureSocial Worker/Counsellor, Calliope ContractingKeywords: Children, Youth, Depression, Anxiety

-----------------------ReferencesBem, D. J. (2002). Writing the empirical journal article. The compleat academic: A career guide. J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna and H. L. Roediger III. Washington, DC, American Psychological Association.

Coffman, L. C. and M. Niederle (2015). "Pre-analysis plans have limited upside, especially where replications are feasible." Journal of Economic Perspectives 29(3): 81-98.

International Wellbeing Group (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures.

Khor, S., M. Fuller-Tysziewicz and D. Hutchinson (2021). Australian normative data for Subjective Wellbeing. Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 6th Edition. International Wellbeing Group. R. A. Cummins. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#Open-access

Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 3rd EdnChicago, IL, University of Chicago Press.

Skinner, B. F. (1956). "A case history in scientific method." American psychologist 11(5): 221-233.



Reflections on Bulletin 5/08:180221 ‘Materialism and relationships’

Mark Stokes <[email protected]> It occurs to me that this reflects an ancient divide. There were Ancient Greek & Roman philosophers who detested the material and confounded what was sufficient and what was excess all the time. Epicureans as a rule

Geoffrey Kirton <[email protected]> As a suggestion maybe a study of one of the Christian religious groups such as Bruderhof, I know they have several groups in Australia. These Anabaptist groups are almost anti materialist so it would be a great comparison to our perceived materialistic and wealth driven society.

Paper for private study


The attached paper, on the topic of life quality, is sent to you for your personal private study and discussion within ACQol. You are prohibited from further distributing this paper to any

other person.

Perth A-Loneness Scale

Background: The Perth A-loneness scale (PALs: Houghton, Hattie et al. 2014) is a multidimensional, 24-item self-report measure of loneliness developed specifically for adolescents. It comprises four factors (each with 6 items) that measure quality of friendships, feelings of isolation, positive attitudes towards aloneness, and negative attitudes towards aloneness. This original 2014 publication and scale is attached.

A more recent publication concerning this scale (Houghton, Marais et al. 2021) reports a Rasch analysis of the original 2014 scale. The rationale for Rasch analysis is stated as follows:

“Lately the statistical methods of psychometrics have been severely criticized in psychological quarters. Thus (Skinner 1956) maintains that if order is to be found in human and animal behavior, then it should be extracted from investigations into individuals, and that psychometric methods are inadequate for such purposes since they deal with groups of individuals…. Unfortunately, present day statistical methods are entirely group-centered, so that there is a real need for developing individual-centered statistics" (Rasch 1961) (p.312).[Cummins comments: The paper by Skinner is well worth reading. It is his presidential address to the American Psychological Association, describing his research career, and available from Google Scholar. Who knew that his undergraduate studies included biology but not psychology].

Rasch analyses produces a number of statistics concerning the internal workings of scales but one statistic of special interest is the extent to which respondents can reliably use the presented response scale, as intended. That is, if the response scale contains 6 levels of response (say the levels of satisfaction between no satisfaction and complete satisfaction), then Rasch determines whether respondents have the capacity to use each level of choice with equal facility.

This evident capacity is called the ‘use validity’ of a response scale. It is estimated by Rasch as the threshold between each pair of adjacent response categories. This threshold represents the probability of a response being placed in either category. The calculation of threshold takes into account ‘item difficulty’ (the frequency with which each response category is selected). Ideally, the estimate of threshold is equal between all adjacent category pairs.If the thresholds are not equal, then they are referred to as disordered, indicating that the response categories do not function as intended.

The Rasch results are conventionally presented in graphical form (copied from Houghton et al 2021) as show below, and an ideal pattern looks like this:

In this graph, the ordinate is the strength of the threshold (probability) between the 6 response choices (the abscissa), with each choice numbered and colored. The blue ‘0’ line is a reference value. What can be seen, is that each response option (1 to 6) has a turn at being the most probable response, thereby indicating that all response categories are functioning as intended. Now consider the ‘disordered’ pattern below.

This graph shows that each response option does not have a turn, in sequence, at being the most probable response. These response items are disordered. In other words, the response categories for this scale are not functioning as intended.

In relation to their results on the Perth A-loneness scale, the authors conclude that the ordering of the response categories in ¾ of the PALs subscales was not working as intended. This particularly applied to the two highest response categories in these subscales.

It is particularly interesting that despite this crucial failing, the conventional measures of Classical Test Theory showed normal functioning. These included reliability and confirmatory factor analysis. And it is on these results, rather than the Rasch analyses, that the authors focus when they recommend the scale to clinicians and educators as “a measure to assess loneliness” (p.599).

Reference: Houghton, S., et al. (2014). "Conceptualising loneliness in adolescents: Development and validation of a self-report instrument." Child Psychiatry & Human Development 45(5): 604-616.

Author summary: This paper reports the development and psychometric evaluations of a multidimensional model of loneliness in Australian adolescents. In the first study a new instrument was designed and administered to 1,074 adolescents (ages 10–18 years, M = 13.01). An exploratory factor analysis from data supplied by 694 of these participants yielded a 4-factor structure (friendship, isolation, negative attitude to solitude, and positive attitude to solitude). Competing measurement models were then evaluated using confirmatory factor analysis with data from the remaining 380 participants; strong support was demonstrated for the conceptual model.

Comment on Houghton et al (2014)A previous issue of the Bulletin has explored the difficulties of measuring loneliness in adults (Cummins 2020j), and so it might be reasonably expected that such measurement with children are going to be even more problematic. For example, at what age do children understand the difference between being alone and feeling lonely? This is essential information that is recognized, but not functionally addressed, by the authors of the Perth A-loneness scale (PALs).

The authors do report an assessment of their scale using “The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (i.e., the number of years of education required to understand a standard reading passage) and The Flesch Reading Ease (i.e., the difficulty level of reading a normal reading passage) [cites two references] … [on this basis] … the PALs was considered appropriate and comprehensible and easy reading” (p.606). The first of these references (Flesch 1948) is over 70y old with marginal contemporary relevance. The second is listed by the authors as “Corporation Microsoft (2010) Microsoft Office 2010 Professional [Computer software]. Author, U.S.” which is not recognized by Google Scholar, but which is likely based on the original paper. In sum, these references do not allow independent verification that the questions are understandable by 10y children in the authors’ samples.

Exacerbating this concern is the composition of the samples. The only demographics provided in the 2014 paper are age and gender. But in the 2021 paper, 131 respondents had received a diagnosis of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Specific Learning Disorders. To expect that a majority of these children understand the questions stretches credulity.

Turning now to the actual questionnaire, each of the four subscales comprises six items, each item with a six-point response scale: 1 = never, 2 = rarely, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often, 5 = very often, 6 = always. This is a frequency scale and is quite different from the more commonly used ‘feelings’ scales which are used to rate levels of affect (e. g. Subjective wellbeing). Moreover, while the commonly used affective scales in psychology depend, for their response validity, on an understanding of the affect term employed (e.g. Happy, contented, etc), the frequency scales are far more complex. Frequency scales with children have a double jeopardy for understanding. They not only need to understand the affect term of ‘loneliness’ but also need to reliably compute a frequency. Even more challenging for the respondent, the relationship between the affective and cognitive elements of the question is often in the form of a conditional clause. For example, ‘I feel calm and relaxed when I’m by myself’.

As Schwarz (1995) points out, such questions require cognitive interpretation. Before giving an answer, the respondent must compute multiple kinds of information. To provide a valid frequency rating response, the following sub-questions must be answered:

1. What is my criterion level of feeling ‘calm and relaxed’? The question assumes this is a binary (yes/no) state.

2. How often do I feel ‘calm and relaxed’?

3. What does it mean to be ‘by myself’? Does it apply to being alone in my bedroom at night, being at home alone, or walking to the bus by myself?

4. Does my frequency of feeling ‘calm and relaxed’ apply to all situations ‘when I’m by myself’?

In addition to these issues of item complexity, some of the items (e.g. Most of my friends are true friends) are not suited to be answered on a frequency scale.

From the above, it is most unlikely that a majority of children and adolescents answered the items validly. But when placed in the situation of being required to answer questions they do not understand, children will generally provide an answer, in order to conform with authority and avoid appearing stupid (Acquiescent responding: (Sigelman, Schoenrock et al. 1980, Diener, Sandvik et al. 1991). But their answers will not be random. Rather, they will want to respond in a manner that (a) will cause the least amount of attention to be directed back to them, and (b) in a way likely to please the questioner. This outcome can best be achieved by choosing a middling and positive response.

It may be that the consistency of this form of responding has influenced the generation of the internal reliability estimates reported by the authors. These reliabilities may also have been encouraged if the scale had been administered in ‘factorial blocks’ as shown in their Table 2. The authors provide no information on this matter.

In summary, there is too much uncertainty in the construction and performance of the Perth A-loneness scale for it to be recommended. In Houghton, Marais et al. (2021), the authors note “There was no demonstration of convergent and discriminant validity in the present study” (p.599). Certainly the provision of results beyond internal examinations of the scale’s performance is recommended. As also is an examination convergent validity against two single items:

‘How lonely do you generally feel?’

‘How often do you feel lonely?’



Substantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 28th February, will be published in the following Bulletin. Such comments may offer a novel extension to the view that has been put, an alternative and informed view, or offer a critique, all in the spirit of

scientific understanding.



Young, L. and I. Jurko (2020). Future of Vulnerability: Humanity in the Digital Age. Melbourne, Humanitech, Australian Red Cross https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2021-02/apo-nid311045.pdf.

The gap between the haves and have nots is widening. People are becoming more socially isolated, more distrustful and more anxious. Facing these challenges, technology is helping us deliver the right kind of help at the right time to where it is needed most.

However, technological progress comes at a price, often at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society. Technology can exacerbate existing or create new problems. Technology involves risks of mistake, misuse and malfunction, potentially exposing people to new forms of intrusion, insecurity and inequality.

Last year, Australian Red Cross joined CSIRO and experts in business, academics and non-profit leaders to look at what kind of country Australia could be in 2060, in the Australian National Outlook Report 2019. Using sophisticated, integrated modelling, we explored several possible outcomes to help Australians continue to enjoy the best quality of life. We asked ourselves, how will people adapt and thrive in this new world economy?

The answer is to build trust, confidence and hope. We all have a duty of care to the people we represent and communities we are a part of. To be better humans and take better care of our planet. To be the voice of humanity.



3 Simple Steps To Communicate Your Boundarieshttps://themindroom.com.au/2021/01/19/3-simple-steps-to-communicate-your-boundaries/ Gerard Manley Hopkins Many people find it difficult to set boundaries. Trying to set them can be accompanied by feelings of resistance, frustration, anxiety, or thoughts such as “am I able to do this?” or, “is this the right thing to do?” One great way to help you on the path to articulating your boundaries has been developed by Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Elizabeth Quinn, who describes it as a three step process; acknowledge and validate the other person, give a clear, assertive statement that this is a violation of your boundaries and not to over-explain or apologise for being clear about your boundaries. Instead, choose a statement to help get your point across and avoid confusion in the future.









Dr. Robert NielsenProfessor and Head, Department of Consumer Sciences, The University of AlabamaKeywords: Consumer; Personal Finance; Material Hardship

Dr. Daniela TamashAssistant Professor, University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Special Education and RehabilitationKeywords: Autism, Intellectual disability, Adults, Supported housing

-----------------------References

Cummins, R. A. (2020j). "Loneliness." Australian Centre on Quality of Life Bulletin 4(28): http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#bulletins.

Diener, E., E. Sandvik, W. Pavot and D. Gallagher (1991). "Response artifacts in the measurement of subjective well-being." Social Indicators Research 24(1): 35-56.

Flesch, R. (1948). "A new readability yardstick." Journal of Applied Psychology 32: 221–233.

Houghton, S., J. Hattie, L. Wood, A. Carroll, K. Martin and C. Tan (2014). "Conceptualising loneliness in adolescents: Development and validation of a self-report instrument." Child Psychiatry & Human Development 45(5): 604-616.

Houghton, S., I. Marais, S. C. Hunter, A. Carroll, D. Lawrence and C. Tan (2021). "Loneliness in adolescence: a Rasch analysis of the Perth A-loneness scale." Quality of Life Research 30(2): 589-601.

Rasch, G. (1961). On general laws and the meaning of measurement in psychology. Proceedings of the fourth Berkeley symposium on mathematical statistics and probability. J.

Neyman. University of California, University of California press, Berkeley. 4: 321-333.

Schwarz, N. (1995). "What respondents learn from questionnaires: The survey interview and the logic of conversation." International Statistical Review/Revue Internationale de Statistique 63(2): 153-168.

Sigelman, C. K., C. J. Schoenrock, C. L. Spanhel, S. G. Hromas, J. L. Winer, E. C. Budd and P. W. Martin (1980). "Surveying mentally retarded persons: Responsiveness and response validity in three samples." American journal of mental deficiency 84(5): 479-486.Skinner, B. F. (1956). "A case history in scientific method." American psychologist 11(5): 221-233.





other person.

Materialism and relationships

Background: Money and relationships – make the world go round, and also comprise two of the three ‘Golden Domains’ supporting Subjective Wellbeing (SWB: Cummins 2018e). Of these two, few people have an unkind word for close personal relationships. They are universally regarded as happiness enhancers. Money however, especially in the form of materialism, has a persistently bad press.

Merriam-Webster (2021) define materialism as “a preoccupation with or stress upon material rather than intellectual or spiritual things”, which is a very curious form of words. It does not validly describe contemporary understanding. Rather, their definition attempts to convey an ancient meaning, embedded in philosophy (Peikoft 1991), where the term materialism means denying the spiritual dimension of human existence (Richins and Dawson 1992). This is surely poor lexicographical practice for a contemporary dictionary. For people unversed in philosophy, their definition labels people who feel an over-enthusiastic need to make money as both ignorant and godless. This provides a false sense of what is important for life quality. Consider the following, taking the definition at face value:

1. The definition not only names ‘intellectual or spiritual things’ as the aspects of human experience that suffer due to a preoccupation with money, but also implies that an equivalent preoccupation with ‘things’ intellectual and spiritual is acceptable (see ‘rather’).

2. This definition does not sit easily with understanding that a sufficiency of ‘money’ is, quite possibly, the most essential single resource for having a decent life. This cannot be said for either intellectual or spiritual ‘things’.

3. The definition misses the point of why materialism is generally considered undesirable. The core rationale is over-indulgence in one life aspect (acquiring money) linked to inattention of other life aspects. Surely, then, this reasoning applies equally to an over-indulgence in intellectual pursuits, spiritual awareness, or any other single aspect of life. Any form of over-indulgence, from weight loss to weightlifting, necessarily reduces motivation to engage other aspects of life.


4. So the Merriam-Webster definition needs modification to something like “a preoccupation with, or stress upon material things, to the detrimental occupation with other key life domains.”

Armed with this revised definition, new questions arise, such as why materialism, and its preoccupation, is singled out for badness. Surely it could be either good or bad, depending on the circumstances. For people living in abject poverty, materialism is imposed by the struggles of daily life. It is most difficult to be both happy and poor.

Against this idea, authors commonly cite (over 500 citations) Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001) and their intriguingly-titled paper “Making the best of a bad situation: Satisfaction in the slums of Calcutta." The researchers interviewed people who lived in the slums, obtaining ratings of SWB using the Satisfaction with Life Scale. Their sample included generic ‘slum-dwellers’, ‘sex-workers’, and ‘pavement-dwellers’. They do not compare their data with norms, but conclude from their results:

“slum dwellers of Calcutta generally experience a lower sense of life satisfaction than more affluent comparison groups, but are more satisfied than one might expect. This could be due, in part, to the strong emphasis on social relationships and the satisfaction derived from them.” (abstract)

“It should be apparent that while the poor of Calcutta do not lead enviable lives, they … capitalize on the non-material resources available to them and find satisfaction in many areas of their lives. Perhaps it is time we turned from an overused deficits model of understanding poverty to a more positive strengths model.” (p.349)

The above conclusions are entirely unwarranted based on their results. This can be demonstrated by converting their results into the standardized 0-100 percentage-point (pp) distribution (International Wellbeing Group 2013). Using this standardized metric, the SWB of general population samples in India is around 70-75pp (Fontaine and Yamada 2014, McIntyre, Saliba et al. 2020), whereas Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001) report the SWB of Calcutta slum dwellers as 61.5pp, while that of pavement dwellers is 30.8pp. These results are not only frightfully low, actually lower than any reliable samples in Australia (Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2021), but are also consistent with common sense. People living in abject poverty have gross deficits in most, if not all, of the resources supporting normal levels of SWB. The most obvious of these deficits is money. Poverty is reliably, and unsurprisingly, associated with abnormally, pathologically low, wellbeing.

From the above, a materialistic concern with money could be an essential resource for people living in poverty. This may be especially true if the money under consideration is not retained solely by the person who earns it, but rather is shared within an extended family or even more widely. This is an essential difference between Western individualistic and Eastern collectivist societies. So, the actual relationship between materialism and personal relationships is an intriguing cross-cultural theoretical issue.

Reference: Yoo, J., et al. (2020). "Does Materialism Hinder Relational Well-Being? The Role of Culture and Social Motives." Journal of Happiness Studies 22: 241–261.

Author summary: Materialism has often been pitted against relational well-being. However, it is unclear if such a negative relationship exists in East Asian cultures where personal goals

and values tend to be shaped by social motives. In three studies, we tested the association between materialism and relational well-being across multiple individualistic and collectivistic cultures and further studied the role of social motives for materialism. In Study 1a, materialism predicted relational well-being negatively in the US but not in Japan. In Study 1b, we replicated the findings of Study 1a with Chinese and the US adults showing that materialism predicted relational well-being differently between the two cultures. Lastly in Study 2, Chinese reported higher social motives for materialism than European Americans, and such difference explained cultural moderation of the link between materialism and relational well-being. The studies suggest that cultural contexts and social motives play important roles in relational well-being of materialistic individuals.

Comment on Yoo et al (2020)A key feature, of any empirical paper on materialism, is the construct definition and measurement. Some definitional aspects have already been aired in ‘Background’ related to the Merriam-Webster (2021) definition, and a further selection of informed definitions is presented in Richins and Dawson (1992) (p.304). These various sources agree that the central definitional element is that the materialistic person has such a strong obsession with material things and their acquisition, such that their ‘material interests are not made subservient to other social goals and material self-interest is preeminent’ (Sahlins 1976). Thus, on balance, the literature emphasises the negative aspects of materialism, especially when it is associated with deficits involving interpersonal relationships (Dittmar, Bond et al. 2014), social responsibilities, and concern for others (Burroughs and Rindfleisch 2002).

In this context, the Yoo et al definition of materialism, as “the tendency to place great importance on acquiring wealth and material possessions” (p.241), is clearly inadequate. It lacks the key emphasis concerning the detrimental result of obsession.

Moving now to measurement issues. Many scales to measure materialism have been produced, and three are available from the ACQol Directory of Instruments http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures. An additional scale which has been widely cited is Belk (1984). This proposes that materialism comprises three major constructs and presents a set of scales, validated by factor analysis, to measure each one. Possessiveness (e.g. I worry about people taking my possessions); Non-generosity (e.g. I don’t like to lend things, even to good friends); and Envy (e.g. I am bothered when I see people buy anything they want).

Both this, and the other scales, yield a valid and reliable measure of materialism tendencies. But Yoo et al could not employ such measures because they were using data from surveys that had been designed to measure quite different constructs, and which did not contain the materialism items.

In order to test their hypothesis, that the connection between materialism and relationships is different within individualistic and collectivist cultures, Yoo et al used data from the USA and Japan. The data were opportunistically acquired from previously published surveys. Their measure of materialism is a binary variable. This was created through a task in which people had to choose 5 of the following 17 items, on the basis of them being the “most important for living a good life”:

“autonomy, having a good job, continual learning and growth, enjoyment of life’s pleasures, enough money to meet basic needs, extra money/disposable income, faith, giving back to my


community, loving and caring for myself, physical fitness and strength, positive attitude, positive relationships with family, positive relationships with friends, relaxation/peacefulness/contentment, the absence of illness, sense of accomplishment, and sense of purpose.”

Whatever purpose the original survey designers had for this list, the only item even vaguely related to materialism is ‘extra money/disposable income’ [bolded]. If the respondent’s choice of 5 included this item, then they were classified as being materialist.

As justification for their use of this single item, they cite Srivastava, Locke et al. (2001) and (Sirgy 1998). While both of these papers note the special relevance that materialists give to physical goods, neither present an argument that such an interest is sufficient to define materialism.

In summary, respondents to these questionnaires selected the item ‘extra money/disposable income’ as one of 5 items they regarded as ‘important components of a good life’. Using such selection as a measure of materialism is invalid, for the reasons stated. For most people with inadequate money these words are no more than realistically aspirational. For most people who already have a disposable income the words are realistically normal. Missing from this measure is any sense of unreality or negativity as possessiveness, non-generosity, or envy.

The question of whether the link between money and relationships is different within collectivist and individualist cultures is a good one. However, the results of this paper shed no light on the answer.


Further discussion of this paper for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: [email protected]





Markus, A. (2020). Mapping Social Cohesion: The Scanlon Foundation Surveys 2020. Melbourne, Monash University https://scanloninstitute.org.au/sites/default/files/2021-02/SC2020%20Report%20Final.pdf.

The impact of the pandemic is evidenced in the first question in the Scanlon Foundation survey, which is open-ended and asks: ‘What do you think is the most important problem facing Australia today?’ The value of an open-ended question is that it leaves it to respondents to specify issues, rather than requiring selection from a pre-determined and limited list. An open-ended approach necessarily produces a broad range of responses.

https://scanloninstitute.org.au/sites/default/files/2021-02/SC2020%20Report%20Final.pdf

Up to 2019 there was a large measure of stability in response to this question. In each survey the economy ranked as the most important issue, but in the open-ended format the highest proportion that has been obtained for the economy was 36%; in 2019 it was indicated by 29%, followed by concern over the impact of climate change on the environment, selected by 17% of respondents.

The impact of COVID-19 produced a dramatic change in priorities, with the pandemic dominating responses, selected by 63% of respondents as the ‘most important problem’, followed by the economy at 15%, and climate change at 5%. No other issue was selected by more than 2% of respondents.



Happiness: why learning, not rewards, may be the key – new researchhttps://theconversation.com/happiness-why-learning-not-rewards-may-be-the-key-new-research-153806

Bastien Blain and Robb Rutledge

The goal of increasing societal happiness has proved difficult to achieve. This is in part because it is difficult to determine what factors are most relevant for happiness. For example, many people believe they would be happier if only they had more money, but events such as winning the lottery or receiving a large pay raise often only have temporary effects on happiness. Instead, our recent study, suggests that learning may play a more significant and enduring role. How we learn about the world around us can be more important for how we feel than rewards we receive directly




Dr. Cary WuYork University, York UniversityKeywords: Trust, social connectedness, health

Ms Marija MorettiResearch and Evaluation Coordinator, South Western Sydney Primary Health NetworkKeywords: Mental Health AOD Youth

Mrs. Satildecurrende StenlundPhD Candidate, University of TurkuKeywords: Health promotion, subjective well-being, health behaviour






-----------------------References

Belk, R. W. (1984). Three scales to measure constructs related to materialism: reliability, validity, and relationships to measures of happiness. Advances in Consumer Research (Vol.11). T. C. Kinnear. Provo, UT, Association for Consumer Research: 291-297.

Biswas-Diener, R. and E. Diener (2001). "Making the best of a bad situation: Satisfaction in the slums of Calcutta." Social Indicators Research 55: 329-352.

Burroughs, J. E. and A. Rindfleisch (2002). "Materialism and well-being: A conflicting values perspective." Journal of Consumer research 29(3): 348-370.

Cummins, R. A. (2018e). "The Golden Triangle of Happiness: Essential resources for a happy family." International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies 9(4): 12–39.

Dittmar, H., R. Bond, M. Hurst and T. Kasser (2014). "The relationship between materialism and personal well-being: A meta-analysis." Journal of personality and social psychology 107(5): 879-924.



Merriam-Webster. (2021). "Online dictionary." Retrieved 16 November 2019, from http://www.merriam-webster.com.

Peikoft, L. (1991). Objectivism: The philosophy of Ayn Rand. New York, Dutton.

Richins, M. L. and S. Dawson (1992). "A consumer values orientation for materialism and its measurement: Scale development and validation." Journal of consumer research 19(3): 303-316.

Sahlins, M. (1976). Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Sirgy, M. J. (1998). "Materialism and quality of life." Social indicators research 43(3): 227-260.

Srivastava, A., E. A. Locke and K. M. Bartol (2001). "Money and subjective well-being: it's not the money, it's the motives." Journal of personality and social psychology 80(6): 959-971.

ACQol Bulletin Vol 5/07: 110221Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Lifehttp://www.acqol.com.au/

Editor: Robert A. Cummins [[email protected]]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#bulletins



other person.

Study invalidity revealed through normative data comparison

Background: Longitudinal surveys are by far the most informative device to assist the development of subjective wellbeing (SWB) theory. Such surveys are also the most expensive, and logistically difficult, to establish and maintain. Their maintenance is particularly difficult when the respondents are elderly. No matter how much care and attention the researchers provide in terms of maintaining contact with their sample, the drop-out rate is high due to the inexorable trend towards developing medical or cognitive impairment. So, the longer the study continues, the more valuable become the data, and the smaller becomes the sample.

These trends are inevitable, and they pose a serious issue for data interpretation. Are the changes in SWB, observed over time, due simply to increasing age, or are they caused by the changing composition of the sample due to drop-out? Answering this question with valid assurance is difficult, especially since the data are not missing at random. While sophisticated statistical replacement strategies may be implemented to compensate for the lost respondents, such replacements are likely to be survey and sample specific. This makes the generalization of results uncertain. Clearly then, understanding the implications of data-loss over time is of central importance to such studies, both in terms of the level of sample retention to achieve data reliability and the most appropriate forms of statistical treatment.

Even at the simplest level of data analysis the issue of drop-out, and the changing character of the sample, is crucial to interpreting changes over time. Yet the review of longitudinal studies by Ahern and Le Brocque (2005) reports that less than one-quarter describe how data were examined for patterns of attrition. Thus, a majority of their studies contained unacknowledged sampling biases, called ‘sample attrition biases’, that would have affected the reported results. The study below claims to be the first to examine the effect of sample attrition, on multivariate linkages, involving subjective wellbeing.

Reference: Herrera, M. S., et al. (2020). "Does the selective attrition of a panel survey of older people affect the multivariate estimations of subjective well-being?" Quality of Life Research 30: 41–54.

Author summary: The purpose of this study is to examine how the selective attrition observed in a panel survey affect multivariate models of subjective well-being (SWB), in old age, in Chile. Multivariate probit models compared dropouts and nondropouts using weighted and unweighted models on SWB. The attrition rate in 2 years was 38.8%, including deaths.


The predictor variables on SWB outcome variables were similar for dropouts and nondropouts and the weighting methods did not find substantial differences in the explanatory coefficients.Conclusion Although some predictors of attrition were associated with SWB, attrition did not produce biased estimates in multivariate models of life satisfaction life or depressive symptoms in old age.

Comment on Herrera (2020)In terms of its overall structure and procedures, this paper is exemplary. The initial sample was identified in Santiago, Chile, using a multistage random sampling procedure, with systematic randomization of geographic blocks and private dwellings. Older people were listed and then randomly selected through the Kish grid (Kish 1949), which is a method for selecting random members within a household to be interviewed. Respondents did not receive monetary incentives and data were collected by face-to-face interviews. Only 14% refused the invitation to take part in the study. Annual follow-up interviews were conducted in the same month as the original, to avoid any seasonality bias. University ethics approval was obtained and all respondents gave their informed consent to take part. All the important procedural boxes have been ticked. So, it is tragic that this carefulness did not extend to the rest of the study.

Substantially detracting from its usefulness is the authors’ use of ‘old-thinking’ in their measurement and analysis of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB). In this, they make the following errors:

1. ‘Satisfaction with life’ is considered to be “a cognitive judgment regarding individual perceptions of life satisfaction in the last 6 months’, citing (Diener, Wirtz et al. 2009a). Two points are notable as: (a) Life satisfaction is dominantly affective, not cognitive (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007). (b)The cited publication by Diener does not mention ‘life satisfaction in the last 6 months’.

2. Satisfaction with life is measured using a 4-choice response scale, which does not exploit the capacity of people to make more refined judgements (Cummins and Gullone 2000b). This deficiency of measurement precision is then exacerbated by creating a binary scale from adjacent items, which further blunts the measurement of life satisfaction.

3. The authors appear not to understand the implications of their own data. The 4 response scale categories, and percentage responses, were: very satisfied (12.1%), satisfied (48.2%), not very satisfied (29.7%), and non-satisfied (10.0%). These percentages can be used to create a mean score for the sample based on a 0 – 100 percentage-point scale, as described by the formula presented by the (International Wellbeing Group 2013). This conversion uses the following steps:

(a) Convert the 4-choice scale to a numerical format (4,3,2,1). The value of each choice level can then be expressed in % units as: (4 x 12.1), (3 x 48.2), (2 x 29.7), (1 x 10.0).

(b) The total value of the scale can then be calculated as: (4 x 12.1) + (3 x 48.2) + (2 x 29.7) + (1 x 10.0) = 262.4 % units.

(c) This % value is then converted into scale units by dividing the total by 100: 262.4 / 100 = 2.624 scale units.

In other words, the mean score of the sample, on the 4 to 1 scale, is 2.624 scale units

(d) Refer now to the International Wellbeing Group formula below. This formula converts any scale mean value into a standard unit of measurement called ‘percentage of scale maximum’ (%SM). This %SM unit is the scale mean score as represented on a 0 to 100 percentage-point scale (pp).

X − k min

k max − k min x 100

X = the score or mean to be converted (2.624)

kmin = the minimum score possible on the scale (1)

kmax = the maximum score possible on the scale (4)

Substituting these values in the formula produces a mean scale score of 54.13 percentage point (pp) units of satisfaction on a 0-100 percentage point scale.

(e) Referring now to the Australian normative life satisfaction values (Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2021) derived from Global Life Satisfaction (GLS). GLS is the internationally recognized standard method of measuring life satisfaction using a single item: ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?’ It can be seen (Khor, Table 1, p.6) that the normative mean and standard deviation is 77.49 (0.87)pp. The base of this normal range (two SDs below the mean) is 75.75pp. Thus, the value of 54.13pp generated by Herrera et al is 21.62pp below the normal range, or 24.85 standard deviations below.

The interpretation of this disparity is crucial for deciding the integrity of their whole study. As demonstrated by Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. (2016), samples with such low levels of SWB exhibit severe psychometric abnormality. So, considerations as to what might have caused such a low level of life satisfaction are as follows:

1. Perhaps there is a strong cultural response bias causing such low scores? This is counteracted by two publications. Casas and Rees (2015) report results from samples of 12-16y adolescents, from Spain, Brazil and Chile. Using the conventional GLS scale, they report values from all three countries in the range 79 to 81pp. While these are on the high-side with respect to Australian norms, they are within the acceptable range. The other publication, by González, Dussaillant et al. (2021) involved a large, geographically representative sample of adults in Santiago. They used an ‘immediate version’ of GLS “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole at this moment?” and the mean (SD) was 69.67 (20.51)pp. Again this is reasonable, with the high SD (against about 12pp in Australia) indicative of a substantial negative skew. In conclusion, both publications indicate that the value of 54.13pp cannot be accounted for by cultural response bias.

2. This was a very elderly sample, 37% were over 75y old. However, the fact of being an elderly sample would not, of itself, account for the low mean. In general, SWB is high in old age (Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2021 :Table 3).

3. The authors used an odd version of GLS as “SWB was measured as satisfaction withLife … in the last 6 months” (p.44) and cite (Diener, Wirtz et al. 2009a). However, this reference makes no mention of such a scale and, indeed, the wording ‘in the last 6 months’ is

ill advised. First, it refers to the past, and the past is generally rated as lower than the present (Abrams 1974, Röcke and Lachman 2008, Burrow, Sumner et al. 2014). However, this effect only accounts for a few percentage points. More insidious, particularly with this sample, is the use of ‘in the last 6 months’.

The normal form of GLS states no time-base ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole’. Changing this to ‘the past 6 months’ presents the respondent with a question that is clearly more cognitive, in that they are expected to think back to the events and occasions that took place. In reality, it is impossible to do this task reliably, and people cannot form a valid average affective assessment over such a period: see (Reis 1994) for a review. So it is likely that respondents would be confused, and maybe threatened, by being confronted with a question they could not answer. A sense of threat would be exacerbated by the poor education level of the respondents, 62% of whom “had received ‘primary education or less (including none)” (p.43). So an easy way out of this situation is to make a choice towards the middle of the provided scale, which is consistent with the obtained result.

In conclusion, for whatever reason, the authors’ estimate of 54.13pp as the level of SWB for this sample simply cannot be valid. This renders their entire results section concerning SWB also invalid.







WebMaster

Open-Access additions: Publicationshttp://www.acqol.com.au/publications#Open-access

Weinberg, M. A. 2020. Online administration of the Personal Wellbeing Index. In: Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 6th Edition, Chapter 3, pp xx. Editor, Cummins, R. A. Geelong: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University – Melbourne Campus. http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#Open-access

AbstractTraditionally, administration of the PWI-A has been recommended in paper-and-pen or verbal format. This chapter provides guidelines for administering the PWI-A online. It provides information regarding the visual presentation, response scale, and cautions regarding how data captured online may be interpreted against population norms.

http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#Open-access


Price, J. N. (2021). Worlds Apart: Remote Indigenous disadvantage in the context of wider Australia: POLICY Paper 34. Sydney, Centre for Independent Studies. https://www.cis.org.au/app/uploads/2021/01/pp34.pdf

A ‘wicked’ problem is one that is difficult or impossible to solve, often due to varying views, contradictory knowledge, knowledge gaps, an economic burden, and the problem’s interconnection with other problems — such as alcoholism contributing to domestic violence. For decades State, Territory and Commonwealth governments have been trying (and failing) to solve the wicked problems besetting remote Indigenous communities.

Billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent with very little improvement. In some communities, the situation has regressed, with alcohol abuse, domestic violence and truancy plaguing townships that are on the verge of breaking point.

Regional and Remote Indigenous Communities are unique outliers in a nation otherwise known for its wealth, education and safety. Due to high Indigenous populations, these communities are immensely challenging to understand, and their challenges hard to address. Some critics argue that the nature of Indigenous cultures is inextricably linked to the social breakdown plaguing places like Tennant Creek, Ceduna and Aurukun. Others argue that such aspersions are unfair and racist.

Conditions in these towns are often more comparable to the third world than to one of the most prosperous countries on earth. The Productivity Commission estimates that governments spent approximately $33.4 billion on Indigenous peoples in 2015-16. Approximately $4.1 billion (12.23%) of this was spent on public order and safety alone. At $6,300 per person, this is ten times the amount spent on the typical Australian.

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the wicked problems Regional and Remote Indigenous communities face. While no single cause can explain Indigenous disadvantage, the severe socio-economic disadvantage experienced by these communities can be demonstrated. This undoubtedly contributes to the astronomically high rates of alcohol abuse, crime, and domestic violence.

This paper will first map the socio-economic factors that shape many Regional and Remote Indigenous communities and compare them to wider Australia. It will then look at the nature of crime and domestic violence — factors that all combine to make these communities so very different to the typical Australian suburb. It will use data to highlight the severe conditions in these locations, pointing to the fact that these places are experiencing extremes that would not be tolerated anywhere else in Australia.

Ultimately, as the data will demonstrate, the situation in these communities is in dire need of a radical solution. A solution that targets communities based on evidence, rather than assertions about race and culture, and focuses on establishing the safe communities that any Australian would rightfully expect on their doorstep.

Media news

Happiness really does come for freePeople in societies where money plays a minimal role can have very high levels of happinesshttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210208161922.htm

Economic growth is often prescribed as a way of increasing the well-being of people in low-income countries. A new study suggests that there may be good reason to question this assumption. The researchers found that the majority of people in societies where money plays a minimal role reported a level of happiness comparable to that found in Scandinavian countries which typically rate highest in the world.

Additional recommend reading

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210208161922.htm

https://www.cis.org.au/app/uploads/2021/01/pp34.pdf

‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. https://fortinberrymurray.us13.listmanage.com/subscribe?u=6a411e8ce902df7c73232a8f2&id=4ee17adb2b&mc_cid=e1cac10cf4&mc_eid=e9a2e6453f

ReferencesAbrams, M. (1974). This Britain: A Contented Nation? New Society, 27(594), 439-440. Ahern, K., & Le Brocque, R. (2005). Methodological issues in the effects of attrition: Simple solutions for

social scientists. Field methods, 17(1), 53-69. Burrow, A. L., Sumner, R., & Ong, A. D. (2014). Perceived Change in Life Satisfaction and Daily Negative

Affect: The Moderating Role of Purpose in Life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15(3), 579-592. Casas, F., & Rees, G. (2015). Measures of children’s subjective well-being: Analysis of the potential for cross-

national comparisons. Child Indicators Research, 8, 49-69. doi:10.1007/s12187-014-9293-zCummins, R. A., & Gullone, E. (2000b). Why we should not use 5-point Likert scales: The case for subjective

quality of life measurement. In ACQol Open-Access Publications by Members. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University. http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#publications.


Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Biswas-Diener, R., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D.-w., & Oishi, S. (2009a). New measures of well-being. In Assessing well-being (pp. 247-266): Springer.

González, P. A., Dussaillant, F., & Calvo, E. (2021). Social and Individual Subjective Wellbeing and Capabilities in Chile. Frontiers in psychology, 11(4080), 1-14.

International Wellbeing Group. (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Retrieved from http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures

Khor, S., Fuller-Tysziewicz, M., & Hutchinson, D. (2021). Australian normative data for Subjective Wellbeing. In R. A. Cummins (Ed.), Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 6th Edition. International Wellbeing Group. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#Open-access

Kish, L. (1949). A Procedure for Objective Respondent Selection within the Household. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 44(247), 380-387. doi:10.1080/01621459.1949.10483314

Reis, H. T. (1994). Domains of experience: Investigating relationship processes from three perspectives. In R. Erber & R. Gilmour (Eds.), Theoretical fromeworks for personal relationships (pp. 87-110). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Richardson, B., Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. D., Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2016). The Psychometric equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for normally functioning and homeostatically defeated Australian adults. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15 (1), 43-56. doi:http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-015-9613-0

Röcke, C., & Lachman, M. E. (2008). Perceived trajectories of life satisfaction across past, present, and future: profiles and correlates of subjective change in young, middle-aged, and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 23(4), 833-847.



Paper for private study


http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-015-9613-0



http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#publications




The attached paper, on the topic of life quality, is sent to you for your personal private study and discussion within ACQol. You are prohibited from further distributing this paper to any

other person.

Money and Subjective Wellbeing

Background: Having more money doesn't make you happier. I have 50 million dollars, but I was just as happy when I had 48 million (Arnold Schwarzenegger n.d.)

Does a unit of money ($1) have the same perceived value for a pauper and a millionaire? Of course not, and it seems to us now that such a disparity of valuing is obvious and intuitive. While the first formal thinker to tackle this topic was Aristotle [of course!], according to Kauder (1953) the first scientist to publish on this topic was Daniel Bernoulli (1738 republished 1896). Bernoulli proposed that the value of some additional amount money (or some other desired commodity) is inversely proportional to the amount which a person already has. He was basically correct, and he even devised a mathematical formula to describe this relationship. Around a century later, this understanding was extended to understanding the sensitivity of sensory systems, such that their sensitivity is inversely proportional to the intensity of the stimulus (see Weber’s Law, 1860).

In more recent times this area of inquiry has become known within economics as the ‘marginal value’ of money, such that a linear unit of increase in money does not generate an equivalent increase in perceived value. Rather, the relationship is logarithmic. Let me give an example:

Take three levels of income: $20,000, $60,000, and $180,000. The first step, from 20K to 60K, is 40K. The second step, from 60K to 180K, is 120K. So, using these real numbers, the second step is x3 times the income of the first.

Now take these same numbers after they have been treated by a logarithmic transformation. The common logarithm is called ‘logarithm base 10’ or ‘log10’. When log10 is applied to an ordinary number, it converts that real number into one that corresponds to a different scale of measurement: A logarithmic scale. The ‘log-scale’ imposes a changed relationship between the numbers, such that their range is truncated and the distance between numbers is a constant proportion.

So, taking the same three income levels above, their log10 values become 4.30, 4.78, and 5.26. Now, the difference between the first and second step is 0.48, and the difference between the second and third step is also 0.48. Try it yourself -Log conversion: https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/math/Log_Calculator.htmlAnti-log calculator: https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/math/anti-log-calculator.html

This conversion, from linear (real numbers) to log numbers, is a useful when trying to plot numbers with a big range, like household income. Let’s say from $10K, 15K up to 1000K. This range is very difficult to plot on a page such that the graph is detailed enough to show the difference between 10K and 15K. So, logs to the rescue. 4.0, 4.18, and 6.0 – much easier to graph. But, what do the log numbers actually mean?

The answer is given by the word’s derivation. ‘Logarithm’ was coined by Scottish mathematician John Napier (1550-1617), from the Greek word logos meaning ‘proportion or ratio’ and arithmos meaning ‘number’. So the log conversions above maintain the same proportions between numbers in the series, as shown in the first income example. Crucially, however, the logical meaning of numbers has been changed. They no longer have a simple-to-understand linear relationship with one another, but a relationship in which the linear log series of 1, 2, 3 represents the real numbers of 10, 100, 1000. In other words, the real numbers are showing an exponential series while the log numbers are showing a linear series.

When the real number series of subjective wellbeing (SWB) is plotted against the real number series of household income, it shows an asymptotic curve. It starts off heading strongly skywards, but then loses upward momentum and levels off. [the figure below is intended to help understanding, rather than being an empirically accurate representation]

In this figure, subjective wellbeing (SWB) is shown as real numbers 0 to 10. When SWB is plotted against income as real numbers, it shows the characteristic asymptotic relationship. But when SWB is plotted against log income, the income is being represented on a different scale, and its relationship with SWB generates a straight line.

These two different forms of relationship between SWB and money are well documented. So while both forms of presentation are meaningful, if the intention is to demonstrate an asymptotic ‘plateau effect’ real numbers would be used for this purpose. Moreover, the closer that the real numbers get to producing an asymptotic curve, the closer will the log10 conversion get to producing a perfectly straight line.

Reference: Killingsworth, M. A. (2021). "Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(4), 1-6.

Author summary: What is the relationship between money and well-being? Researchdistinguishes between two forms of well-being: people’s feelings during the moments of life (experienced well-being) and people’s evaluation of their lives when they pause and reflect (evaluative well-being). Drawing on 1,725,994 experience-sampling reports from 33,391 employed US adults, the present results show that both experienced and evaluative well-being increased linearly with log(income), with an equally steep slope for higher earners as for lower earners. There was no evidence for an experienced well-being plateau above $75,000/y, contrary to some influential past research. There was also no evidence of an income threshold at which experienced and evaluative well-being diverged, suggesting that higher incomes are associated with both feeling better day-to-day and being more satisfied with life overall.

Comment on Killingsworth (2021)The author’s claim, that he can find no evidence of a ‘plateau’, representing the levelling-off of increased SWB as income rises, is perfectly consistent with an informed expectation created by understanding logarithmic transformations of data, as has been described. Had the author used real numbers, he would have found the plateau he was looking for.

So why did the author use the log transformation for this purpose? While no specific rationale is argued, other texts are cited as justification “that the relationship between income and evaluative wellbeing is best described as logarithmic (Stevenson and Wolfers 2008, Kahneman and Deaton 2010, Stevenson and Wolfers 2013)” (p.1). These texts include the following statements:

(Stevenson and Wolfers 2008) “Most early studies considered the relationship between the level of absolute income and the level of happiness, and thus often found a curvilinear relationship. In some cases the lack of evidence of a clear linear relationship between GDP per capita and happiness led to theories of a satiation point, beyond which more income would not increase happiness. A more natural starting point might be to represent well-being as a function of the logarithm of income ratherthan absolute income. And indeed, recent research has shown that within countries “the supposed attenuation at higher income levels of the happiness-income relation does not occur when happiness is regressed on log income, rather than absolute income (Easterlin 2001)(p.468).”

(Stevenson and Wolfers 2013) “The relationship between well-being and income is roughly linear-log and does not diminish as incomes rise. If there is a satiation point, we are yet to reach it” (abstract).

(Kahneman and Deaton 2010) “Some of the confusion regarding the effects of income on wellbeing can be traced to incorrect analysis. Psychologists and sociologists often plot measures of subjective well-being against income in dollars, but a strong argument can be made for the logarithm of income as the preferred scale. The logarithmic transformation represents a basic fact of perception known as Weber’s Law, which applies generally to quantitative dimensions of perception and judgment (e.g., the intensity of sounds and lights). The rule is that the effective stimulus for the detection and evaluation of changes or differences in such dimensions is the percentage change, not its absoluteamount” (p.16489).

This discussion is one of the best demonstrations of the difference between economics and science. The substance of economics is mathematical-philosophical logic. The substance of science is theoretical understanding based on empirical demonstration. Thus, an acceptable deductive statement can be made in economics ‘SWB eternally rises with income’ which has been demonstrated by science to be false. In fact, SWB does not, and can not eternally rise with income. Its level is eternally restricted by four considerations as:

1. The level of SWB for each person is primarily determined by their setpoint for the major SWB constituent, which is Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood) (Capic, Li et al. 2018).

2. On a 0 to 100 percentage-point (pp) scale, setpoints in the population exist as a normal distribution between 70 and 90pp, with a mean of 80pp. Individual ratings of SWB that exceed a setpoint are normally brief, being driven by emotion, which the homeostatic system then acts to attenuate (Cummins 2021a). Thus, it is rare to find groups whose SWB level exceeds 80pp.

3. The main role of money, in its relationship with SWB, is to act as a defensive resource assisting homeostatic control (Cummins 2017a). In Australia, this defensive influence of money on SWB can be measured up to a gross household income of about AU$100K, and to about the same level in the USA (Jebb, Tay et al. 2018). Above this level, on average, its influence plateaus (Cummins, Woerner et al. 2013b) as all reasonable purchasable defensive resources have been deployed. As concluded by Tomlinson and Kelly (2013), such SWB results are consistent with money as a resource for a system that can be saturated.

4. The maximum reliable level of SWB for groups selected for their abundant homeostatic resources seems to be less than 82 percentage points, as determined by Cummins, Walter et al. (2007a). This report presents an analysis of the cumulative data from 15 surveys using the Personal Wellbeing Index (International Wellbeing Group 2013) to measure SWB. With a sample of about 30,000 respondents, a total 3,277 combinations of demographic variables were tested for their level of SWB. Using a minimum group size of 50 respondents, the four groups showing the highest levels of SWB were:

A Female ; Live with partner & children ; >$150,000 (N=104, Mean=81.72pp)B Female ; Married ; >$150,000 (N=145, Mean=81.00pp)C Female ; >$150,000; Full time paid (N=81, Mean=79.68pp)D $61,000-$90,000 ; 66-75y (N=96, Mean=79.55pp)

In conclusion, research into the relationship between SWB levels and money has been substantially misinformed through a lack of understanding that converting real numbers to logarithms creates two quite different scales of measurement. These two forms of scale are not equivalent in their relationship to SWB. While both forms of scale have their usefulness in other contexts, using the results obtained from a log scale to interpret SWB behavior in terms of real numbers is an invalid procedure.







Baxter, J., et al. (2020). Never let a crisis go to waste: social policy opportunities from COVID-19. University of Queensland, Committee for Economic Development of Australia https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2020-12/apo-nid310592.pdf.

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned our worlds upside down. The measures put in place by gov-ernment and health authorities to arrest the spread of COVID-19 have abruptly changed nearly all aspects of our lives, including how we work, socialise, interact with family and spend our spare time. Even previously straightforward and unproblematic activities such as shopping for groceries or a visit to a doctor have been disrupted.

Much has already been written about the current and likely future consequences of the pandemic. We see daily news reports on the numbers of deaths, infections, shutdowns, job losses, industry closures and wellbeing impacts. It will still be some time before we can fully assess these impacts, but what we can do at this early stage is reflect on the opportunities the pandemic presents. COVID-19 provides unique opportunities for rethinking and redesigning long-standing rules and reg-ulations covering how we live and work. In this paper we share a range of ideas relating to health, labour markets, the tax and transfer system, gender equality, education, housing, and criminal justice. Some of these may arise coincidentally and others will require purposeful policy and institutional redesign. Our aim is to provide an optimistic, forward-looking counterpoint to what has undoubtedly been a catastrophic global event.



Why your most important relationship is with your inner voicehttps://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jan/16/inner-voice-self-criticism-psychologist-ethan-kross-chatter-voice-headRachel Cooke

Your internal monologue shapes mental wellbeing, says psychologist Ethan Kross. Why do some people have a louder or more troubling inner voice than others? “That’s harder to answer,” he says. “There are so many ways it can be activated, some genetic, some environmental.” What is certain is that these experiences cannot be discounted: “The data is overwhelming when it comes to the connection between anxiety and physical health conditions.” Those who are able to quieten their inner voice are happier; their sense of relief can be palpable.


Report from the ACQol siteGoogle Analytics inclusive period: January 2021

Number of individual users who initiated at least one session during the date range: 309Number of sessions: 348

-----------------------References






Arnold Schwarzenegger (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved April 18, 2017, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/arnoldschw146572.html

Bernoulli, D. (1738 republished 1896). Versuch einer neuen Theorie der Wertbestimmung von Gluicksfllen. Die Grundlage der modernen Wertlehre," Brentano und Leser, Sammlung alterer und neuerer staatswissenachaftlicher Schriften des In- und Auslandes, No. 9, Leipzig, 1896. (Ed) A. Pringsheim (Original edition and title " Specimen Theoriae Novae de Mensura Sortis " 1738).

Capic, T., N. Li and R. A. Cummins (2018). "Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators." Social Indicators Research 137(1): 1-28.

Cummins, R. A. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. Oxford Bibliographies Online. D. S. Dunn. New York Oxford University Press.

Cummins, R. A. (2021a). Homeostasis. Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. F. Maggino. Cham, Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69909-7_1303-2.

Cummins, R. A., J. Walter and J. Woerner (2007a). Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: Report 16.1 - The Wellbeing of Australians - Groups with the highest and lowest wellbeing in Australia. Australian Unity Wellbeing Index Cross-Sectional Surveys. R. A. Cummins. Geelong, Deakin University,, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Melbourne Campus. http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#reports.

Cummins, R. A., J. Woerner, M. Weinberg, J. Collard, L. Hartley-Clark and K. Horfiniak (2013b). Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: -Report 30.0 - The Wellbeing of Australians: Social media, personal achievement, and work. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University. Cross-sectional surveys: http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#reports.

Easterlin, R. A. (2001). "Income and happiness: Towards a unified theory." The economic journal 111(473): 465-484.


Jebb, A. T., L. Tay, E. Diener and S. Oishi (2018). "Happiness, income satiation and turning points around the world." Nature Human Behaviour 2(1): 33.

Kahneman, D. and A. Deaton (2010). "High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being." Proceedings of the national academy of sciences 107(38): 16489-16493.

Kauder, E. (1953). "Genesis of the marginal utility theory: from aristotle to the end of the eighteenth century." The Economic Journal 63(251): 638-650.

Stevenson, B. and J. Wolfers (2008). Economic growth and happiness. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity May:1-87.

Stevenson, B. and J. Wolfers (2013). "Subjective well-being and income: Is there any evidence of satiation?" American Economic Review 103(3): 598-604.

Tomlinson, M. and G. Kelly (2013). " Is everybody happy? The politics and measurement of national wellbeing." Policy and Politics 41(2): 139-157.





other person.

Economics and social capital

Background: The topic of social capital and economics has generated a lively literature. Inevitably, much of it challenged by the necessity for cross-disciplinary communication. Social capital is a sociological construction, created by Pierre Bourdieu (1930 –2002), a French sociologist/philosopher; prolific author and highly regarded academic. His key publication (Bourdieu 1986) has been cited over 50,000 times.

Bourdieu defines ‘capital’ as “accumulated labor … which, when appropriated … by agents, enables them to appropriate social energy ... It is … a force inscribed in objective or subjective structures, but it is also … the principle underlying the immanent regularities of the social world” (p.1). In other words, a particular form of ‘labor’ yields an accumulation of ‘social energy’, which is a commodity within the social world. The availability of this energy may be termed ‘social capital’, and its judicious use is relevant to the success or failure of social enterprises.

The link with economics is immediately apparent. For example, in their review, Glaeser, Laibson et al. (2002) conclude that social capital accumulation patterns are consistent with the standard economic investment model. In particular, individuals accumulate social capital when the private incentives for such accumulation are high. This dovetails into the understanding that such motivation is facilitated by difficult living conditions, where collectivist actions are more likely to succeed than those of an individual acting alone.

Bourdieu (1986) saw this connection clearly, as evidenced by his identification of ‘economic capital’ as a sub-category of social capital, “which is immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalized in the forms of property rights; as cultural capital, which is convertible, on certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the forms of educational qualifications; and as social capital, made up of social obligations (‘connections’), which is convertible, in certain conditions, into economic capital and may be institutionalized in the forms of a title of nobility” (p.2). In other words, Bourdieu saw economic capital as the most flexible of these three ‘capital’ resources.

Economics (money) has also been commonly proposed as a key resource supporting subjective wellbeing (SWB) (Cummins 2021a). In a similar narrative, money is seen as the most flexible resource to bolster homeostatic defence, having the potential to be readily converted into the two other key homeostatic resources: relationships and a sense of purpose (Cummins 2018e). This raises another point of commonality within the constructs of SWB and social capital, as the life domain of ‘relationships’. But there is also an important point of difference. SWB is psychological while Social Capital is sociological. Thus, the measurement of relationship strength in relation to SWB is traditionally measured by levels of ‘satisfaction’, while for social capital it is measured by levels of ‘trust’.

The idea of using ‘trust’ to measure social capital is attributed to Robert Putnam (1995), who’s book ‘Bowling Alone’ has received over 69,000 citations. He suggests that "social capital refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.” (p.2)

The key role of trust, in defining social capital, is linked back to his 1993 anecdotal account of a social experiment in Italy where, in 1970, the central government established 20 regional governments. While these were virtually identical in form, they differed substantially in the social, economic, political, and cultural contexts in which they were situated. Some succeeded while others failed, and Putnam determined that the underlying factors that predicted this differential performance were not economic or political. Instead, the best predictors came in the traditions of civic engagement. Successful governments were characterised by having many active community organizations, citizens engaged by public issues, trusting one another to act fairly and obey the law.

He also observed that, in the regions showing low social engagement, public affairs are viewed as somebody else's business but then, fearing others' lawlessness, everyone demands sterner discipline. Trapped in this vicious circle, the citizens feel powerless, exploited, and unhappy. “Successful communities did not become civic simply because they were rich. The historical record strongly suggests precisely the opposite: They have become rich because they were civic.” (p 4).

In summary, the advantages of social trust are stated thus: A society that relies on generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society. Trust lubricates social life. Networks of civic engagement facilitate coordination and communication amplifies information about the trustworthiness of other individuals.

All of this resonates with national responses to the COVID menace around the world. An effective national strategy involves many different parts, such as taking scientific advice seriously, having the economic means and government will to adequately support people in lockdown, and having trust in government, the police and citizens. Trust is necessary in order that instructions involving curfews, testing, quarantine, boarder controls and mask-wearing are generally adopted, as instructed, by the population at large. Several countries stand out as being especially successful in this regard. Of the top 10 of these countries, 6 are in the Asia/Pacific region and three have the added advantage of being islands: Taiwan, New Zealand, and Australia https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries . Australia, 8th in success at containment, is one of the most successful in terms of COVID control https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/covid-performance/#regionThe 2nd wave, infectious storm in Australia, peaked at 723 new cases per day on 30th June 2020. At the time of writing, seven months later, Australia had just recorded its 10th consecutive day with zero cases of community transmission. While it would be interesting to know the international comparative data on national ‘trust’, reliable and valid data are not available. Most unfortunately, the measurement problem identified below also applies to several other major international surveys.

Reference: Caïs, J., et al. (2021). "The Effects of Economic Crisis on Trust: Paradoxes for Social Capital Theory." Social Indicators Research 153: 173–192.

Author summary: The theory of social capital rarely takes economic variables into account. This article confirms that economic factors had greater explanatory power for social trust and trust in institutions during times of economic crisis, due mainly to increased economic polarization of the population. We use Spain as a case study to analyse the impact of a number of variables on social and institutional trust before and during the economic crisis. The 2008 economic crisis in Spain resulted in a paradox: a notable decline in trust in institutions, together with a surprising increase—rather than the expected decrease—in social trust.

Comment on Cais et al (2021)Their discovery, that social and institutional trust are differentially affected by an economic crisis is interesting, with clear theoretical implications. But is their result valid? The answer is no. Their study is seriously flawed.

The authors use data from two surveys (2004 and 2013) conducted by the European Social Survey https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/methodology/ess_methodology/sampling.htmlMethodologically, these are high-quality surveys and one expects to find an equivalent level of expert attention given to the question formats. However, this is certainly not so for the key item used by Cais et al to measure trust. It asks “Generally speaking, would you saythat most people can be trusted, or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?”“Answers are placed in a score of 0–10, where 0 means you can’t be too careful and 10 means that most people can be trusted”. This is an appallingly bad item for the following reasons:

1. Each half of the question has a different meaning. One half concern ‘trust’ as a positive construct. The other half concerns ‘care in dealing with people’, which does not necessarily concern ‘trust’ at all. It can be a concern that people are to be respected and that care should be given in interaction, or that one must be careful not to offend people, etc. However, the response to this half-question is forced to be a negative, being scored from 0 (‘you can’t be too careful’) to a maximum of 5 on the 0-10 scale, thereby confounding respondents who would prefer to take a positive view of ‘carefulness’.

2. The caption to the authors’ Table 1 informs that “We recorded both variables 0–4 to not trust, 5 neutral, and 6–10 trust” (p.176). This reveals two problems. First, that the authors have forced respondents who have followed the sequence of question-to-response scale, to use the 0 – 4 bracket to answer the positive question (most people can be trusted). The authors have then interpreted the score 0 – 4 as ‘to not trust’, which is totally confusing. Second, the respondents were not informed that ‘5 is neutral’, whatever that might mean in this context.

3. The order of items in the question (positive ‘most people can be trusted’ to negative ‘you can’t be too careful’) is the opposite of the scale response ordering (0 to 5 negative, 6 to 10 positive). This is going to be very confusing to many, even most, people.

4. Respondents are provided with a 0 to 10 scale. So their automatic expectation is they are going to be asked to rate a single something on this scale. But not so. They are faced with two different items, so how can they interpret their rating task? Logically, the simplest solution is to regard the response options as two scales; one from 0 to 5, the other from 6 to 10. But they are only allowed one response. The likely result is that all this complication results in

hopeless confusion, and they respond at the scale midpoint ‘5’as a safe way to not appear stupid because they did not understand the question.

From this chaotic procedural miasma, it might be expected that ‘5’ would be the most common result. Their Table 6 provides the answer. However, this table is not mentioned in the text of the paper. It is placed after the discussion, in the appendix (p.191). Table 6 confirms that the average score on ‘trust’ in 2004 was 5.05 and in 2012 was 5.20. Yes, these two means are significantly different due to the large sample sizes (1663 and 1889 respectively) producing t=-2.0591, p<.05. However, with a Cohen's d effect size of 0.07 , this difference is completely trivial.

The authors have been less than forthcoming in acknowledging the complete irrelevance of their results. This paper was published in Social Indicators Research, a peer-review Springer journal.



Substantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 31st January, will be published in the following Bulletin. Such comments may offer a novel extension to the view that has been put, an alternative and informed view, or offer a critique, all in the spirit of




Maury, S., et al. (2020). Understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on vulnerable Australians: Insights from Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand. Melbourne, Good Shepherd Australia New Zealand https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2020-12/apo-nid310288.pdf.

COVID-19 disrupted society in ways that were unimaginable this time 12 months ago. There have been many positive adaptations and innovations to emerge as a result of the pandemic, and we also experienced a united, empathetic community that was resolved to meet the challenges head on and support people in need.

At the same time, there is no doubt that the pandemic has revealed fundamental schisms in our workforce, income and welfare supports, and society. COVID-19 saw more people than ever before needing support from government and community services organisations, and there was a widening of the group of people that were traditionally considered financially vulnerable.

Government policy interventions, community service innovation and corporate support have highlighted what is possible when responding to people in hardship. It is clear that more will be needed in 2021, or we risk leaving many people behind on the road to recovery.


This report summarises the findings of our multi-pronged approach to understanding changing patterns. Our sources include reviewing population-level trends, talking to our practitioners, and hearing directly from clients.



6 Ways to Incorporate Active Rest Into Your Lifehttps://thriveglobal.com/stories/six-ways-to-incorporate-active-rest-into-your-life/Michelle Ogundehin

In an era when Fear of Missing Out has its own universally understood acronym, recuperative rest and relaxation are not always regarded as the intensely worthwhile pursuits that they are. Many of us have become hard-wired to oscillate between being in full-on work mode and exhausted. Hooked on constant motion and the completion of never-ending to-do lists, we grind to a halt rather than feeling buoyed up by the prospect of doing something else. This is no way to go on. Here are 6 ways to incorporate active rest into your life.




A/Prof. Ann DadichAssociate Professor, Western Sydney University, School of BusinessKeywords: Health service management research; knowledge translation; organisational behaviour; innovation; change management

Dr Michele Filippo FontefrancescoUniversity of Gastronomic Sciences, University of Gastronomic SciencesKeywords: Anthropology, local development, food

Mr Dave LaneEducation VictoriaKeywords: Educator

-----------------------ReferencesBourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. J. Richardson. New York, Greenwood: 241-258.






Cummins, R. A. (2018e). "The Golden Triangle of Happiness: Essential resources for a happy family." International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies 9(4): 12–39.

Cummins, R. A. (2021a). Homeostasis. Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. F. Maggino. Cham, Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69909-7_1303-2.

Glaeser, E. L., D. Laibson and B. Sacerdote (2002). "An economic approach to social capital." The economic journal 112(483): F437-F458.

Putnam, R. D. (1995). "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital." Journal of Democracy(January): 65-78.




other person.

Affect and Cognition

Background: Human consciousness involves the combined activity of two different processes. One is the production of feelings (affect) generated by percepts or thoughts, the other is thinking (cognition) about what to do with the affective and other information that is available at any moment. Both processes have a two-fold presence in the brain; one part within consciousness, and the other normally sub-conscious. For example, the affect of Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood) is normally sub-conscious (Cummins 2017a), and so are the ‘cognitive’ decisions that are made by reflexes. However, many of these automatic processes can be brought into consciousness by particular circumstances, such as consciously over-riding a reflex or gaining awareness of HPMood through meditation (Lyall, in preparation). So the intuitive general picture of subjective brain functioning, is the affective and cognitive systems working seamlessly together to yield a single stream of consciousness, that selectively represents a portion of the total brain functioning.

It also seems intuitive that these two processes would have shared the same general evolutionary pathway, even though the affective and cognitive systems developed at different rates and took many different forms. No matter what combinations or variations on themes were developed, the basic underlying structure allowing these two systems to interact would have been retained, following the basic principle of evolutionary parsimony. Thus, it is no surprise to find that most authors on this topic conclude that the two systems are inextricably


linked (Bower 1981, Wyer and Srull 1986, Forgas 1995, Cacioppo and Berntson 1999). It is more surprising to find a dissenting view.

Reference: Wyer, R. S., et al. (1999). Affect and information processing. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Elsevier. 31: 1-77.

Author summary: Our basic proposition is that, “although affective reactions can be responses to previously acquired concepts and knowledge that are activated in memory, and although one can have concepts about their own and others' reactions, affect per se is not itself part of the cognitive system” (p.2).

Comment on Wyer et al (1999)There is much to admire about this theoretical review. At the time it was composed a substantial literature had accumulated on a central question for psychological science: how do the two basic psychological processes of affect (feelings) and cognition (thinking) relate to one another? The authors address this question with academic rigor and authority. As a general review of the topic their text represents a very useful synthesis, even though the results that are cited are generally taken at face value, rather than being methodologically evaluated. However, in two major respects it also falls short of an excellent piece of work.

The first problem is the article’s length and complexity. The authors’ main intention is to justify their new model which, they claim, demonstrates that affect and cognition operate separately, such that “affect per se is not itself part of the cognitive system” (p.2). Unfortunately, their account of the evidence is so convoluted and full of potential complications, that a clear theme is hard to follow. The end result is a web of contestable information that the authors fail to distil into simple steps leading to a direct demonstration, or even statement, of their model. The second problem arises from the authors’ imprecise definition of terms, as follows:

Affect – “refers to the positively or negatively valenced subjective reactions that a person experiences at a given point in time. These reactions are experienced as either pleasant or unpleasant feelings. Affective reactions can be elicited either by perceptions of one's immediate stimulus environment or by thoughts about past or future events” (p.3).

Comments: In contemporary terminology, ‘affect’ is used to describe both mood and emotion in an inclusive fashion (Buchanan 2007). So the Wyer et al definition is suitable for the affect of emotion, but excludes the affect of mood. This separation of affect into state (emotion) and trait (mood) had been made at least a decade earlier (Chaplin, John et al. 1988). These earlier authors describe emotions as “temporary, brief, and caused by external circumstances” while moods are described as “stable, long-lasting, and internally caused” (p.541).

The more specific separation of mood and emotion can be described as follows:1. Moods are primitive, genetic in origin, object-free, and chronic (Oatley and Johnson-Laird 1987, Russell and Feldman Barrett 1999, Ekkekakis 2013). Emotions are complex, acute, affective-cognitive responses to percepts (Russell 2003).

2. Moods are low intensity affects, emotions may be high or low intensity (Russell 2003).

3. Moods form the affective background for each individual …and often not having a specific known antecedent (Bower and Forgas 2000)…Emotions, by contrast, are short-lived cognitive and somatic reactions to specific environmental or cognitive antecedents (Scherer 2000).

3. Moods have less well-defined behavioral response tendencies than Emotions (Larsen 2000)

4. Mood as pathology is recognized as depression. Emotion as pathology is recognized as bipolar disorder.

It is notable that the above description, representing the contemporary emotion-mood distinction, is consistent with the characterization of HPMood (Cummins 2017a). However, the above contemporary understanding of mood is entirely inconsistent with the definition of mood Wyer et al. have adopted. Citing Clore, Schwarz et al. (1994), Wyer etal propose “every emotion that is elicited by a cognitive appraisal may have a corresponding mood, or residual affective state, that is experienced for a period of time after a representation of the appraised event is no longer activated” (p.6).

The authors cite no direct empirical evidence for this hypothetical ‘emotion-to-mood transition’. Indeed, their idiosyncratic description makes emotion and mood equivalent, separated only by an unspecified temporal period of their existence. They do not provide the theoretical purpose that might be served by this temporal transition. Indeed, proposing a residual emotional state is in conflict with a major purpose of homeostatic control, which is to rapidly attenuate the presence of an emotion in order to allow subsequent emotions to be experienced.

In summary, the Wyer et al text needs to be read such that their use of ‘affect’ refers exclusively to emotion. Their definition of cognition is also problematic.

Cognition– ‘An affective reaction can be a response to a memory, a new representation constructed from one's immediate environment, or an imagined hypothetical situation. However, while affective reactions can be responses to concepts and schemata that compose declarative knowledge, and can also be the referents of concepts and knowledge, they are not themselves part of the cognitive system ’ (pp. 3-4).

This final statement is the authors’ main thesis and, on the face of it, is a curious claim. They seem to be stating an absolute case, that the emotion and cognitive systems operate entirely independently of one another, with their output somehow integrated on demand. An immediate impression is that this proposition seems more complex than the operation of two integrated systems. The requirement for an (unspecified) third integrative system runs against evolutionary parsimony. Indeed, Wyer et al acknowledge this complexity; that their hypothesis of emotion-cognition separateness is inconsistent with the generally accepted theories (cited in ‘background’), which propose that “affect [emotion] … can influence the interpretation of new information …” (p.5). This makes their ‘separateness’ hypothesis difficult to reconcile with the accepted function of emotion, as has been described.

Following on from the definitions, Wyer et al embark on a tortuous journey in support of their proposed model. Following an introductory set of logical statements, they make their central claim ‘such affective reactions are not themselves part of the cognitive system’. As explanation they offer three references and their deduction from these that “external stimulus

events can also elicit affect without any cognitive mediation” (p.11). But this simplicity hides the crucial fact that the authors have not meticulously defined what they intend to mean by ‘cognition’. For example, a known and feared object (eg spider) can elicit fear ‘automatically’ (without cognitive mediation) and such a reaction can be trained. But such a link between the fear and the response involves information processing, even if in a simple degree. Unless such reactions are dissected and each component is identified and unambiguously defined, arguing about whether such situations involve ‘cognition’ or not becomes more philosophical than scientific.

In summary, the authors could have saved themselves considerable effort had they acknowledged the generally accepted definition of ‘mood’. There is no obvious reason for a genetically specified mood to have a direct involvement in cognitive processes. HPMood is a fixed-level entity for each individual person, whereas cognition is an ever-changing flexible system for information processing. In terms of their separateness hypothesis regarding the affect of emotion and cognition, their thesis is unconvincing.



Substantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 24th January, will be published in the following Bulletin. Such comments may offer a novel extension to the view that has been put, an alternative and informed view, or offer a critique, all in the spirit of




WebMaster

Archived: Most recent quarter of the Bulletin http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#bulletinsACQOL Bulletin Vol 4/40-5201/OCT/20 - 24/DEC/20

PWI translations: Farsi http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measuresThis FARSI translation was produced by Majid Omidikhankahdani <[email protected]>

Majid explains the difference between Arabic and Farsi."Arabic and Farsi are totally different languages, but both with a mostly common alphabet, overlapping vocabulary (nearly all going from Arabic to Farsi). Maybe the similarity is a bit like that between English and French. A speaker of one with no knowledge of the other could pick up a newspaper and see major words and roughly know what topic was about, but not know in detail, nor be able to understand the details. And orally, it’d be a lost cause to understand what was happening at all."




Nguyenand, K. and G. La Cava (2020). Start Spreading the news: News Sentiment and Economic Activity in Australia. Canberra, Economic Research Department, Reserve Bank of Australia.https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files//apo-nid310253.pdf

In times of crisis, real-time indicators of economic activity are a critical input to timely and well-targeted policy responses. The COVID-19 pandemic is the most recent example of a crisis where events with little historical precedent played out rapidly and unpredictably. To address this need for real-time indicators we develop a new indicator of ‘news sentiment’ based on a combination of text analysis, machine learning and newspaper articles. The news sentiment index complements other timely economic indicators and has the advantage of potentially being updated on a daily basis. It captures key macroeconomic events, such as economic downturns, and typically moves ahead of survey-based measures of sentiment. Changes in sentiment expressed in monetary policy-related news can also partly explain unexpected changes in monetary policy. This suggests that news captures important, but unobserved, information about the risks to the RBA’s forecasts that the RBA responds to when setting interest rates. An event study in the days around monetary policy decisions suggests that an unexpected tightening in monetary policy is associated with weaker news sentiment, though the effects on sentiment are temporary and not particularly strong.

Media news“Smiling Eyes” Likely Don’t Signify True Happiness After AllJeffrey Girardhttps://www.miragenews.com/smiling-eyes-likely-don-t-signify-true-happiness-after-all/

Carnegie Mellon study questions influential Duchenne smile hypothesis. A smile that lifts the cheeks and crinkles the eyes is thought by many to be truly genuine. But new research at Carnegie Mellon University casts doubt on whether this joyful facial expression necessarily tells others how a person really feels inside.


ReferencesBower, G. H. (1981). Mood and memory. American Psychologist, 36, 129-148. Bower, G. H., & Forgas, J. P. (2000). Affect, memory, and social cognition. In E. Eich, J. F.

Kihlstrom, G. H. Bower, J. P. Forgas, & P. M. Niedenthal (Eds.), Cognition and Emotion (pp. 87-168). New York: Oxford University Press.

Buchanan, T. W. (2007). Retrieval of emotional memories. Psychological Bulletin, 133(5), 761-779.

Cacioppo, J. T., & Berntson, G. G. (1999). The affect system: architecture and operating characteristics. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 133-137.

Chaplin, W. F., John, O. P., & Goldberg, L. R. (1988). Conceptions of states and traits: dimensional attributes with ideals as prototypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(4), 541-557.




https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files//apo-nid310253.pdf

Clore, G. L., Schwarz, N., & Conway, M. (1994). Affective causes and consequences of social information processing. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook o f social cognition, 2nd ed (pp. 323-417). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.


Ekkekakis, P. (2013). The measurement of affect, mood, and emotion: A guide for health-behavioral research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Forgas, J. P. (1995). Mood and judgment: the affect infusion model (AIM). Psychological Bulletin, 117(1), 39-66.

Larsen, R. J. (2000). Toward a science of mood regulation. Psychological Inquiry, 11, 129-141. doi:10.1207/S15327965PLI1103_01

Oatley, K., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1987). Towards a cognitive theory of emotions. Cognition and Emotion, 1, 29-50.

Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review, 110(1), 145-172.

Russell, J. A., & Feldman Barrett, L. F. (1999). Core affect, prototypical emotional episodes, and other things called emotion: Dissecting the elephant. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(5), 805-819.

Scherer, K. R. (2000). Psychological models of emotion. In J. C. Borod (Ed.), The neuropsychology of emotion (pp. 137-162). New York: Oxford University Press.

Wyer, R. S., & Srull, T. K. (1986). Human cognition in its social context. Psychological Review, 93, 322-359.




other person.

Stress and emotion

Background: The systematic study of stress began with Hans Selye (1907-1882) a Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist. He coined the term stress to refer to conditions which overwhelm the capacity of the animal to maintain normal functioning. This condition may be measured through either physiological or psychological variables, and both sets of variables are functionally interlinked.


http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199828340/obo-9780199828340-0167.xml

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199828340/obo-9780199828340-0167.xml

In his early writings (Selye 1950a) he made it clear that the constructs of stress and emotion are conceptually intertwined, but seems uncertain as to how. On the one hand he sees emotion as a cause of stress, as is apparent in his definition of stress: “Stress is a unique and identical response of the organism in order to adapt to any demand (physical, psychological, emotional) of its environment” (italics added, no pagination). But shortly after he writes “Anxiety is indeed the direct consequence of a stressor”, thereby making anxiety a part of the stress response.

A contributing factor to Selye’s uncertainty regarding the role of emotion in stress can be identified as a sign of the times. In 1950, departments of psychology and physiology lived on different planets. The physiologists considered themselves superior scientists and gave short shrift to psychological theory. This bias is evident in Selye’s use of the phrase "mere emotional stimuli ... ". In his review, Mason (1971) notes “There seems to be little doubt that the potency of psychological influences in the regulation of corticosteroid levels was almost universally underestimated by early workers in the 'stress' research field. In general, … physiologists tended to regard psychological variables as negligible factors in their experiments by comparison with such obviously drastic physical variables as trauma, exercise, heat, fasting, and so on” (p.325). So Selye had little reason at that time to suspect that the stress response is so sensitive to emotion.

The second factor inhibiting Selye’s thinking was his stress model: the 'general adaptation syndrome' (GAS). He describes this as “the sum of all non-specific systemic reactions of the body which ensue upon long-continued exposure to systemic stress”. A key feature of this description is its non-specificity, which went completely against the grain of medical thinking at that time. In the 1950s huge gains in understanding had been made by studying individual physiological systems, by Pasteur, Koch and their contemporaries. Now, Selye was proposing that his GAS was generating essentially the same response no matter the cause of the stress.

This non-specificity of the GAS brought Selye into conflict with his contemporaries in general, and specifically with Walter Cannon [homeostasis]. Mason (1971) describes an extract from Selye’s autobiographical notes as: "Cannon was my first critic ... I felt quite frustrated at not being able to convince the Great Old Man of the important role played by the pituitary and the adrenal cortex in my stress syndrome. He gave me excellent reasons why he did not think these glands could help resistance and adaptation in general and even why it would seem unlikely that a general adaptation syndrome could exist” (p.330). Of course, Cannon’s major contribution had been to describe homeostatic control is specific physiological systems, and an overarching form of homeostasis was unthinkable. But maybe not now.

A form of psychological homeostasis, as an overarching form of emotion control, has now been described as Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis (Cummins 2017a). Homeostasis theory proposes that change in the level of SWB is caused by the variable presence of emotion, superimposed in consciousness, on an unchanging level of Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood setpoint). When the strength of emotion > HPMood, the emotion component dominates in consciousness. Then, over time, the rate at which homeostasis can return SWB to setpoint is a function of two processes. One is the declining strength of emotion, due to habituation, adaptation, and the declining intensity of the source. The second is the resources that can be called-on to support homeostatic control, thereby allowing effective homeostatic management of the affective perturbation back to setpoint. The key resources that support

such homeostatic functioning, in Australia at least, are a sufficiency of money, an emotionally supportive relationship, and a sense of purpose.

From the above, if ‘stress’ is reconceptualised as ‘Homeostatic Activation’, such activation can be measured on a continuum of SWB, from low to high. The presence of an increasing challenge to homeostatic control, and the associated defensive rise in Homeostatic Activation, can be observed as heightened oscillations of SWB around its set-point (Anglim et al., 2015). Psychological distress occurs when a negative experience is strong and persistent enough to overwhelm homeostatic capacity. Such a level of challenge inhibits the return of SWB to its normally positive setpoint. Persistent homeostatic failure allows the negative emotions of distress, anxiety and depression to enter consciousness.

The advantages of replacing ‘stress’ by ‘Homeostatic Activation’ are substantial. There is a measurable level of Homeostatic Activation (SWB) from 0 to 100 percentage points (pp) using a standardized scale of measurement as the Personal Wellbeing Index (International Wellbeing Group 2013). The normal range of values for individual people is 50-100pp (Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2021), while values <50pp represent psychopathology (distress) (Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2016). In this conceptualization, stress and emotion are melded into a common scale of human functioning.

Reference: Wang, D., et al. (2020). "Heightened Stress in Employed Individuals Is Linked to Altered Variability and Inertia in Emotions." Frontiers in psychology 11(1152).

Author summary: … there has yet to be a test of how global perceptions of stress are associated with not only average levels of emotions but also the variability in the intensity of the emotions, as well as how emotions linger (inertia), and whether these characteristics differ by age…. we examined associations between perceived stress levels and emotion dynamics indices in a sample of 859 working individuals over 24 h. Participants ranged in age from 21 to 81 years. Each participant was prompted at approximately 28 min intervals throughout a 24 h period to report intensity of emotional states… individuals who were more stressed experienced lower mean levels of positive emotions … and higher mean levels of negative emotions. They also experienced more pronounced variability in both positive and negative emotions, and greater inertia in negative emotions… Many of the stress–emotion dynamics associations did not remain statistically significant upon controlling for the mean level of momentary emotions, indicating that the mean is a large component in the association.

Comment on Wang et al (2020)The authors test some interesting hypotheses. However, before examining these results, their methodology is examined to determine whether such results may be regarded as reliable and valid. There are serious concerns in this regard as follows:

1. The authors use a convenience sample, with data collected a decade earlier. The original study was medical, with a focus on hypertension, where data were collected from each participant at 28 minute intervals over a 24h period. Such frequency may be useful to measure hypertension, but surely not to measure emotion. It is a grueling schedule, conducive to sleep deprivation and the generation of strong negative emotions. Such data are likely to have questionable reliability (reporting will become careless) and validity (the circumstances are not normal). It is notable that some respondents were >80y old.

2. The single measure of stress was completed up to 2 weeks before the 24h-measures of emotion. Since the state of stress is a dynamic process, subject to frequent and substantial change, there is reason to expect a temporally induced disconnection between the stress and emotion measurements. This is likely exacerbated as (presumably) the stress was measured at a ‘normal’ period in each respondent’s life, while the emotion was measured under conditions of induced stress through the demands of producing two new responses each hour. As a result of these considerations, any correlation between their measures of stress and emotion are going to be caused by an unknown source of common variance.

3. There is evidence that the respondents were high in negative emotion during their 24h trial. Among the emotions measured was ‘happiness’, measured as a single item on a 0-100 scale. This yielded a mean of 52.53 percentage points (Authors’ Table 1). On the basis that measures of happiness and satisfaction yield roughly comparable results (Campbell, Converse et al. 1976, Glatz and Eder 2020), this level is pathologically low (Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2021) when compared to Australian norms.

4. Despite the terms ‘emotion’ and ‘stress’ appearing in the title of this article, neither are defined in the authors’ text. Yet both terms are used ambiguously. The confusion about what is intended by the term stress is made evident in the second paragraph of the introduction. The authors state “it is of interest to know whether an elevated level of perceived stress is related to the emotional experiences in the daily lives of individuals” (p.2). This suggests that ‘perceived stress’ and ‘emotional experience’ are separate constructs, yet an examination of the content of most stress scales shows that the two constructs are interwoven. This is certainly true of the 14 item Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck et al. 1983) used to collect their data. As examples of scale items:

Item 3: “In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and stressed?”Item 11: “In the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that

happened that were outside of your control?”

It can be noted that Item 3 combines stress and emotion, while ‘Anger’, in Item 11, is one of the six ‘basic emotions’ named by Ekman, Dalgleish et al. (1999) [cited by (Sabini and Silver 2005)].

In summary of the above concerns, the results from this paper are likely uninterpretable due to the issues of reliability and validity that have been discussed.






Publication by membersNazari Far E, Kaveh MH, Rezaian E, Yarelahi M, Asadollahi A. Psychometric Properties and Cut-off Points of Burden and Satisfaction Associated with Caregiving Role among Iranian Grandparents. JHealth Sci Surveillance Sys. 2020;8(4):156-161.Correspondence: Abdolrahim Asadollahi [email protected]

AbstractBackground: Caregiving burden is defined as a specific level of pressure and problems expressed by caregiver or family, which involves a range of psychological, emotional, social and economic problems. Further, satisfaction is described as the level of the mental happiness, self-confidence and usefulness sensed by caregiver about his/her own caregiving behaviour. The present study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the Persian version of caregiving satisfaction (SCR) and caregiving burden of grandchildren scales (BCR) among grandparent population by considering the lack of a Persian tool for their measurement.Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive-analytic study was conducted on 70 grandparents who were selected through convenience sampling among the individuals referred to the healthcare centres of five southern cities in Iran Shiraz, Sepidan, Fasa, Jahrom, and Borazjan from April to August, 2019. The questionnaires were filled out by individual interview with participants and the data were analysed through explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses and ROC curve, using SPSS 25 and Amos 21.Results: Two factors were extracted in each questionnaire (Regarding each questionnaire, happiness and responsibility in individual and social satisfaction in caregiving burden were extracted through explanatory factor analysis), representing 78.1 and 75.1% of total variance, respectively. The Cronbach’s coefficients alpha related to these subscales were obtained as 0.709-0.859 by indicating an acceptable internal consistency.Conclusion: The Persian version of these questionnaires had appropriate validity and reliability required for measuring satisfaction and caregiving burden of grandchildren among Iranian grandparents and can be used in day care and healthcare centres.


\Why governments should prioritize wellbeingNicola Sturgeon

https://www.ted.com/talks/nicola_sturgeon_why_governments_should_prioritize_well_being?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

In 2018, Scotland, Iceland and New Zealand established the network of Wellbeing Economy Governments to challenge the acceptance of GDP as the ultimate measure of a country's success. In this visionary talk, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon explains the far-reaching implications of a "well-being economy" -- which places factors like equal pay, childcare, mental health and access to green space at its heart -- and shows how this new focus could help build resolve to confront global challenges.





The paradox of happiness: the more you chase it the more elusive it becomeshttps://theconversation.com/the-paradox-of-happiness-the-more-you-chase-it-the-more-elusive-it-becomes-112217Lorenzo Buscicchi and Dan Weijers

The paradox of happiness states that if you strive for happiness by direct means, you end up less happy than if you forget about happiness and focus on other goals. Ancient wisdom advises us not to pursue happiness directly. Why does striving for happiness tend to result in unhappiness or disappointment? Many people frequently experience happiness, but both philosophers and psychologists note that we are so inept at pursuing it that if we do strive for it we fail, sometimes catastrophically, and end up far less happy than if we had never tried. Fortunately, thousands of researchers and policymakers have been advancing global knowledge about the causes and effects of happiness and happiness-promoting activities for decades. We learn more every day about how best to measure and increase the happiness of individuals and groups with a variety of backgrounds and in a variety of contexts.




Dr Erica McIntyreResearch Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology SydneyKeywords: Public health, Resilience, Environmental psychology, Urban design, Wellbeing

Ms Christine Corlet WalkerPhD Candidate, Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable ProsperityKeywords: Sustainable welfare; Post-growth welfare; Wellbeing economy; Beyond GDP

Associate Professor Baris AlpaslanAssociate Dean, Faculty of Political Science & Lecturer, Department of Economics, Social Sciences University of AnkaraKeywords: Growth theory, Development macroeconomics, Poverty reduction, Human development

-----------------------ReferencesCampbell, A., P. E. Converse and W. L. Rodgers (1976). The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations, and satisfactions. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.





Cohen, S., T. Kamarck and R. Mermelstein (1983). "A global measure of perceived stress." Journal of health and social behavior 24: 385-396.

Cummins, R. A. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. Oxford Bibliographies Online. D. S. Dunn. New York Oxford University Press.

Ekman, P., T. Dalgleish and M. Power (1999). Basic Emotions. Handbook of cognition and emotion. T. Dalgleish and M. Power. New York, Wiley.

Glatz, C. and A. Eder (2020). "Patterns of Trust and Subjective Well-Being Across Europe: New Insights from Repeated Cross-Sectional Analyses Based on the European Social Survey 2002–2016." Social Indicators Research 148: 417-439.



Mason, J. W. (1971). "A re-evaluation of the concept of “non-specificity” in stress theory." Journal of Psychiatric Research 8: 323-333.

Richardson, B., M. D. Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, A. J. Tomyn and R. A. Cummins (2016). "The Psychometric equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for normally functioning and homeostatically defeated Australian adults." Journal of Happiness Studies 15 (1): 43-56.

Sabini, J. and M. Silver (2005). "Ekman's basic emotions: Why not love and jealousy?" Cognition & Emotion 19(5): 693-712.

Selye, H. (1950a). Stress. The Physiology and Pathology of Exposure to Stress. Montreal, Acta Med. Publ.




other person.

Happiness memory and forecasting


Background: "the mentally healthy person appears to have the enviable capacity to distort reality in a direction that enhances self-esteem, maintains beliefs in personal efficacy, and promotes an optimistic view of the future" (Taylor and Brown 1988)(p.204)

As identified over 30y ago, under normal operating conditions, humans have a remarkably distorted view of their personal world. They regard their world as rosier than it is compared to an objective measurement of their life circumstance. They also distort remembered levels of affect and have a very poor ability to predict the strength of future affective experiences. These deficiencies are in such sharp contrast to our memory for cognitive/perceptual experience that there must be an adaptive advantage to this uncertain connection with objective reality. There must also be determined neurological, hard-wired mechanisms designed to bias affective perception in these ways. Happily, the understanding of such mechanisms has increased substantially since Taylor and Brown, and one branch of enlightenment has come from studying the way we process levels of subjective wellbeing (SWB). To understand these insights, the structure and function of SWB requires explanation.

The main constituent of SWB is affect in the form of mood and emotion (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007). The mood component is Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood), which is measured as an amalgam of three affects: content, happy, and alert. The level of HPMood is genetically determined for each person, as their ‘setpoint’. In a population sample, these setpoints form a normal distribution between 70 and 90 percentage points (pp) [on a 0-100pp scale of satisfaction] (Capic, Li et al. 2018).

The purpose of HPMood is to provide a weak, positively activated, affective background to consciousness, such that HPMood is present in most thoughts that concern self-evaluations. Because of this, people generally feel positive about themselves. However, since HPMood is normally at a level below conscious awareness, and since its level is constant for each individual person, it cannot be directly linked to a specific affective experience. Rather, it is a constant source of bias within consciousness, that becomes incorporated into the affective perception of each experience. This is the source of the “enviable capacity to distort reality” in a positive way, as identified by Taylor and Brown.

The other affective component of SWB is emotion. This is the cognitive/affective complex generated in response to thoughts or percepts. Thus, emotion is the variable component of SWB, reflecting the flow of affective information in the brain, and has the following characteristics:

(a) Emotion commonly occurs at a level that is stronger than HPMood. This allows the information carried by the emotion to be recognized above the HPMood background, and so is available to be processed by conscious experience.

(b) Emotions are most commonly negative (Anglim, Weinberg et al. 2015). Thus, responses to SWB scales typically lie below the average set-point (80pp). This also accounts for the average level of SWB in the Australian population being at 75pp (Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2021), rather than at the average setpoint level of 80pp.

(c) Within any single SWB response, the momentary balance between HPMood and emotion depends, inter alia, on the level of cognitive engagement generated by the question used to measure SWB. When cognition is weakly engaged, for example by Global Life Satisfaction

(GLS: ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?’), emotions are weakly stimulated due to the abstract nature of the question, and the SWB response reasonably approximates the level of HPMood (Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a). A more cognitively engaging question, such as ‘How satisfied are you with your neighbours?’ will yield a response reflecting emotion more than HPMood.

With this background, it can be understood why reported levels of SWB differ due to the temporal anchors of ‘past vs present vs future’. Working backwards from this list, because the future is unknown, a question about the future “How satisfied with your life will you be in five years?” is not very cognitively engaging. Consequently, such an ‘affective forecast’ is low in emotion, high in HPMood, and so tends to approximate setpoint.

When the SWB question is cast in the present “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole”, the topic is more cognitively engaging than the question about the future. As a consequence, the response contains more emotion, and the emotion content causes a lower SWB rating.

When the question is cast in the past “How satisfied with your life were you five years ago?”,the estimate of SWB level is minimally engaging HPMood. This is because purpose of HPMood is to maintain present and future feelings of positivity. The past is historical and no longer about a self that must be defended. Thus, questions about the past mainly engage emotion, which causes SWB levels to fall below the ‘present’ estimate. The ordering of SWB levels as Past<Present<Future is a robust finding (Andrews and Withey 1976, Pavot, Diener et al. 1998).

This proposal, concerning the reduced ratio of HPMood/emotion in estimates of past SWB levels, is also consistent with correlational evidence produced by Andrews and Withey (1976). To explain: the presence of HPMood is a major factor enhancing the correlation between self-report variables (Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a). Thus, as the evaluation of past SWB level rests mainly on emotion, this changes the composition of the measured SWB, and the strength of the relationship between future/present with past SWB should decrease.

In support of this proposition, Andrews and Withey correlated single item measures of SWB (Global Life Satisfaction) using two different response scales and the future, present, past terminology. One response scale was a conventional line scale marked at intervals, and the second a Ladder Scale marked in steps. The correlations between the two response scales, when the satisfaction question was framed as future, present, or past, was Future: .45 ; Present: .54 ; Past: .18 (Exhibit 3.2, Life 3, p.78).

In summary of the above, the estimated level of SWB in the past is proposed to be both the least contaminated by HPMood and to have the highest level of emotion. So, why is the memory of past emotion so unreliable? There are several reasons as:

(1) As Robinson and Clore (2002) conclude from their review “an emotional experience can neither be stored nor retrieved. ... Although emotions can sometimes be generated by mentally re-enacting a past situation (Wyer, Clore et al. 1999), the resulting experience is a new emotion created in the moment, not an old emotion called up from memory.” (p.935).

(2) Negative emotion is more readily recalled than positive emotion. Termed a ‘durability bias’ by Gilbert, Pinel et al. (1998), this is a memory bias towards the preferential recall of negative emotions.

(3) When people are asked how happy they will be if they win the lottery, people focus too much on the single occurrence in question (winning the lottery) and fail to consider the simultaneous consequences of other negative events (begging relatives) that are likely to co-occur. This phenomenon has been termed a ‘focusing illusion’ (Schkade and Kahneman 1998).

In conclusion, the positive view of the future, and the preferentially negative memory for past emotion, is a design-feature of the memory system.

Reference: Villinger, K., et al. (2020). "Do We Know What We Enjoy? Accuracy of Forecasted Eating Happiness." Frontiers in psychology 11(1187).

Author summary: The present study examined forecasting accuracy for a day-to-day repetitive experience for which people have a wealth of past experiences (eating happiness), along with dispositional expectations toward eating (“foodiness”). Seventy-three participants … used a smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment to assess their food intake and eating happiness over 14 days. Eating happiness experienced in-the-moment showed considerable inter-and intra-individual variation, ICC = 0.47. Comparing forecasted and in-the-moment eating happiness revealed a significant discrepancy whose magnitude was affected by dispositional expectations and the variability of the experience.

Comment on Villinger etal (2020)The most arresting feature of this paper is the required energy expenditure by both researchers and participants, most especially the latter. 80 people volunteered to visit the university in small groups for introductory sessions. This involved the completion of a questionnaire, familiarization with a smartphone and app, and being given a booklet providing instructions for both.

Over 14 consecutive days, at the time of consumption, they recorded the details of all eating occasions. These included “meals and snacks, and … the meal types (breakfast, lunch, teatime, dinner, and snack), take pictures of each eating occasions (including initial portion, additional courses, and leftovers), and select the main components of the meal using a search function. They were further asked to rate the eating happiness they experienced in-the-moment of eating immediately after their meal was finished” (p.3). As compensation, the participants received “a detailed written feedback about their eating behavior and eating profile characteristics”. Presumably, most of this gathered information will be used in a future publication.

Despite their Herculean effort, the paper provides little useful information. Their measures of (present) ‘In-the-moment eating happiness’ and (future) ‘Forecasted eating happiness’ seem to have been devised for the study. The only psychometric statistic provided for each 3-item scale is Cronbach’s alpha which, at α>.9, indicates item redundancy. The items in both scales are built around the three meal evaluations, rated as being ‘enjoyed’, ‘pleased’, and ‘tasty’. In the Forecasted version this becomes rather odd “I expect to be pleased with my meals”, which seems self-evident. But maybe it has lost its essence in the translation from German.

In any event, their main effect, of in-the-moment vs forecasted happiness, was not significant for the whole sample. The rest of the results are based on the generation of sub-samples, some of which comparisons are significant. However, the lack of a simple difference between the two main conditions suggests that their further results should be treated with caution. This is especially so given the strength of past literature demonstrating future>present happiness levels (Abrams 1974, Röcke and Lachman 2008, Burrow, Sumner et al. 2014) and the methodological issues that have been raised.






Publication by membersSeif, M., A. Asadollahi, M. Yarelahi and E. Rezaian (2020). "Item response analysis to explore psychometric properties of the Persian version of Troutman successful aging inventory: Rasch partial credit model." Journal of Health Psychology(June 7): 1-8.Corresponding author: Abdolrahim Asadollahi <[email protected]>

Abstract: The study aimed to evaluate Persian version of the TSAI-2011 to determine successful aging issues in older adults. In a psychometric study, the instrument was completed by 400 men and women aged 60 and above and the Rasch partial credit model was used. The PCM indicated that items 1 and 20 were misfitting. Also, successive response categories for all items were located in the expected order and version of TSAI with 22-items had more internal consistency. Although Rasch analysis indicated to relevant of TSAI 22-Items, it should be evaluated in further studies and divergent cultures


Save the Children International (2019). Changing lives in our lifetime. London, Author. https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2019/05/apo-nid238711-1362161.pdf

In commemoration of its founding 100 years ago, Save the Children is releasing its third annual Global Childhood Report to celebrate progress for children. We examine the majorreasons why childhood comes to an early end, and find significantly fewer children suffering ill-health, malnutrition, exclusion from education, child labor, child marriage, earlypregnancy and violent death. In the year 2000, an estimated 970 million children were robbed of their childhoods due to these causes. That number today has been reduced to 690 million – meaning at least 280 million children are better off today than they would have been two decades ago.

https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2019/05/apo-nid238711-1362161.pdf

A comparison of End of Childhood Index scores finds the overall situation for children has improved in 173 out of 176 countries since 2000. This is welcome news – and it shows that investments and policies are working to lift up many of our children. Tremendous progress for children is taking place in some of the poorest countries in the world, providing ever increasing evidence that development work is paying huge dividends in countries where needs are greatest.



How Do We Perceive Beauty Without the Ability to See?https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dissecting-plastic-surgery/202012/how-do-we-perceive-beauty-without-the-ability-seeMichael Reilly and Keon Parsa

The concept of facial beauty is universally and intuitively understood. For centuries, people have attempted to define “beauty” using a variety of mathematical models. Recent social science research has identified four key components that make up beauty: symmetry, averageness, sexual dimorphism and youthfulness. This raises the question: how do those with impaired vision perceive beauty in others? A recent study suggests that nonvisual cues trigger processing in parts of the brain that can detect beauty when the ability is hindered. One part of the explanation for the results suggests that pheromones drive the ratings of beauty for blind observers. This recent study provides an important perspective on the definition of beauty, challenging cultural ideals of focusing on body ratios and facial proportions as the hallmark of attractiveness, but demonstrating that beauty is more than skin deep.


Report from the ACQol siteGoogle Analytics inclusive period: December 2020

Number of individual users who initiated at least one session during the date range: 927Number of sessions: 1,115


Membership RegistrarWelcome to new memberhttp://www.acqol.com.au/members

Professor Moustafa Abdul-JwadProfessor, Beni Suef University






Keywords: Demography- quality of life measures, Emigration

-----------------------ReferencesAbrams, M. (1974). "This Britain: A Contented Nation?" New Society 27(594): 439-440.

Andrews, F. M. and S. B. Withey (1976). Social indicators of well-being: American's perceptions of life quality. New York, Plenum Press.

Anglim, J., M. K. Weinberg and R. A. Cummins (2015). "Bayesian hierarchical modeling of the temporal dynamics of subjective well-being: A 10 year longitudinal analysis." Journal of Research in Personality 59(3): 1-14.

Burrow, A. L., R. Sumner and A. D. Ong (2014). "Perceived Change in Life Satisfaction and Daily Negative Affect: The Moderating Role of Purpose in Life." Journal of Happiness Studies 15(3): 579-592.

Capic, T., N. Li and R. A. Cummins (2018). "Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators." Social Indicators Research 137(1): 1-28.

Cummins, R. A., T. Capic, D. Hutchinson, M. Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, C. A. Olsson and B. Richardson (2018a). "Why self-report variables inter-correlate: The role of Homeostatically Protected Mood." Journal of Wellbeing Assessment 2: 93-114.

Davern, M., R. A. Cummins and M. Stokes (2007). "Subjective wellbeing as an affective/cognitive construct." Journal of Happiness Studies 8(4): 429-449.

Gilbert, D. T., E. C. Pinel, T. D. Wilson, S. J. Blumberg and T. P. Wheatley (1998). "Immune neglect: A source of durability bias in affective forecasting." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75(3): 617-639.


Pavot, W., E. Diener and E. Suh (1998). "The Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale." Journal of Personality Assessment 70: 340-354.

Robinson, M. D. and G. L. Clore (2002). "Belief and feeling: evidence for an accessibility model of emotional self-report." Psychological bulletin 128(6): 934-960.

Röcke, C. and M. E. Lachman (2008). "Perceived trajectories of life satisfaction across past, present, and future: profiles and correlates of subjective change in young, middle-aged, and older adults." Psychology and aging 23(4): 833-847.

Schkade, D. A. and D. Kahneman (1998). "Does living in California make people happy? A focusing illusion in judgments of life satisfaction." Psychological Science 9(5): 340-346.

Taylor, S. E. and J. D. Brown (1988). "Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health." Psychological Bulletin 103: 193-210.

Wyer, R. S., G. L. Clore and L. M. Isbell (1999). Affect and information processing. Advances in experimental social psychology, Elsevier. 31: 1-77.



Thought-bubble for discussionmajid omidi <[email protected]> “what is your point of view about quality of life in a religious community? I think religious people are afraid to say that they are not satisfied with their religious and spiritual status”.

Cummins replies: an interesting question! And I do not have an informed answer. If it could be demonstrated that people are positively responding through fear of reprisal, then this would also likely apply to people being asked how satisfied they feel about their politicians in a non-democratic country, etc. I wonder how such a combination of claimed ‘adoration’ and actual ‘fear’ could be measured in a way to validly inform this question? Members’ views will be welcomed, to be published in the next Bulletin issue.


other person.

Problems with convenience samplingCummins, R. A.

The two previous issues of this Bulletin have addressed recruitment and data analysis procedures being commonly used by survey researchers in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia. These publications highlight two main concerns as:

1. Opportunistic recruiting techniques, such as through snow-balling, advertising, and ‘opt-in’ to incentivised online panels, produce samples of respondents with abnormally low levels of subjective wellbeing (SWB). This was also the conclusion reached by (Weinberg, Webb et al. 2018) [manuscript attached] in the following terms:

“It is generally assumed that if a sample represents its broader population on keydemographic variables, the data it yields will also be representative. Here we present evidence to suggest that this is not necessarily so when subjective wellbeing is measured fromparticipants recruited through online panels. Using data from six countries: Australia, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, UK and USA, we reveal significant differences in subjective wellbeing between online panel data and nationally representative data, even though both are demographically comparable. These findings indicate that the online panels comprised an abnormally high proportion of people with low subjective wellbeing, thus rendering their data non-representative” (abstract).


The reason for the abnormally low SWB of samples recruited from online panels (Cummins 2020f) is surely linked to motivation. Self-selected respondents must provide their own intrinsic motivation to both locate and complete the survey. This automatically excludes most people in the population, who choose to spend their time differently. However, during the COVID period, when people are spending more time at home, more people than usual may be scanning the web for either entertainment or information. This group is sure to include people looking for information relevant to their feelings of depression, anxiety, or stress (see, e.g. Fisher, Tran et al. 2020). The recruitment of these people will contribute to the sample’s low SWB, but the whole sample so assembled is not representative of the population, and also has no obvious functional link to national demographic statistics.

2. Of second concern is the increasingly employed statistical technique, of weighting convenience samples by national demographic proportions to make them more representative of the national population. This may be either done by a direct manipulation of the original data, or indirectly by including objective national demographic variables in a logistic regression predicting the level of SWB. In respect of money in this regard, it was argued:

“… under ideal operating conditions, there should be no correlation between money and SWB. The appearance of a significant positive correlation between money and SWB is a signal of pathological functioning in the form of homeostatic failure. However, any such link between money and SWB is clearly complex and non-linear. Their relationship is set within a complex system of management, which may or may not be income sensitive. In this context of SWB measurement through surveys, weighting the income of a sample to fit the procrustean bed of national demographic statistics lacks a logical basis”. (Cummins 2020e)

To shed more light of both concerns, currently available results on Australian levels of SWB both historically and during 2020 are presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Surveys relevant to estimates of subjective wellbeing during 2020.

Date of survey Reference Method of data

collection

Scale N PWI mean

Data collection device

2007 R1 M1 PWI 76.6 Landline2011 R2 M1 PWI 77.5 Landline2014 R3 M4 PWI 952 76.3 Landline2014 R4 M2 PWI 1,203 69.0 Convenience sampling-web

2015 Oct -Dec R5 M1 PWI 22,000 77.3 Landline + Mobile“ “ “ GLS “ 78.0 “

2020 May-Jun R6 M2 PWI 2,000 65.0 Convenience sampling-web2020 10-21 Sept R7 M2 PWI 2,000 62.0 Convenience sampling-web2020 8-28 April R8 M3 PWI 2,000 63.4 Convenience sampling-web

2020 27April 19May R9 M4 PWI 2,000 76.5 Landline + Mobile2020 14Sept-16Nov R10 M5 PWI 1,000 72.9 Web-based questionnaire

Note: GLS = Global Life Satisfaction

R1: results were collected and published by the McCaughey VicHealth Community Wellbeing Unit atthe Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. [Cited in

R3].R2: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (2012). VicHealth Indicators Survey 2011. Melbourne,

Author.

R3: Weinberg, M. K. and Others. (2014a). Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, Report 31.0. The Wellbeing of Australians: The happiest days of life, and music. Part A: The Report. Melbourne Campus, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University.

R4: Weinberg, M. K., D. A. Webb, W. Gwozdz and R. A. Cummins (2018). "Subjective Wellbeing and recruitment from incentivised online panels: Caveat emptor." Journal of Wellbeing Assessment 2: 41–55.

R5: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (2015). VicHealth Indicators Survey 2015: Selected findings. Melbourne, Author.

R6: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (2020a). VicHealth Coronavirus Victorian Wellbeing Impact Study. Melbourne Author https://doi.org/10.37309/2020.PO909.

R7: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (2020b). VicHealth Coronavirus Victorian Wellbeing Impact Study. Melbourne, Author

R8: Westrupp, E., et al. (2020). "Study protocol for the COVID-19 Pandemic Adjustment Survey(CPAS): A longitudinal study of Australian parents of a child 0-18 years." Frontiers in

Psychiatry 11:: 1-11.R9: Khor, S., et al. (2020a). Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: -Report 37.0 - Subjective Wellbeing

during COVID-19. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University. http://www.acqol.com.au/publications#reports.

R10: Australian longitudinal study (LONG-3). Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University.

M1: Proportional sampling within local government areas: Sample contact through random-digit dialling within each area and telephone interviews. Victoria only.

M2: Web-based convenience sampling using an incentivised ‘opt-in’ panel (LiveTribe) of people previously recruited to the panel from many different sources. Australia only.

M3: This study recruited Australian parents with a child aged 0-18y. Recruitment was via paid and unpaid social media advertisements.

M4: Proportional sample representing the population distribution across Australia. Sample contact through random-digit dialling within each area and telephone interviews.

M5: Longitudinal sample in its 3rd wave (annual) comprising a mix of respondents who were being followed-up and new recruits from the most recent Australian Unity Wellbeing Index survey. Sample contact was through email and the completion of an on-line questionnaire.

Comments on Table 1 are as follows:

1. All of the PWI (Personal Wellbeing Index) and GLS (Global Life Satisfaction) values have been standardized to a 0 to 100 percentage point (pp) scale. This transformation uses either the formula provided in the scale manual (International Wellbeing Group 2013) or, in the case of an original 0 to 10 response scale, by shifting the decimal point one place to the right.

2. The studied used one of two different sampling techniques to acquire their data. M1, M4 and M5 all used proportional sampling based on geographic areas. The M1 areas were all within the state of Victoria, M4 and M5 were nation-wide. The remaining samples (M2 and M3) were passively recruited convenience samples, where recruitment was based on the choice of people browsing web-site advertising to opt-in to complete the questionnaire.

3. It can be seen from Table 1 that the two sampling strategies produced non-overlapping PWI mean scores as: Convenience 62 – 69pp, and proportional 72.9 – 78pp.

4. A perspective onto these results is provided by the normative ranges for PWI data (Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2021). Their Table 1 shows a normative range for sample mean scores for the PWI of 74.13 to 76.73pp (SD 0.65pp), and for GLS of 75.75 to 79.24pp (SD 0.87).

5. Comparing these normative values to the current results, the summary is as follows:5.1 Values inside their normative range are: R1, R5 (GLS), R9.5.2 Values <1 SD above range: R5 (PWI)5.3 Values <2 SD above range : R25.4 Values <2 SD below range : R105.5 Values >7 SD below range: R4, R6, R7, R8

In summary, all of the proportional samples have a mean score within 2 SDs of the normal range, while all three of the convenience samples have mean scores at least 7 SDs below the normal range.

6. In terms of weighting these data, these reports record the following details:R1: UnknownR2: UnknownR3: No weightingR4: No weightingR5: No weightingR6: “used a population weight comprising age and gender structure within each [local area sample].” “Survey weighting was applied to the data prior to analysis to ensure representativeness at both the [local area sample] and state level.” They do not provide a comparison of weighted vs unweighted results or say whether the mean values they report are weighted.R7: “Data was (sic) calibrated with probability-based data collected by Life in AustraliaTM and weighted to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) population statistics to overcome some of the biases associated with data collection via non-probability panels” (p.1). It is notable that some of the proportional changes in demographics changed by about a third (their Table 2).R8: The full paper is not yet published.R9: No weightingR10: No weighting

In summary, none of these reports provide a comparison of weighted vs unweighted SWB, nor do they demonstrate the relevance of this weighting. While their blanket application of ABS proportions has generally caused a small adjustment to raw demographic percentages, in some cases the adjustment is substantial. Due to these differences, and the uncertainty of what these adjustments are doing to the replicability of their results, the application of such weightings do not to make the results more replicable or interpretable. Indeed, the concern with weightings seems to have placed an emphasis on the wrong confounding variable. By far the most powerful influence on these data is whether the sample was based on geographic probability sampling or convenience sampling.

Conclusions: Opportunistic sampling, that capitalizes on the intrinsic motivation of a target interest group, will attract respondents who are motivated by the topic being advertised. This motivation will be enhanced by a sense of threat and in the current context, such

opportunistic sampling will attract people who are feeling depressed and anxious due to the COVID pandemic. These samples will therefore display a heightened level of psychopathology which will be only weakly related to demographic characteristics. Thus, while demographic weighting of such samples may statistically normalize the data to reflect national proportions, the evident psychopathology of respondents will remain as the dominating characteristic of the sample.


Further discussion of this article, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: [email protected]

Substantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 3rd January, will be published in the following Bulletin. Such comments may offer a novel extension to the view that has been put, an alternative and informed view, or offer a critique, all in the spirit of




Park, S., et al. (2020). COVID-19: Australian news and misinformation. Canberra, University of Canberra, News & Media Research Centre. https://researchprofiles.canberra.edu.au/en/publications/covid-19-australian-news-and-misinformation

During social isolation, Australians are staying at home to flatten the curve of the spread of the disease. This has resulted in an increase in news and media consumption, particularly among women and young people.

However, news fatigue is driving avoidance. Half (52%) say they feel tired of hearing about COVID-19 and 46% say they find the news coverage overwhelming. Women are more likely to avoid it because they find it upsetting and men are more likely to avoid it because they are overwhelmed by the volume of news.

Australians trust scientists and health experts the most as sources of information about the coronavirus (85%), followed by the government (66%) and news organisations (52%). Australians also think the federal government has done a good job of informing them about the pandemic (75%) and how they should respond (81%).



A ‘Great Cultural Depression’ Looms for Legions of Unemployed Performershttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/arts/unemployed-performer-theatre-arts.html Patricia Cohen


https://researchprofiles.canberra.edu.au/en/publications/covid-19-australian-news-and-misinformation

https://researchprofiles.canberra.edu.au/en/publications/covid-19-australian-news-and-misinformation

What is life without live music, arts and culture? With theatres and concert halls shuttered, unemployment in the arts has cut deeper than in restaurants and other hard-hit industries. In many areas, arts venues — theatres, clubs, performance spaces, concert halls, festivals — were the first businesses to close, and they are likely to be among the last to reopen. Many live performers have looked for new ways to pursue their art, turning to video, streaming and other platforms. However, what will these industries look like after the pandemic? And how will this affect our societies and cultures?


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https://rockstar-english.com/lessons/advanced/12-Flesch_Kincaid_Readability_Test.pdf

https://www.ef-australia.com.au/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-3000-words/

https://www.ef-australia.com.au/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-3000-words/

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