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The Personal Wellbeing Index and the International Wellbeing Group. Robert A. Cummins President, ISQOLS and Australian Centre on Quality of Life Deakin University. http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol. Objective Conditions e.g. Physical health. Subjective Perceptions
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The Personal Wellbeing Index and the International Wellbeing Group Robert A. Cummins President, ISQOLS and Australian Centre on Quality of Life Deakin University http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol
Objective Conditions e.g. Physical health Subjective Perceptions e.g. Satisfaction with health Subjective Wellbeing [happiness] Objective QOL Quality of Life ?
www.vermontdairy.com/ice_cream Feelings of ‘wellbeing’ come in two varieties Short-term ‘state’ happiness An emotional response to something nice Long-term ‘trait’ happiness A mood with a genetic basis Subjective wellbeing [Contentment]
Subjective Wellbeing A positive state of mind that involves the whole life experience How do we measure it?
SWB can be measured by a single question ‘How satisfied are you with life as a whole?’ However, multiple item scales are preferable
Multi-item global Scale (1985) Derivative scales Satisfaction with life Scale 5 items asking about ‘life as a whole’ Satisfaction with life as a whole
Strongly agree The Satisfaction With Life ScaleDiener, Emmons, Larsen, and Griffin (1985) In most ways my life is close to my ideal. The conditions of my life are excellent. I am satisfied with my life. So far I have gotten the important things I want in life. If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing. Strongly disagree
Multi-item global scale Derivative scales Satisfaction with life Scale 5 items asking about ‘life as a whole’ Satisfaction with life as a whole Deconstruction scale Personal Wellbeing Index 7 items representing the First Level Deconstruction Of ‘life as a whole’
How satisfied are you with your-----? • Standard of living • Health • Achieving in life • Relationships • Safety • Community connectedness • Future security • Spirituality/Religion Personal Wellbeing Index International Wellbeing Group (2006) http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol
r= .7 - .8 r= .7 - .8 r= .7 - .8 Multi-item global scale PWI Validity Satisfaction with life Scale 5 items asking about ‘life as a whole’ Satisfaction with life as a whole Deconstruction scale Personal Wellbeing Index 8 items representing the First Level Deconstruction Of ‘life as a whole’
“How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?” Domains: all must contribute unique variance Standard of living Health Achieving in life Relationships Safety Community connectedness Future security Spirituality/Religion β β β β β β β β
How satisfied are you with your ----? [Jones and Thurstone ,1955] 11-point, end-defined scale Completely Dissatisfied Completely Satisfied
We code all data to lie on a range from Complete dissatisfaction Complete satisfaction 0 100
In 2000 Deakin University and Australian Unity formed a partnership Purpose:to create a quarterly index of subjective wellbeing for the Australian population. As an alternative to the traditional economic indicators such as GDP
The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index Surveys Geographically representative sample N = 2,000 Telephone interview #1: April 2001 ------------ #21: May 2009
Personal Wellbeing Index2001 - 2009 77 76.5 >S11 76 >S2, S4, S5 Scores above this line are 75 significantly higher than S1 Strength of satisfaction 74 73.6 This represents a 3.0 percentage point variation 73 Maximum = 76.3 Current = 75.6 Minimum = 73.2 72 i Major events e g h j a c f k b d preceding survey Survey S7 Jun 2003 S3 Mar 2002 S5 Nov 2002 S6 Mar 2003 S9 Nov 2003 S4 Aug 2002 S8 Aug 2003 S2 Sept 2001 S14 Oct 2005 S16 Oct 2006 S18 Oct 2007 S20 Oct 2008 S10 Feb 2004 S11 May 2004 S13 May 2005 S15 May 2006 S21 May 2009 S12 Aug 2004 S17 Apr 2007 S19 Apr 2008 S1 Apr 2001 S18.1 Feb 2008 S20.1 Feb 2009 Date
In 2001 we formed the International Wellbeing Group. AIM-1 To examine the relative psychometric performance of the Personal Wellbeing Index in different cultural and language groups.
The International Wellbeing Group 51 Countries and Provinces
AIM-2 To get beyond simplistic (and misleading) between-country comparisons of SWB To build understanding of WHY countries differ in their SWB
Macau 2007(N≈500) The Macau Quality of Life Report Richard Whitfield and Paulo A Azevedo
Summary • The Personal Wellbeing Index has the potential to be developed as a valid cross-cultural instrument. • The International Wellbeing Group comprises researchers capable of undertaking that development • The Group needs financial support to undertake this task systematically.