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Background: Life satisfaction is a key component of students' subjective well-being due to its impact on academic achievement and lifelong health. Although previous studies have investigated life satisfaction through different lenses, few of them employed machine learning (ML) approaches. Objective: Using ML algorithms, the current study predicts secondary students' life satisfaction from individual-level variables. Method: Two supervised ML models, random forest (RF) and k-nearest neighbours (KNN), were developed based on the UK data and the Japan data in PISA 2018. Results: Findings show that (1) both models yielded better performance on the UK data than on the Japanese data; (2) the RF model outperformed the KNN model in predicting students' life satisfaction; (3) meaning in life, student competition, teacher support, exposure to bullying and ICT resources at home and at school played important roles in predicting students' life satisfaction. Conclusions: Theoretically, this study highlights the multi-dimensional nature of life satisfaction and identifies several key predictors. Methodologically, this study is the first to use ML to explore the predictors of life satisfaction. Practically, it serves as a reference for improving secondary students' life satisfaction.

This study aims to explore the main aspects of sense of belonging, including academic and social engagement, life satisfaction, thoughts of leaving university, demographic characteristics and socio-economic status by applying quantitative measurement. Having considered the concepts of disadvantaged or non-traditional groups deployed in previous studies, a survey questionnaire was designed to investigate how certain factors are related to students' belonging. Statistical analysis of data from 380 participants reveals that students' sense of belonging and retention are crucially influenced by both academic engagement and social engagement, but independently. This study also addresses a lack of research about how the critical factors for disadvantage operate to determine belonging and retention in higher education. The findings should prompt a re-evaluation what we consider to be the sources of 'disadvantage', such as social class, age and ethnicity.

Background: Students often simultaneously deal with shifting support networks, stressful life changes and psychological distress which may affect academic achievement. Methods: 285 students completed the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) to assess depression and the Computerized Life Events Assessment Record (CLEAR), to establish life events and supportive relationships. Module grades were used to measure academic achievement. A general linear model was used with student grade as the dependent variable and life events, depression and supportive relationships as independent variables. Confounding variables included age and sex. Results: A three-way interaction between life events, depression and lack of supportive relationships was found. It indicated the performance of depressed students depended on whether they had supportive relationships and that this interaction also depended on whether they had experienced a life event in the past year. Conclusions: Universities need to provide more support to students with life stress as they transition into university life.

Background and aims: Although social resources and self-esteem are well-known predictors of subjective well-being in the general population, the relations among these factors have not yet been investigated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present preliminary study sought to compare the levels of life satisfaction, self-esteem and perceived social support between adults with ASD and typically developing volunteers (TYP). It also examined whether self-esteem would moderate the effect of perceived social support on life satisfaction in adults with ASD. Methods: Fifty-seven adults with ASD without intellectual disability and 60 age-matched TYP in the United Kingdom (UK) completed self-reported measures of perceived social support, global self-esteem, and life satisfaction. Results: Results indicated that adults with ASD reported significantly lower levels of life satisfaction and self-esteem (but not social support) than TYP. Hierarchical regressions revealed that both social support and self-esteem were significant predictors of life satisfaction in adults with ASD. Self-esteem buffered the effect of perceived social support on life satisfaction. Conclusions: This study corroborated a growing body of evidence that suggests that adults with ASD report lower levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction than TYP. In addition, it reported for the first time that global self-esteem influences the association between social support and life satisfaction in adults with ASD. Implications: The present findings suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing self-esteem and cultivating social relationships could be important areas for intervention to improve the well-being of adults with ASD.

The article addresses the issue of children and young people's well-being at school. The issue has been known as topical for already some time. In recent decades, in order to be able to determine the true nature and essence of the phenomenon of well-being, the necessity to find the ways for identification of children and young people's self-assessment of well-being at school has become very important. There are many challenges related to conducting new longitudinal studies on children and young people's well-being. The phenomenon of well-being at school cannot be seen only in the context of local situation; it is deeply contextual. Its essence is also determined by the content and values that have emerged in the development of wider global or regional relations and attitudes. Therefore, for the formation of a broader perspective of the article, such phenomena as sustainability and unsustainability were used. This made it possible to refer to the trends of sustainability and unsustainability that had long been highlighted in the studies of global development and education. The analysis of the phenomenon of well-being at school is offered based on the research results within EU FP7 project "Measuring Youth Well Being" (MYWeB) that took a balanced approach to assessing the feasibility of a European Longitudinal Study for Children and Young People through prioritising both scientific and policy imperatives and was carried out in cooperation with eleven European countries. The aim of the article in accordance with one of the specific tasks of the project is to find out the meaning and significance that children and young people allocate to well-being. The article discusses one of the most relevant domains of well-being--school, and how it relates to happiness, life-satisfaction and psychological well-being of children and young people. The article outlines the results of fieldwork undertaken in project consortium countries (Croatia, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom) with the goal to understand the subjective experiences of children and young people from different age groups, regions and socio-economic backgrounds. The results of the research confirmed that educational spaces could take a more significant role in promoting well-being of children and young people; in its turn, the education system must rebalance academic learning and emotional well-being.

Objective: Alcohol misuse prevention often fails to account for or replace the pleasurable benefits of drinking such as relaxing and socialising with friends. Increasingly, alcohol-free dance music events are emerging, allowing people to gain the positive outcomes of dancing without recourse to alcohol. This study sought to explore whether conscious-clubbing would be rated as an acceptable alternative to traditional alcohol-focused events. Design/Setting: An online cross-sectional survey was completed by 281 young respondents (80.4% female; mean age = 22). Method: Health-related cognitions (attitudes, intentions), perceived acceptability towards alcohol-free dance events and the extent to which these were predicted by demographics and individual differences were assessed in the survey. Results: "T"-tests indicated overall positive attitudes, acceptability, support towards and intention to attend alcohol-free clubbing events regardless of drinking status, with the exception of drinkers' intentions to attend an event. Exploratory multiple regression analyses indicated that young women and individuals who had previously attended these events held more positive attitudes. These attitudes were associated with acceptability and support, but more favourable attitudes towards alcohol consumption were inversely related to acceptability. More positive attitudes, previous attendance and lower life satisfaction associated with higher intentions to attend an event. Conclusion: Results indicate that alcohol free events may provide an alternative socialising experience, with greater potential utility for young women, non-drinkers and individuals who have previously attended these events. This is of particular importance given that recent literature highlights the need for (non-alcohol) alternatives to socialise among a growing number of individuals.

Concerns about mental health difficulties in young people, mid-adolescent girls in particular, are on the rise. Many explanations ranging from peer pressure and bullying, to social media and gender inequality, have been offered for the rise in mental health problems. This study utilised data from the Millennium Cohort Study (Wave 6) to examine 14-year-olds' mental health and wellbeing in relation to familial and peer interactions, gender, socio-economic factors and social media use. Across measures of mental health and wellbeing, the findings showed that girls fared much worse than boys, particularly in experiencing negative feelings and low self-concept and life satisfaction and in self-harming. Teenage girls appeared to have become the new 'high risk' group. The findings from this study have implications for young people's mental health and wellbeing especially as seen through the lens of income and gender inequality. Given the current political concerns about young people's mental health, this study is hoped to contribute to an informed debate about individual wellbeing within a broader social milieu.

In this paper, I examine whether generalized trust and education, as well as social security policies of welfare state institutions matter for cross-national differences in subjective well-being (SWB), because knowledge on this issue is still lacking. For this purpose I integrated the insights of two sociological theories: Social Function Production theory and Actor-Centred Institutionalism. Based on these theoretical notions we derived several hypotheses, which I tested using multilevel analysis of the data from the European Social Survey (2006), in a sample of 37,237 respondents from 22 European countries. My findings indicate that various extensiveness of social security policies matter for the level of SWB, and for the impact of education on SWB. I found negative impact of low education on SWB in all countries, except in Northern and Western European countries. This might suggest that social security policies of the latter countries have diminished the negative impact of low education on SWB. Moreover, my findings indicate positive relationship between individual education and generalized trust; as well as between generalized trust and SWB in countries with all five types of social security policies.

Little is known about the subjective wellbeing (SWB) of young dancers with disabilities and whether it changes over time. The aim of this study was to assess the SWB of young dancers with disabilities enrolled on an extracurricular inclusive talent development programme in the UK at two time points. Twenty-two young dancers completed the Personal Wellbeing Index for people with intellectual disability at the beginning of the academic year. Thirteen dancers completed the questionnaire a second time towards the end of the academic year. Scores were compared with normative values, and a Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was conducted to assess change over time. The participants reported high levels of SWB at both time points in comparison with normative values. There was no significant change in wellbeing scores over time. The study contributes to a growing body of literature suggesting that people with disabilities have high levels of SWB. Although causality cannot be assumed, inclusive dance programmes may contribute to SWB and allow young people with disabilities to overcome the barriers associated with physical activity.

Objectives: Behavioral and emotional problems exhibited by children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have been identified as significant stressors for family members in both cross-sectional and longitudinal research. However, there is variability in the extent to which family members are affected by behavioral and emotional problems. In the present study, we explored whether perceived social support, positive perceptions, or coping style explain some of this variability and specifically whether these three variables function as protective factors.Methods: One hundred and thirty-eight mothers of children aged between four and 18 years old with IDD participated in a cross-sectional survey. Results: Using moderated multiple regression models, we found consistent evidence that perceived social support functioned as a protective factor -- affecting the relationship between child behavioral and emotional problems and maternal depression, life satisfaction, and positive affect. There was no evidence that coping and positive perceptions acted as a protective factors. Conclusion: Building social support through parental interventions, especially in families of children with behavioral and emotional problems, may result in improved well-being for mothers of children with IDD.

Outdoor activities can be an important complement to classroom learning, especially for children/young people excluded, or at risk of exclusion, from mainstream schooling. The current research explored the impact of a 12-week surfing programme among such a group in the UK. Pre-post data on physiological health (heart rate (HR)/blood pressure), self-reported well-being (life and domain satisfaction), connectedness (e.g. to nature, school), environmental awareness (e.g. role of sand dunes) and teacher evaluations (e.g. behaviour) were collected. Results found significant drops in HR (suggesting improved fitness), increased satisfaction with appearance, more positive attitudes towards school and friendships, greater environmental awareness and more positive teacher evaluations, post-intervention. A lack of findings in other domains suggests these results were not due to participants simply conforming to demand characteristics. Overall, the results suggest that surfing interventions could have important benefits for vulnerable young people who struggle with mainstream schooling. The need for future research using control groups and longer term follow-up is discussed.

This article examined levels of stress and associated coping strategies among UK academics. Adopting a positive psychology approach, the influence of the character strengths of hope, optimism, gratitude and self-efficacy on stress, subjective well-being (SWB), and mental health was examined in 216 academics in a UK university. The study explored the relationship between coping styles and the work-coping variables of sense of coherence and work locus of control and stress. No significant differences on the stress, well-being and mental health measures were found for participants' gender, whether in full-time or part-time employment and level of seniority within the university. Participants using problem-focused coping experienced lower levels of stress while dysfunctional coping was a positive predictor of stress. Hope agency, hope pathway, gratitude, optimism and self-efficacy were the strongest positive predictors of satisfaction with life (SWL), while levels of perceived stress negatively predicted SWL. Gratitude, hope agency and self-efficacy positively predicted positive affect, while stress was a negative predictor. Gratitude, hope agency, self-efficacy and optimism were negative significant predictors of negative affect while stress was a positive predictor. Gratitude positively predicted mental health, while stress was a negative predictor and optimism was a significant moderator of the relationship between stress and mental health. Academics with higher levels of gratitude, self-efficacy, hope and optimism report lower levels of stress at work and higher levels of well-being as measured by higher life satisfaction, higher positive affect and lower negative affect. New approaches to stress management training are suggested based on these findings.

There is hardly any cross-cultural research on the measurement invariance of the Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scales (BMSLSS). The current article evaluates the measurement invariance of the BMSLSS across cultural contexts. This cross-sectional study sampled 7,739 adolescents and emerging adults in 23 countries. A multi-group confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit of configural and partial measurement weights invariance models, indicating similar patterns and strengths in factor loading for both adolescents and emerging adults across various countries. We found insufficient evidence for scalar invariance in both the adolescents' and the emerging adults' samples. A multi-level confirmatory factor analysis indicated configural invariance of the structure at country and individual level. Internal consistency, evaluated by alpha and omega coefficients per country, yielded acceptable results. The translated BMSLSS across different cultural contexts presents good psychometric characteristics similar to what has been reported in the original scale, though scalar invariance remains problematic. Our results indicate that the BMSLSS forms a brief measure of life satisfaction, which has accrued substantial evidence of construct validity, thus suitable for use in cross-cultural surveys with adolescents and emerging adults, although evaluation of degree of invariance must be carried out to ensure its suitability for mean comparisons.

An intervention was carried out with primary school staff to promote well-being with weekly sessions of a project which became known as Chill and Chat. Data were gathered via questionnaires completed before and after the project and from three focus groups (before, during and after the intervention), and were analysed using thematic analysis. Results suggested that well-being was seen as important; however, colleagues with poor mental well-being were "pathologised", with "learning" to cope and maintaining positive well-being perceived as the sole responsibility of the staff member. Staff perceived the informality of provision to promote well-being as important and valued time to develop better relationships with colleagues rather than just "working relationships". Staff also reported perceptions of greater classroom efficacy, increased job satisfaction and feeling calmer. Implications for educational psychologist (EP) practice in helping school staff reflect on their well-being and actions to work as a team to promote well-being in school are discussed.

This study had three objectives. First, we examined the relationship between careerist orientation and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Second, we investigated the mediating role of life satisfaction in the relationship between careerist orientation and OCB. Third, we examined whether expatriate employees (those sent abroad on full-time company assignment) differed from non-expatriate employees in the strength of the relationship between careerist orientation and OCB. The expatriate sample consisted of 232 U.S. expatriates working in United Kingdom and the non-expatriate sample consisted of 210 full-time employees working in various organizations in the United States. We used hierarchical regression analyses to test the hypotheses. Careerist orientation adversely affected OCB because of lower life satisfaction that the employees experienced. Expatriate employees with a high careerist orientation exhibited lower level of OCB than non-expatriates with a high careerist orientation.

Using data from national socio-economic panel surveys in Australia, Britain and Germany, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that, in all three countries, preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner's personality, hours of work, social participation and healthy lifestyle have substantial and similar effects on life satisfaction. The results have negative implications for a widely accepted theory of SWB, "set-point theory." This theory holds that adult SWB is stable in the medium and long term, although temporary fluctuations occur due to life events. Set-point theory has come under increasing criticism in recent years, primarily due to unmistakable evidence in the German Socio-Economic Panel that, during the last 25 years, over a third of the population has recorded substantial and apparently permanent changes in life satisfaction (Fujita and Diener in "J Pers Soc Psychol" 88:158-64, 2005; Headey in "Soc Indic Res" 85:389-403, 2008a; Headey et al. in "Proc Natl Acad Sci USA" 107(42):17922-17926, 2010). It is becoming clear that the main challenge now for SWB researchers is to develop new explanations which can account for medium and long term change, and not merely stability in SWB. Set-point theory is limited precisely because it is purely a theory of stability. The paper is based on specially constructed panel survey files in which data are divided into multi-year periods in order to facilitate analysis of medium and long term change.

In Sen's Capability Approach (CA) well-being can be defined as the freedom of choice to achieve the things in life which one has reason to value most for his or her personal life. Capabilities are in Sen's vocabulary therefore the real freedoms people have or the opportunities available to them. In this paper we examine the impact of capabilities alongside choices on well-being. There is a lot of theoretical work on Sen's capability framework but still a lack of empirical research in measuring and testing his capability model especially in a dynamic perspective. The contribution of the paper is first to test Sen's theoretical CA approach empirically using 25 years of German and 18 years of British data. Second, to examine to what extent the capability approach can explain long-term changes in well-being and third to view the impact on subjective as well as objective well-being in two clearly distinct welfare states. Three measures of well-being are constructed: life satisfaction for subjective well-being and relative income and employment security for objective well-being. We ran random and fixed effects GLS models. The findings strongly support Sen's capabilities framework and provide evidence on the way capabilities, choices and constraints matter for objective and subjective well-being. Capabilities pertaining to human capital, trust, altruism and risk taking, and choices to family, work-leisure, lifestyle and social behaviour show to strongly affect long-term changes in subjective and objective well-being though in a different way largely depending on the type of well-being measure used. (Contains 7 tables, 1 figure, and 4 footnotes.)

The growth in the number of 'international' students in higher education is a phenomenon of increasing importance to educators, researchers and policymakers worldwide. This multi-methodological study explored factors associated with their adjustment, successful or otherwise. It integrated associations across three domains of enquiry which had hitherto usually been pursued separately--psychosocial, intercultural and educational adjustment. Specifically, the study investigated associations between a broad range of outcome indices--academic grades (for both taught and research assignments), psychological well-being, and satisfaction with life in the new environment--and, as contributory factors, participants' intercultural competence, language proficiency, and the degree, quality and patterns of social contact during their sojourn. Participants were 108 non-UK postgraduate students from a wide range of countries undertaking MA programmes at a British university. Of these, 102 completed a questionnaire with both quantitative and qualitative responses, and a further six took part in semi-structured interviews over their programme of study. Findings indicated strong associations between participants' academic achievement, satisfaction with life in the new environment and psychological well-being, and aspects of their intercultural competence, contact with non-co-nationals, including hosts, and with their language proficiency. Implications of these findings, and a future research agenda, are discussed.

Survey findings from 1701 Year 11 and Year 13 students across 35 English educational institutions are reported, which indicate young people's hopes and goals, and the ways in which their institutions support them in their aspirations. This research adds to the literature empirical findings using a methodological stance on the study of aspirations that is open to broader perspectives of young people's agendas for their lives. The majority of young people reported high-educational (e.g. university) and career (e.g. a professional or well-paid job) aspirations. Life satisfaction and developing relationships was also high on the agenda of many young people.

Although aging is associated with declines in many life domains, overall life satisfaction does not appear to decline sharply with age. One explanation for this paradoxical finding is that several life domains improve with age such that increases in certain domains balance the decreases in others. Because different issues are problematic at different life stages, it is likely that specific domains display different life trajectories compared to overall life satisfaction. The observed pattern for overall life satisfaction is likely due to a bottom-up approach. Life and domain satisfaction data from 8 years of the British Household Panel Study were analyzed to evaluate this hypothesis. Results indicated that satisfaction with some life domains increased after middle age (e.g. social life), whereas satisfaction with other life domains decreased (e.g. health). Additionally, results illustrated that although domain satisfaction scores demonstrate distinct trajectories, the aggregate of these distinct domains resembled the overall life satisfaction trajectory. These findings have implications for top-down and bottom-up models of life satisfaction.

Well-being equations are often estimated to generate monetary values for non-marketed activities. In such studies, utility is often approximated by either life satisfaction or General Health Questionnaire scores. We estimate and compare monetary valuations of informal care for the first time in the UK employing both measures, using longitudinal data on well-being and informal care provision. The choice of well-being measure has some effect on the estimated parameters and resulting monetary valuations, but any differences are not statistically significant. Further research is needed to confirm the comparability of these measures if researchers are to continue to use them interchangeably.

A sample of 150 students in Estonia (119 from a secular university and 31 from a Lutheran theological institute) completed the Oxford Happiness Measure and the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity. The data show no significant correlation between these two variables; thus the findings challenge the generalizability to Estonia of the general findings from studies conducted in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Israel that consistently reported a positive association between the affective dimension of religion and personal happiness. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper addresses a number of key challenges in current subjective well-being (SWB) research: A new wave of studies should take into account that different things may make different people happy, thus going beyond a unitary "happiness formula". Furthermore, empirical results need to be connected to broader theoretical narratives. Using a re-examination of the social context of well-being as its case study, this article therefore resorts to sociological theory and fills a gap by investigating how social capital is correlated in different ways with the SWB of men, women, parents, and non-parents. Ordered logit and OLS regression analyses systematically examine slope heterogeneity using UK data from the European Social Survey. It turns out that civic engagement is not at all associated with higher life satisfaction for mothers, while the relationship is positive for men and strongest for childless women. Moreover, informal socialising is positively and more strongly associated with life satisfaction among women, although only when OLS is used. In sum, the social context of well-being varies considerably by gender and parental status. Mothers do not seem to benefit from formal social capital, indicating a "motherhood penalty" (see Correll et al., Am J Sociol 112(5):1297-1338 in 2007) regarding the psychological rewards usually associated with volunteering. Given the high levels of formal social capital among mothers, the findings also highlight the importance of the homo sociologicus concept. Consequently, SWB research can be successfully used to provide new insights into long-standing interdisciplinary theory debates such as the one on homo economicus versus homo sociologicus.

Cross-national comparisons generally show large differences in life satisfaction of individuals within and between European countries. This paper addresses the question of whether and how job quality and working conditions contribute to the quality of life of employed populations in nine strategically selected EU countries: Finland, Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Using data from the European Quality of Life Survey 2003, we examine relationships between working conditions and satisfaction with life, as well as whether spillover or segmentation mechanisms better explain the link between work domain and overall life satisfaction. Results show that the level of life satisfaction varies significantly across countries, with higher quality of life in more affluent societies. However, the impact of working conditions on life satisfaction is stronger in Southern and Eastern European countries. Our study suggests that the issue of security, such as security of employment and pay which provides economic security, is the key element that in a straightforward manner affects people's quality of life. Other working conditions, such as autonomy at work, good career prospects and an interesting job seem to translate into high job satisfaction, which in turn increases life satisfaction indirectly. In general, bad-quality jobs tend to be more "effective" in worsening workers' perception of their life conditions than good jobs are in improving their quality of life. We discuss the differences in job-related determinants of life satisfaction between the countries and consider theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Two large-scale, nationally representative panel studies (the German Socio Economic Panel Study and the British Household Panel Study) were used to assess changes in life satisfaction over the lifespan. The cross-sectional and longitudinal features of these studies were used to isolate age-related changes from confounding factors including instrumentation effects and cohort effects. Although estimated satisfaction trajectories varied somewhat across studies, two consistent findings emerged. First, both studies show that life satisfaction does not decline over much of adulthood. Second, there is a steep decline in life satisfaction among those older than 70. The British data also showed a relatively large increase in satisfaction from the 40s to the early 70s. Thus, age differences in well-being can be quite large and deserve increased empirical and theoretical attention.

The aim of this study is to assess the effective measurement range of Ryff's Psychological Well-being scales (PWB). It applies normal ogive item response theory (IRT) methodology using factor analysis procedures for ordinal data based on a limited information estimation approach. The data come from a sample of 1,179 women participating in a midlife follow-up of a national birth cohort study in the UK. The PWB scales incorporate six dimensions: autonomy, positive relations with others, environmental mastery, personal growth, purpose in life and self-acceptance. Scale information functions were calculated to derive standard errors of measurement for estimated scores on each dimension. Construct variance was distinguished from method variance by inclusion of method factors from item wording (positive versus negative). Our IRT analysis revealed that the PWB measures well-being most accurately in the middle range of the score distribution, i.e. for women with average well-being. Score precision diminished at higher levels of well-being, and low well-being was measured more reliably than high well-being. A second-order well-being factor loaded by four of the dimensions achieved higher measurement precision and greater score accuracy across a wider range than any individual dimension. Future development of well-being scales should be designed to include items that are able to discriminate at high levels of well-being. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)

Studies have shown that posttraumatic growth is associated with greater well-being. However, it is not clear whether posttraumatic growth is related to subjective well-being (SWB) or psychological well-being (PWB). Whereas SWB is derived from the hedonistic tradition, PWB is derived from the eudaimonic tradition. In a sample of 125 college students who had experienced a distressing event, we found evidence that growth is related to PWB rather than SWB. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper addresses the extent to which there is an intergenerational transmission of mental health and subjective well-being within families. Specifically it asks whether parents' own mental distress influences their child's life satisfaction, and vice versa. Whilst the evidence on daily contagion of stress and strain between members of the same family is substantial, the evidence on the transmission between parental distress and children's well-being over a longer period of time is sparse. We tested this idea by examining the within-family transmission of mental distress from parent to child's life satisfaction, and vice versa, using rich longitudinal data on 1,175 British youths. Results show that parental distress at year t-1 is an important determinant of child's life satisfaction in the current year. This is true for boys and girls, although boys do not appear to be affected by maternal distress levels. The results also indicated that the child's own life satisfaction is related with their father's distress levels in the following year, regardless of the gender of the child. Finally, we examined whether the underlying transmission correlation is due to shared social environment, empathic reactions, or transmission via parent-child interaction.

An emphasis on the outcomes of health and social care services has become increasingly apparent within public policy in the United Kingdom. Alongside this, working in partnership has been a key theme, despite a relatively underdeveloped evidence base. Of central importance, however, must be whether directives toward partnership working are delivering improved outcomes, and in particular, the outcomes that are valued by service users. The authors describe a project that sought to identify the outcomes important to people with intellectual disabilities, and where possible, whether partnerships delivered these outcomes. The research was primarily based on interviews with service users and carers, and involved people with intellectual disabilities as both researchers and research subjects. The project categorized key outcomes in two categories (quality of life and process) and identified ways in which health and social care partnerships can deliver the outcomes service users want. If agencies are to deliver good outcomes to users, as increasingly emphasized in policy, this focus should accurately reflect the outcomes that users themselves define as important.

The paper uses household economic panel data from five countries--Australia, Britain, Germany, Hungary and The Netherlands--to provide a reassessment of the impact of economic well-being on happiness. The main conclusion is that happiness is considerably more affected by economic circumstances than previously believed. In all five countries wealth affects life satisfaction more than income. In the countries for which consumption data are available (Britain and Hungary), non-durable consumption expenditures also prove at least as important to happiness as income.

The objective of the study was to compare various predictors of death obsession (i.e., anxiety, optimism, pessimism), and self-ratings of religiosity, physical health, mental health, happiness, and satisfaction with life, among 2 samples of college students recruited from two different cultures: Kuwait (n = 271) and United Kingdom (n = 205). The findings suggest that anxiety, among both samples, pessimism among the Kuwait sample, and (un) happiness among the U.K. sample, might provide a good theoretical and empirical context with which to better understand the causes and consequences of death obsession. (Contains 3 tables.)

We examined the nature and implications of family differentiation among adolescents facing a life transition in 2 European countries with differing family cultures. One hundred and twenty-four Italian and 109 U.K. adolescents completed measures of family differentiation (cohesion and enmeshment), identity threat (perception of threat to the self associated with finishing school), life satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and anxiety. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that cohesion and enmeshment were distinguishable in both countries, orthogonal in the U.K. but positively correlated in Italy. Family cohesion was associated with better psychological well-being in both countries; enmeshment was associated with poorer psychological well-being in the U.K. but not in Italy. Structural equation models showed that effects on well-being were fully mediated by identity threat in both cultures.

An extensive and coherent body of social and psychological research has identified social ties and supportive relationships as important predictors of well-being and quality of life. This paper examines the relationships between structural and functional indicators of supportive relations and well-being in Greece at different levels of analysis based on results from three studies: (a) the European Social Survey (Study 1); (b) a cross sectional community study in Greece (Study 2); and (c) a social interactions study in Greece and the UK using an event sampling methodology (Study 3). Structural indicators of social support and life satisfaction and happiness in the first study were moderately associated. This finding was partly supported by results from the second study which revealed connections between some structural aspects of social support and well-being (happiness, anxiety, irritability) but not others. Functional aspects of social support and psychological indicators of well-being (happiness, anxiety, mental health) at the individual (Study 2) and social interaction (Study 3) levels were not associated. Cross-cultural comparisons of structural indicators of social support in Studies 1 and 3 revealed low frequency of social interactions. Also functional aspects of social support in everyday social interactions in Greece showed significantly lower levels in comparison to the UK. These findings suggest that structural and functional aspects of social support in Greece may not have the same palliative role as usually observed in the international literature and are discussed with particular attention to the level of analysis, the method, and the aspect of well-being being assessed.

This paper takes as its central thesis Martha Nussbaum's normative proposition that social arrangements should be evaluated primarily according to the extent of freedom people have to promote or achieve functionings they value. Using this as a lens the paper explores the housing circumstances of older people in the UK. The paper makes three points. Firstly, given that people use their homes to structure and manage their lives, the design, quality and standard of their home is therefore a critical factor in determining their "doings and beings" [Sen: 1992, "Inequality Re-examined" (Clarendon Press, Oxford) p. 40]. Since older people are more likely to spend greater time within the home through lower income, lessening mobility or loss of companions, this may be of greater significance to them than other age groups. Secondly the paper argues that the design of "specialist" dwellings for older people where there is a shifting balance between housing and care has played a part in shaping the thinking about the position and status of older people as well as providing a material context in which older people live [Laws: 1994, "Environment and Planning" A 26: pp. 1787-1802]. This paper suggests that this context may alter or deny many aspects of life that may be meaningful to individuals and therefore may inhibit rather than promote human flourishing. The paper draws mainly on a small qualitative study in which older people spoke of their home and its meaning. Quotations from this work are given in italics.

In a survey of 203 business graduates, 75 were considered underemployed. The latter group reported significantly fewer opportunities to use their skills, lower intrinsic satisfaction, and less extrinsic career success. (Contains 27 references.) (SK)

Interviews were conducted with staff and family members of 54 Australian individuals with mental retardation and with nine of the individuals, who had been moved from a psychiatric hospital to community residential homes. Overall, all informants regarded the move as positive and reported improvements in daily living skills, social skills, and quality of life. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Examines the coping strategies adopted by 50 infertile men and women. All interviewed had sought medical help, and many became knowledgeable about reproduction and infertility. Redefining the problem and managing negative concepts about infertility were other coping strategies. Seeking social support, positive identities, and other ways of meeting needs were used less often. (Author/BB)

Studies have emphasized the importance of social support in mitigating the relationship between psychological distress and mental health effects, with family of origin and family of formation providing key sources of social support over the life course. However, LGBTQ+ people may experience family of origin relationships as a source of distress, while partners and friends may buffer the relationship between minority stress and psychological wellbeing. Through our online survey (March–June 2022), which was conducted when the social restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted in the UK, we considered the association between psychological wellbeing and sources of social support by sampling n = 1330 LGBTQ+ and cisgender heterosexual adults. LGBTQ+ adults generally experienced poorer psychological wellbeing outcomes than did cisgender heterosexual people. For LGBTQ+ adults, social support from family of origin, a special person, or friends was not associated with depression, anxiety, or stress levels, but social support from family or a special person was positively associated with higher levels of life satisfaction. Our findings indicate the importance of considering negative as well as positive wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration is generally considered to be a driver of enhancing the subjective well-being of immigrants; however, personal characteristics such as educational attainment, migration channel, and country of origin may moderate the impact of immigrant life on expected well-being. Therefore, the present study aimed to explore the intersections between the lived experiences of post-secondary Indian immigrant students in the United Kingdom (UK), the challenges they encounter as immigrants, and how these experiences could impact their subjective well-being. A qualitative research design was employed, which included a focus group discussion and 24 in-depth interviews with postgraduate students who had migrated from India to the United Kingdom. Four themes generated from the thematic analysis, which overall indicated that individuals who came to the United Kingdom as international students to study, work, and settle over time often found themselves unable to leverage their educational credentials to establish expected subjective well-being. This was primarily due to the systematic denial of their agency (capability) to overcome challenges in the host society. Reasons include becoming involuntarily immobile in the host country, incongruency between past expectations and present experiences and prospects, socio-emotional and financial costs associated with immigrant life that hinder the freedom of agency, and bureaucratic burdens. All these reasons can generate an unconducive environment for those immigrants who took part in the study, ultimately decreasing their life satisfaction and positive feelings while increasing negative feelings. In conclusion, the findings question the widely held belief that migration can increase subjective well-being and describe how migration comes at a cost, along with several other challenges, particularly for those who have moved first to learn, secondly to earn, and then to settle in. The channel of migration (migration for education and then to settle in) thus plays a crucial role in determining the outcomes of migration while influencing the anticipated subjective well-being of migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexithymia is the inability to express and recognise emotions and can be expressed in non-clinical populations. Alexithymia is typically experienced alongside depression, anxiety, and burnout. However, research in this area has not explored the extent to which alexithymia is experienced in Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic group. Access to treatment for this community are limited. The aim of the current research is to explore high vs. low scores of alexithymia on anxiety, depression, life satisfaction among British black and ethnic minority communities. A total of 94 participants had filled in questionnaires. Results indicated high levels of alexithymia resulted in increased anxiety, thus a decreased in life satisfaction. However the hypothesis of high alexithymia resulted in high depressive symptoms were not found. Additionally, there were no gender difference in alexithymia level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]