The structure of psychological well-being. With the assistance of C. Edward Noll

332 Pages·1969·3.736 MB·English

by  National Opinion Research Center. Monographs in social research, 15.;Bradburn, Norman M.;Noll, C. Edward

The Structure
of
Psychological
Well-Being
1
norc
NATIONAL OPINION RESEARCH CENTER
MONOGRAPHS IN SOCIAL RESEARCH
1. JAMES A. DAVIS / Great Aspirations
2. JAMES A. DAVIS / Undergraduate Career Decisions
3. NORMAN M. BRADBURN AND DAVID CAPLOVITZ/
Reports on Happiness
4. JOHN W. C. JOHNSTONE AND RAMON J. RIVERA/
Volunteersf or Learning
5. JAMES A. DAVIS / Education for Positive Mental Health
6. ANDREW M. GREELEY AND PETER H. ROSSI / The Education
of Catholic Americans
7. SEYMOUR WARKOV / Lawyers in the Making
8. THEODORE M. NEWCOMB AND EVERETT K. WILSON (ED%)/
College Peer Groups
9. WALTER L. WALLACE / Student Culture
10. SEYMOUR SUDMAN / Reducing the Cost of Surveys
11. JACOB J. FELDMAN / The Dissemination of Health Information
12. PETER H. ROSSI AND BRUCE J. RIDDLE (EDS.)/
The New Media and Education
13. ANDREW M. GREELEY / The Changing Catholic College
14. ROBERT L. CRAIN / The Politics ofSchool Desegregation
15. NORMAN M. BRADBURN / The Structure
of Psy chological Well-Being
The Structure
of
Psychological
Well-Being
BY
NORMAN M. BRADBURN
With the assistance of
C. EDWARD NOLL
ALDINE PUBLISHING COMPANY
Chicago
Tlris inve~tigcrtiortW UJ supported irr pcrrf
by Public Health Service Grant MH09183 front
fhr Narjon~lI trstifrrlr of Menfnl Henlth
CopyriglrP 1969 by Nutiontrl Opinion Rexarch Center
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Preface
Sir Isaiah Berlin has observed that there are deep differences in
the ways in which people approach life, and that it may be useful
to think of these ways as falling into two large groups-the way
of the hedgehog and the way of the fox. Hedgehogs approach
problems in an integrative manner, trying to bring everything into
a single, universal, organizing principle that gives unity to the
manifest diversities of life. Foxes, on the other hand, approach
problems in a differentiating manner and pursue many disparate
problems with little concern for haw they fit together or might
fit into a larger integrated whole. Hedgehogs look for the unity
in diversity; foxes look for the diversity that underlies the unity.
In the field of mental health, the split between hedgehogs and
foxes roughly parallels that between theorists and empiricists. The
grand theorists such as Freud and Jung were militant hedgehogs.
However, a review of the empirical literature in mental health,
such as that by Jahoda (1958), shows the field to be dominated
by foxes. This unfortunate split between hedgehog-theorists and
fox-empiricists has resulted in unifying theories that dangerously
approach explaining everything, and thus explaining nothing, or
in disparate empirical findings that do not add up to anything. Too
often theories are divorced from data, and data are collected with
little regard for their theoretical import.
This book is a hedgehog's attempt to bridge that gap and
pursue systematic data collection within the framework of a single
unifying concept. This concept-psychological well-being, or hap-
piness-has been of great concern to men since recorded history
began and has been the object of vast amounts of thought and
research for centuries. It is a logical concept to employ in the study
of phenomena related to current concerns with mental health and
mental illness, and one that is very congenial to the hedgehog
mind.
The particular conception of psychological well-being that is
elaborated in this monograph emerges from a pilot study con-
ducted by NORC (Bradburn and Caplovitz. 1965), which
vi
Preface
attempted to develop instruments for measuring mental health in
the population. Analysis of the data from that study led to a
conceptualization of psychological well-being as a resultant of two
almost completely unrelated dimensions of affect, which we called
positive and negative feelings. The results of that study were suf-
ficiently encouraging to suggest that further research along these
lines would be productive.
At the conclusion of our pilot study, we noted four main areas
for future research: (1) replication of the basic findings regard-
ing the independence of the two dimensions related to well-being
and the correlates of these dimensions; (2) systematic investigation
of the stability over time of the measures of affect and the condi-
tions that contribute toward their increase or decrease; (3) further
investigation of the correlates of positive affect; and (4) determi-
nation of the conditions that produce changes in different aspects
of the two dimensions. The study reported in this monograph
contributes new data to each of these four areas of concern. We
have not, of course, solved all of the problems implied in these
questions; but this study does represent some progress along the
road to providing adequate answers for them.
NORMAN M. BRADBURN
Wellfleet, Massachusetts
July, 1968
Acknowledgments
The study reported in this volume was begun in 1962 and has
benefited from the advice and help of many people. I am deeply
indebted to Peter H. Rossi and Jacob J. Feldman, both formerly
at NORC, who first interested me in the project and whose stimu-
lating ideas and warm encouragement were extremely helpful
during the design phase of the study. Richard H. Williams and
James G. Kelly of the National Institute of Mental Health enabled
us to extend the scope of our original plans and to coordinate
our data-collection operation with that of NIMH's Mental Health
Study Center. Their efforts and thc cooperation of the staff of the
Study Center greatly aided us in carrying out the study.
My former colleague at NORC, David Caplovitz, worked closely
with me during the early part of the project, as well as on the pilot
study. His unflagging enthusiasm spurred us on whenever things
threatened to become bogged down in a mass of detail. Much of
Chapter 2 is drawn from a preliminary report for which he was
primarily responsible (Caplovitz and Bradburn, 1964). Eleanor
Hall, William M. Mason, C. Edward Noll, Susan R. Orden, and
Anthony M. Orum constituted thc research staff who worked on
the project. Each made a distinct contribution to the analysis of
the data and worked many long hours preparing tables, checking
results, and pursuing hypotheses, many of which led to fruitful
results and separatc publications.
An empirical survey of the magnitude and complexity of the
onc reported here cannot be carried out without the assistance of
a large and expert interviewing staff. I am particularly indebted to
Eve Weinberg, NORC's Field Director, who was in overall charge
of the interviewing, to Miriam Clarke, who supervised the Wash-
ington interviewers, and to Helen Colditz, who supervised the
Detroit interviewers, as well as to all of the interviewers who
worked for over a year in carrying out their voluminous inter-
viewing assignments.
Many others on the NORC staff contributed to the success of
the study, particularly Mary McGlasson, who carried out the sam-
Acknowledgments
pling plan, James C. Beckwith, who devised the programs that
enabled us to process panel data efficiently and to compute the
statistics we needed, Carl McGee, who expertly produced the
tables from our sometimes-cryptic run orders, Nella Siefert, who
typed many, many drafts of the manuscript, and Mary A. Spaeth,
who edited the final manuscript and prepared the index.
I am also indebted to Bruce Dohrenwend, Sheila Feld, Joseph
Noel, and Warner Wilson, and to my colleagues at the University
of Chicago, Donald W. Fiske, L. Richard Hoffman, John W. C.
Johnstone, and Seymour Sudman, who read various versions of
the manuscript and contributed many valuable suggestions. I am
particularly grateful to my former colleague at NORC, James A.
Davis, and to John H. Hamlin for their detailed reading of the
manuscript. Needless to say, the book has been considerably
improved by their insightful constructive criticisms.
Portions of two chapters in this monograph have appeared else-
where in somewhat different versions. I wish to acknowledge per-
mission to use these materials granted by Stanford University Press
and the University of Chicago Press.
Finally, 1 would like to express my thanks to my administrative
assistant, Rita Hinckley, and to my wife, who both performed that
most valuable service to any author-they kept people away.
Contents
v Preface
vii Acknowledgments
xi List of Tables
CHAPTER
1. On Psychological Well-Being
2. Study Design and Methods of Analysis
3. Self-Reports of Happiness
4. Two Dimensions of Psychological Well-Being: Positive and
Negative Affect
5. Stability and Change in the Affect Measures
6. Social Status, Income, and Psychological Well-Being
7. Anxiety, Health, and Negative Affect
8. Social Participation, Novelty, and Positive Aflect
9. Adjustment in Major Roles. I: Marriage
10. Adjustment in Major Roles. 11: Work / c. EDWARD NOLL
11. Social Trauma: The Assassination of President Kennedy
12. Summary and Conclusions
APPENDICES
1. Characteristics of Panel Losses: Wave I to Wave I11
2. Ridit Analysis
3. The Questionnaires
REFERENCES
List
of
Tables
TABLE
20 2.1 Sample Sizes in Different Waves
22 2.2 Indicators of Social Class by Community
25 2.3 Age, Family Structure, and Sex by Community
2 7 2.4 Types of Housing by Community
40 3.1 Distribution of Avowed Happiness in Selected Studies
43 3.2 Stability of Reports of Avowed Happiness, by Sex
45 3.3 Avowed Happiness and Selected Demographic
Characteristics
Race, Education, and Avowed Happiness, for Wave I
Race, Income, and Avowed Happiness, for Wave I
Education, Race, Income, and Avowed Happiness,
for Wave I
Indicators of Life Satisfaction, by Communities, for
Waves I attd 111
Coefficients of Association between Indicators of Life
Satisfaction, by Sex, for Waves I and I11
Distribution of Responses to Feeling-State Items
Q-values of Association 5etween Items on Positive and
Negative Aflect Scales, for Waves I and 111
Q-values of Association between Items on Positive and
Negative Aflect Scales, by Sex, for Wave I
Coefficients of Association between Positive and
Negative Aflect, by Community
Coefficientso f Association between Positive and
Negative Agect, by Sex, for Total Sample
Selected Happiness Indicators and Afect Scale Scores,
for Waves I and 111
Relation of Affect Balance Scale (Positive Affect -
Negative Affect) to Self-Ratings of Happiness at
Each Level of Difference, for Wave I