Australian Centre on Quality of Life



Australian Centre on Quality of Life Bulletin Archive Bulletin Vol 4/14: 020420 to Vol 4/26: 250620ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/26: 250620Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.COVID-19 and lockdown in New ZealandBackground: New Zealand is a small country of some 5 million people, tucked-away from other lands, 2,000km to the East of Australia. It has one of the most highly regarded Heads of State in Jacinta Ardern, who acted with foresight and determination when the first case of Covid-19 was reported in late February 2020. A four-level alert level system was introduced on 21 March to manage the outbreak, initially set at level-2 but rising to level-4 (nationwide lockdown) on 25th March. As new infections fell, the levels of restriction were gradually reduced, to level 1 on 8 June, thereby removing all restrictions except border controls. By the 22nd June, a total of 1,509 cases of infection had been reported, with only currently 9 active cases and 22 recorded deaths. In the annals of the Covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand will have a special place, as one of the most successful in controlling the spread of the disease.This article uses data from a contemporaneously active, longitudinal, national probability panel survey (the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study; NZAVS). Participants were originally sampled from the New Zealand electoral roll, which contains contact details of all registered voters. In terms of representativeness, the survey closely reflects the New Zealand population on socioeconomic status, region of residence, and age.The reported data were collected opportunistically. The 11th wave of the survey had commenced in October 2019 and was ongoing when the first case of the disease in New Zealand was reported on 28 February. The recruitment period for this survey commenced on the day following level-4 lockdown (stay at home) and lasted for 18 days (March 26 to April 12, 2020). The alert level did not move back down to level 3 until 27 April, so the entire sample of 1,003 respondents was obtained during the level-4 lockdown period.Reference: Sibley, C. G., Greaves, L. M., Satherley, N., Wilson, M. S., Overall, N. C., Lee, C. H., . . . Milfont, T. L. (2020). Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown on trust, attitudes toward government, and well-being. American Psychologist. doi: summary: This study describes the immediate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide lockdown on levels of institutional trust and attitudes toward the nation and government and health and well-being in New Zealand, with implications for other nations. Our results suggest that a strong national response to COVID-19 may bolster national attachment and increase trust in the bodies determining and enforcing lockdown guidelines. Against a backdrop of general resilience, small increases in psychological distress serve as a warning about potential psychological consequences of lockdown and ment on Sibley et al (2020)The authors chose to perform two kinds of analysis on their pre-lockdown vs. lockdown data. Their main analysis used Propensity Score Matching. Here, each of the 1,003 lockdown respondents was matched, on a variety of demographic variables, to another respondent drawn from a pool of 23,351 ‘controls’ who had completed the survey in the previous year. This Propensity Score matching procedure has been criticized on a number of grounds. It not only loses valuable information, available from a repeated measures analysis, but has also been found to “increase imbalance, inefficiency, model dependence, and bias” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>King</Author><Year>2018</Year><RecNum>4181</RecNum><DisplayText>(King and Nielsen 2018)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4181</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592804749">4181</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>King, G.</author><author>Nielsen, Richard</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Why propensity scores should not be used for matching</title><secondary-title>Copy at http://j. mp/1sexgVw Download Citation BibTex Tagged XML Download Paper</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Copy at http://j. mp/1sexgVw Download Citation BibTex Tagged XML Download Paper</full-title></periodical><pages>;(King and Nielsen 2018). Their second form of analysis is a more appropriate within-subject, repeated measurements analysis over time. This analysis uses each respondents’ pre vs lockdown scores. While both yielded much the same results, the latter procedure was more sensitive on some measures.Their Method section informs that they intended to assess ‘Mental and physical health and subjective well-being’. The latter construct was assessed by individual items selected from two scales. One was the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI), inappropriately referenced to ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2003a</Year><RecNum>4180</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Eckersley et al. 2003a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4180</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592635178">4180</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Eckersley, Richard</author><author>Pallant, Julie</author><author>Van Vugt, Jackie</author><author>Misajon, RoseAnne</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Developing a national index of subjective wellbeing: The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index</title><secondary-title>Social indicators research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>159-190</pages><volume>64</volume><number>2</number><dates><year>2003a</year></dates><isbn>0303-8300</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins, Eckersley et al. 2003a) instead of the ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013). Four of the seven domains were individually assessed as health, standard of living, future security, and personal relationships. The second scale was the 5-item Satisfaction With Life Scale ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Diener</Author><Year>1985</Year><RecNum>646</RecNum><Prefix>SWLS: </Prefix><DisplayText>(SWLS: Diener, Emmons et al. 1985)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>646</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947789">646</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Diener, E.</author><author>Emmons, R. A.</author><author>Larsen, R. J.</author><author>Griffin, S.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The satisfaction with life scale</title><secondary-title>Journal of Personality Assessment</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Personality Assessment</full-title></periodical><pages>71-75</pages><volume>49</volume><dates><year>1985</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(SWLS: Diener, Emmons et al. 1985) from which two items were chosen, with their mean scores combined to create a single variable.While each of these PWI and SWLS scales is a valid measure of SWB, the use of selected items from each, as used here, is not. The reason these particular items were chosen for analysis is not revealed. In the case of the PWI, the centrally contributing domain of ‘Achieving in life’ has been omitted ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><Suffix> - see multiple regression section</Suffix><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013 - see multiple regression section)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013 - see multiple regression section).In a similar vein, the authors measured National Wellbeing by selecting four of the six domains in the National Wellbeing Index ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>4178</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2002d)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4178</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592631448">4178</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>International Wellbeing Index, Version 2 (Web document: http:// acqol.deakin.edu.au)</title></titles><dates><year>2002d</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins 2002d), but referenced the source as Tiliouine et al (2006). They also changed ‘Satisfaction with government’ to ‘‘Satisfaction with government performance’, which is a quite different, more specific question.Their results, overall, show little change for these items. None of the 5 ‘life satisfaction’ items changed over the 18-days of lockdown. Among the 4 ‘national satisfaction’ items, only one changed, with government performance satisfaction showing a solid increase, consistent with the ‘Rally Effect’. The phenomenon of ‘rally around the flag’ has been observed in response to national disasters and terrorism as a patriotic response ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Skitka</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>4184</RecNum><DisplayText>(Skitka 2005)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4184</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1593037422">4184</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Skitka, L. J.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Patriotism or Nationalism? Understanding Post‐September 11, 2001, Flag‐Display Behavior 1</title><secondary-title>Journal of Applied Social Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Applied Social Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>1995-2011</pages><volume>35</volume><number>10</number><dates><year>2005</year></dates><isbn>0021-9029</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Skitka 2005) that is associated with increased societal trust ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Toya</Author><Year>2014</Year><RecNum>4185</RecNum><DisplayText>(Toya and Skidmore 2014)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4185</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1593037986">4185</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Toya, H.</author><author>Skidmore, Mark</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Do natural disasters enhance societal trust?</title><secondary-title>Kyklos</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Kyklos</full-title></periodical><pages>255-279</pages><volume>67</volume><number>2</number><dates><year>2014</year></dates><isbn>0023-5962</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Toya and Skidmore 2014).The authors also measured a wide range of other variables (e.g Trust in police, Rumination, etc), but again these comprise a small number of items, selected through unstated criteria, from larger scales. Thus, the extent to which the reported results validly represent the intended construct is unknowable.A final concern is that, together, the 13 comparisons of national variables, and 13 of personal variables, make a total of 26 t-test comparisons. These multiple comparisons represent a classic demonstration of an enhanced probability of Type-1 error (false positive). This requires the application of a Bonferroni correction to reduce the chance of random statistical significance. Such application effectively requires that the criterion for significance moves from p<0.5 to at least p<.01, as noted by the authors (p.7). Despite this acknowledgement, the authors report that the lockdown group “reported less fatigue (p=.023)” (p.8). In a similar vein, there are 9 instances in the authors’ Tables 2 and 3, where the level of significance meets this p<.01 criterion. However, for 7 of these 9, Cohen’s Effect Size, of <.2, indicates an ‘insignificant magnitude of difference’ ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Dunst</Author><Year>2012</Year><RecNum>4009</RecNum><DisplayText>(Dunst and Hamby 2012)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4009</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1575959513">4009</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Dunst, C. J.</author><author>Hamby, Deborah W</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Guide for calculating and interpreting effect sizes and confidence intervals in intellectual and developmental disability research studies</title><secondary-title>Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability</full-title></periodical><pages>89-99</pages><volume>37</volume><number>2</number><dates><year>2012</year></dates><isbn>1366-8250</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Dunst and Hamby 2012). This includes their Kessler-6 result (effect size .12) claimed to represent higher ‘mental distress’ by the abstract. Of the two results that are both statistically significant and with a non-trivial effect size, both refer to governance. Both ‘Trust in politicians’ and ‘Satisfaction with government performance’ are higher during lockdown.In summary, the two results that can be regarded as valid tests of change indicate an increased regard for governance. While this is consistent with the ‘rally effect’, it should also be noted that this has occurred in the context of a country where opinion polling indicated that 80-90% of the population agreed with, and acted on, the lockdown demand ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Crothers</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4186</RecNum><DisplayText>(Crothers 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4186</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1593047140">4186</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Crothers, C.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>CV-19 Related Surveys in New Zealand, early April 2020: Research Note 1</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>Auckland</pub-location><publisher>Auckland University of Technology ;(Crothers 2020). This is in sharp contrast to the equivalent situation in the USA, where a far weaker response is described as “most state and local governments had issued stay-at-home orders that closed schools and nonessential businesses and advised residents to stay home and limit social contact” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Luchetti</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4182</RecNum><Pages>3</Pages><DisplayText>(Luchetti, Aschwanden et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4182</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592884330">4182</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Luchetti, M.</author><author>Aschwanden, D.</author><author>Sesker, A.</author><author>Strickhouser, J. E.</author><author>Terracciano, A.</author><author>Sutin, A. R.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Trajectory of Loneliness in Response to COVID-19</title><secondary-title>American Psychologist</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>American Psychologist</full-title></periodical><dates><year>2020</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Luchetti, Aschwanden et al. 2020) (p.3). Thus, the NZ and USA outcome results from the lockdown period are based on quite different population experiences.Two additional observations can be made. First, other reports also find minimal change during the first three weeks of lockdown. For example, in Spain, ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>López-Bueno</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4173</RecNum><DisplayText>López-Bueno, Calatayud et al. (2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4173</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592195789">4173</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>López-Bueno, R.</author><author>Calatayud, Joaquín</author><author>Casa?a, José</author><author>Casajús, José A</author><author>Smith, Lee</author><author>Tully, Mark A</author><author>Andersen, Lars L</author><author>López-Sánchez, Guillermo F</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>COVID-19 Confinement and Health Risk Behaviors in Spain</title><secondary-title>Frontiers in Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Frontiers in psychology</full-title></periodical><volume>04 June 2020</volume><dates><year>2020</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>López-Bueno, Calatayud et al. (2020) found Health Risk Behaviors to increase during the first week, but then decreased to baseline over the next two weeks. While in the USA, ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Luchetti</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4182</RecNum><DisplayText>Luchetti, Aschwanden et al. (2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4182</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592884330">4182</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Luchetti, M.</author><author>Aschwanden, D.</author><author>Sesker, A.</author><author>Strickhouser, J. E.</author><author>Terracciano, A.</author><author>Sutin, A. R.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Trajectory of Loneliness in Response to COVID-19</title><secondary-title>American Psychologist</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>American Psychologist</full-title></periodical><dates><year>2020</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Luchetti, Aschwanden et al. (2020) found no increase in loneliness following 6-days of “stay-at-home” policies of most states” (April 23 and April 29), during which the number of cases rose to one million. It seems possible that periods of relative social isolation at home, over a few weeks, may not cause substantial pathological reactions in most people.The second observation from the Sibley study is not directly related to the COVID-19 response. Rather, it concerns the level of expressed satisfaction in both personal and national domains by New Zealand respondents, which is some 5 to 10 percentage points lower than is recorded in Australia. This peculiar finding, between two apparently similar peoples, will be the topic of next week’s Bulletin.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 28th June, 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.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 <tanja.capic@deakin.edu.au>WebMasterNew health resources entries: Center Center is an informational web guide created for those seeking eye surgery and other vision correction options.Alcohol Rehab Help Rehab Help is an informational web guide created for people struggling with alcohol use disorders (AUD) and co-occurring mental health disorders. Not only do we offer information on Alcohol Use Disorder, but we also have comprehensive information regarding treatment options.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryWilson, S., Pallant, J., Bednall, T., & Gray, S. (2020). AUSTRALIAN LEADERSHIP INDEX: 2019 NATIONAL SURVEY REPORT. Melbourne: Swinburne University of Technology newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaWhy Don’t American Workers Want to Go Back to Their Offices?How has COVID-19 impacted the way workers feel about their workplace?? McQuaidNew research suggests that only 21.6 percent of American workers feel positive about heading back to their offices as workplaces begin to re-open across the country. Citing fear for their health due to COVID-19, and the newly-discovered flexibility working from home can bring, the study conducted by The Wellbeing Lab and George Mason University’s Center for the Advancement of Wellbeing of 1,000 workers representative of the U.S. workforce right now, suggests that re-engaging workers in offices could be challenging.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersMr Ross CarlyopnPresident, Strength Potential IncorporatedKeywords: youth mentoring strengths schoolingMs. Adriana Marcelino da MartinsSpeech-language pathologist, Keywords: palliative care, intellectual disabilityProfessor Isabella SulisAssociate Professor of Social Statistics, University of CagliariKeywords: measurement models, social indicators, assessment in education, missing data, multi-level analysis.-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST Crothers, C. (2020). CV-19 Related Surveys in New Zealand, early April 2020: Research Note 1. Auckland, Auckland University of Technology , R. A. (2002d). International Wellbeing Index, Version 2 (Web document: http:// acqol.deakin.edu.au).Cummins, R. A., R. Eckersley, J. Pallant, J. Van Vugt and R. Misajon (2003a). "Developing a national index of subjective wellbeing: The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index." Social indicators research 64(2): 159-190.Diener, E., R. A. Emmons, R. J. Larsen and S. Griffin (1985). "The satisfaction with life scale." Journal of Personality Assessment 49: 71-75.Dunst, C. J. and D. W. Hamby (2012). "Guide for calculating and interpreting effect sizes and confidence intervals in intellectual and developmental disability research studies." Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability 37(2): 89-99.International Wellbeing Group (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University.King, G. and R. Nielsen (2018). "Why propensity scores should not be used for matching." Copy at http://j. mp/1sexgVw Download Citation BibTex Tagged XML Download Paper 378: ópez-Bueno, R., J. Calatayud, J. Casa?a, J. A. Casajús, L. Smith, M. A. Tully, L. L. Andersen and G. F. López-Sánchez (2020). "COVID-19 Confinement and Health Risk Behaviors in Spain." Frontiers in Psychology 04 June 2020.Luchetti, M., D. Aschwanden, A. Sesker, J. E. Strickhouser, A. Terracciano and A. R. Sutin (2020). "The Trajectory of Loneliness in Response to COVID-19." American Psychologist.Skitka, L. J. (2005). "Patriotism or Nationalism? Understanding Post‐September 11, 2001, Flag‐Display Behavior 1." Journal of Applied Social Psychology 35(10): 1995-2011.Toya, H. and M. Skidmore (2014). "Do natural disasters enhance societal trust?" Kyklos 67(2): 255-279.ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/25: 180620 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.The perils of unreliable national survey dataBackground: Survey research is built on fragile foundations. This is of particular significance when surveys purport to be ‘representative’ of national populations. Too commonly, there are insufficient checks and balances concerning even the potential ability of such survey methodology to yield reliable and valid national results. One unfortunate outcome is that a very large proportion, quite possibly a substantial majority of the published results from national surveys, are misleading. The problems start from the beginning. Authors glibly claim their data are ‘representative’ of the surveyed population, while often providing scant justification for their sample size or representational distribution. It is also common to find data collected by instruments which do not have the basic psychometric credentials of a coherent factorial structure, or validity, established for the population supplying their data. It would be consoling to believe that these problems are reduced by the inhibitory factor of peer-review. While this may be true of the very high-end social science publications, for the rest it is frankly commonplace to find reported results, in peer-review journals, which are likely to be neither valid nor reliable.Surprisingly perhaps, this is not a hidden problem. While there is bound to be some level of deception in all branches of science, this is not the main issue here. The inadequacies of these reports are in plain view, available to any informed researcher who takes the trouble to carefully read the methodology section. This includes reviewers and editors. The article this week exposes this international tragedy, using literature on social capital. Within sociology, social capital is commonly used to define the essence of community ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Schuller</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>1245</RecNum><Prefix>for a review see </Prefix><DisplayText>(for a review see Schuller, Barton et al. 2000)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1245</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1406264314">1245</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Schuller, T.</author><author>Barton, S.</author><author>Field, J.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Schuller, T.</author><author>Barton, S.</author><author>Field, J.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Social capital a review and critique</title><secondary-title>Social Capital: Critical Perspectives</secondary-title></titles><pages>1-38</pages><dates><year>2000</year></dates><pub-location>Oxford</pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(for a review see Schuller, Barton et al. 2000). It has been defined by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Putnam</Author><Year>1993</Year><RecNum>1520</RecNum><DisplayText>Putnam (1993)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1520</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1416276814">1520</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Putnam, R. D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The prosperous community: social capital and public life</title><secondary-title>The american prospect</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>The american prospect</full-title></periodical><volume>13</volume><number>Spring), Vol. 4. Available online: . prospect. org/print/vol/13 (accessed 7 April 2003</number><dates><year>1993</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Putnam (1993) as referring to: “features of social organization, such as networks, norms, and trust, that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (p 2). Its associated elements are social and community participation, obligations and expectations, information channels, ties between members, sense of cohesiveness, social norms, and social exclusion ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Coleman</Author><Year>1989</Year><RecNum>1192</RecNum><DisplayText>(Bourdieu 1986, Coleman 1989)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1192</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1402939994">1192</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Coleman, J. S.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Social capital in the creation of human capital</title><secondary-title>American Journal of Sociology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>American Journal of Sociology</full-title></periodical><pages>S95-S120</pages><volume>94</volume><number>Supplement</number><dates><year>1989</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Bourdieu</Author><Year>1986</Year><RecNum>1174</RecNum><record><rec-number>1174</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1402733893">1174</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Bourdieu, P.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The forms of capital</title><secondary-title>Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education</full-title></periodical><pages>258</pages><volume>241</volume><dates><year>1986</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Bourdieu 1986, Coleman 1989), all of which have strong empirical links to Subjective Wellbeing (SWB). A key variable, commonly used to measure social capital, is membership of community organizations. In essence, voluntary associations are seen as sites of both civic and political socialization ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>VanDeth</Author><Year>2003</Year><RecNum>4174</RecNum><DisplayText>(VanDeth 2003)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4174</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592284630">4174</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>VanDeth, J. W.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Measuring social capital: Orthodoxies and continuing controversies</title><secondary-title>International Journal of Social Research Methodology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>International Journal of Social Research Methodology</full-title></periodical><pages>79-92</pages><volume>6</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2003</year></dates><isbn>1364-5579</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(VanDeth 2003).Reference: Dore, G. M. D., & Jackson, K. D. (2019). Problems of Measurement of the Relationship Between Civil Society and Democracy When Using Survey Data. Social Indicators Research, 49, 155–166.Author summary: Over the last three decades, it has become accepted wisdom that membership in civil society organizations enhances civic participation and encourages democratic outcomes. The attraction of the hypothesis grows from the universal power of its predictions… Utilizing data from 37 national level surveys in eight countries, this article finds that the quality of the data is insufficient to substantiate long-term trends or cross-country comparisons regarding the impact of associational membership on democratization. Methodological flaws in sampling and interviewing preclude validation of theories about the relationship between civil society and ment on Dore & Jackson (2019)The authors’ mission is to establish whether the quality of the data, used by reports of national surveys, is sufficient to substantiate both coherent long-term trends and cross-country comparisons in levels of social capital. One of the admirable features of this paper is that they chose two of the simplest measures possible. The first asks whether the respondent belongs to any organization (which includes religious organizations). If the response is affirmative, the second asks whether they are an active or inactive member of any of the organizations they belong to. The useful methodological aspect of these questions is their simplicity. It is unlikely that any discovered inadequacy of the resultant data can be attributed to respondent confusion in understanding the meaning of the questions.The authors’ forensic examination targets problems of sampling, correspondence, comparability, quality and measurement. Their data are drawn from 37 national level surveys covering a time span of 20 years (1995–2014). They found 62 percent of respondents belong to at least one organization, and 39 percent say they are active. The central research question is whether these data can be used to make reliable comparisons across countries and time.They find that “significant measurement issues exist, and these differences may pose insurmountable difficulties for comparative analysis between surveys” (p.161). They propose that this incomparability, in large part, stems from a divergence of sampling methods in measuring the size of civil society. “… some surveys use quota samples, some stratified random samples, some ignore entire provinces, and some fail to report sampling methods at all” (p.161). However, they also note that, even when the same survey name, e.g. World Values Survey, is responsible for multiple waves across the same country, there is no guarantee of consistent measurements. “It is quite possible that the sampling frame, the surveying organization, or both, have been changed between any two surveys” (p.162). In support, they cite results from the World Values Surveys, where their results have reported general associational membership in India to vary between 32% and 69% of the adult population.In terms of reliability they note that, for many surveys, that trained student interviewers provide most of the data. However, as noted by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Fowler</Author><Year>2014</Year><RecNum>4175</RecNum><DisplayText>Fowler (2014)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4175</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1592287948">4175</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Fowler, F.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Survey research methods</title></titles><dates><year>2014</year></dates><pub-location>Los Angeles</pub-location><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Fowler (2014) while student interviewingmay cut costs, it increases interviewer bias. Student interviewers tend to be less well-trained and practiced than professional interviewers, and have less commitment to the job. Professional interviewers are less likely to fabricate questionnaire responses.The authors conclude “These dismal findings complement those that have emerged from similar analyses conducted for the United States, western and eastern European countries using data from the WVS, the EVS, EES, and the Eurobarometer. This underscores the fact that … scholars should be very cautious with making strong theoretical claims with weak data, especially when doing comparative analyses” (p.165).So, what should be done to remedy this situation? Dore & Jackson suggest:1. Detailed descriptions of sampling methods should be consistently reported as an integral part of cross temporal or cross country comparisons.2. Professionally trained interviewers and systematic call-back procedures should be the rule. While these suggestions are consistent with the authors’ review, it is hardly useful to recommend the use of professional interviewers. While most researchers would dream of this possibility, they lack the financial resources to do so. Additionally, a stronger set of recommendations is required if change is to be achieved. The recommendations below are self-evident with the exception of those relating to Global Life Satisfaction (GLS). The rationale here goes back to ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/22: 280520. This described how GLS values, derived from population surveys which have good reliability, can yield successive values for GLS that lie within a range of around 2.0 to 3.00 percentage points (pp). This then forms the rationale for suggesting the inclusion of GLS in population surveys that involve cross temporal, longitudinal, or cross country comparisons. An estimate of survey reliability may then be considered, as whether the GLS estimates lie within the 2 to 3pp range.The recommendations are as follows:1. As policy, journals should require authors of empirical articles, relating to survey research representing national populations, to:1.1 State their raw-data cleaning procedures.1.2 State the raw-data means, standard deviations, and Ns of all dependent variables.2. As policy, journals should require authors of such empirical articles, which are cross temporal, longitudinal, or cross country comparisons:2.1 To provide detailed descriptions of sampling methods to a level such that an independent researcher could acquire a matching sample, as determined by a comparison of scores on Global Life Satisfaction.2.2 Encouragement to include a measure of Global Life Satisfaction “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?” using a unipolar, numerical, end-defined, 11-response category scale, with anchors of ‘No satisfaction at all’ and ‘Complete satisfaction’. This single item should be placed at the start of the questionnaire to avoid cueing from more specific previous items ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Schwarz</Author><Year>1991a</Year><RecNum>3178</RecNum><DisplayText>(Schwarz, Strack et al. 1991a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3178</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1500687193">3178</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Schwarz, N.</author><author>Strack, Fritz</author><author>Mai, Hans-Peter</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Assimilation and contrast effects in part-whole question sequences: A conversational logic analysis</title><secondary-title>Public opinion quarterly</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Public Opinion Quarterly</full-title></periodical><pages>3-23</pages><volume>55</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>1991a</year></dates><isbn>1537-5331</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Schwarz, Strack et al. 1991a).References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 21st June, 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryDornan, C. (2020). Science Disinformation in a Time of Pandemic. Ottawa: Public Policy Forum examines a specific species of information disorder: content that adopts the mannerisms of science in order to advocate anti-science. Science disinformation, he argues, is an especially worrying genre of falsity because it amounts to an attack on rationality, and therefore on the underpinnings of informed public policy and good governance. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a case study to examine specific instances of science disinformation, how these spread, and the dangers they pose to the public good. The paper argues that science has long been poorly understood by the greater public, but while a fascination with pseudoscience predates the rise of social media, the algorithms of the new media environment reward ever more outrageous content.Scepticism of science was already building before the pandemic, but recently appears to have taken on a political inflection. On climate change, vaccination and COVID-19, some on the right seem perfectly ready to dismiss the scientific consensus when it conflicts with their political values. Addressing this, the paper concludes, will require: (1) redoubled engagement with the social media companies to press them on their public responsibilities; (2) greater understanding of why science scepticism seems to be aligning with the political right; (3) a more sophisticated understanding of how science disinformation uses social media channels to its advantage; and (4) commitment to a robust and permanent public education campaign so as to counter the social harms of science disinformationMedia newsUS happiness level at 50-year low, poll showsASSOCIATED PRESS's been a rough year for the American psyche. Folks in the U.S. are more unhappy today than they've been in nearly 50 years.This conclusion comes from the COVID Response Tracking Study, conducted in late May, by NORC at the University of Chicago. It finds that just 14% of American adults say they're very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they'd often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, the figure is at 50%.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersDr. Naoya AbeAssociate Professor, Department of Transdisciplinary Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of TechnologyKeywords: Transdisciplinary approachMrs. S&Atilde;&curren;de StenlundPhD Candidate, Turku UniversityKeywords: Life satisfaction, health behavior, health promotionProfessor Erin WilsonUniting Kildonan Chair in Community Services Innovation, Centre for Social ImpactKeywords: Outcomes, community services, disabilityMr Phil ValoppiDirector, VIM GroupKeywords: Occupational rehabilitation; return to life-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education, 241, 258. Coleman, J. S. (1989). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Supplement), S95-S120. Fowler, F. (2014). Survey research methods. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.Putnam, R. D. (1993). The prosperous community: social capital and public life. The american prospect, 13(Spring), Vol. 4. Available online: . prospect. org/print/vol/13 (accessed 7 April 2003). Schuller, T., Barton, S., & Field, J. (2000). Social capital a review and critique. In T. Schuller, S. Barton, & J. Field (Eds.), Social Capital: Critical Perspectives (pp. 1-38). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Schwarz, N., Strack, F., & Mai, H.-P. (1991a). Assimilation and contrast effects in part-whole question sequences: A conversational logic analysis. Public Opinion Quarterly, 55(1), 3-23. VanDeth, J. W. (2003). Measuring social capital: Orthodoxies and continuing controversies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 6(1), 79-92. ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/24: 110620Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Trump voting and wellbeingBackground: Donald Trump – the enigma who launched a thousand research articles, searching the seven-seas for an explanation. Against the overwhelming predictions of psephologists, this populist, nativist and most dangerous of men, was elected in November 2016 to lead the American people as their 45th President. Already during his first term in office, a substantial analytic literature has been published on the topic of ‘why?’ Much of this is weakly theoretical, at best, but written with the certainly that hindsight provides, usually proposing one single dominating causal element of human reasoning or emotion. What this flurry of expert opinion actually reveals is that no one understands why the population decided to elect Trump.And so the search for understanding continues apace, and draws more than its share of low-level science, where almost any idea of causation can find substance through the judicious selection of correlational data. In such a speculative academic environment, positive psychology can usually be found. Typically, the wisdom of the Ancient Greeks is trotted-out, particularly under the umbrella of the ‘eudaimonic tradition’. Within this literature can be found a concentration of broadly described constructs that can never be falsified, such as Self-Determination Theory ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Deci</Author><Year>1980</Year><RecNum>1758</RecNum><Prefix>SDT: </Prefix><DisplayText>(SDT: Deci and Ryan 1980, Deci and Ryan 2000)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1758</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1428096353">1758</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Deci, E. L.</author><author>Ryan, R. M.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Self-determination theory: When mind mediates behavior</title><secondary-title>Journal of Mind and Behavior</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Mind and Behavior</full-title></periodical><pages>33-43</pages><volume>1</volume><dates><year>1980</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Deci</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>1469</RecNum><record><rec-number>1469</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1415048513">1469</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Deci, E. L.</author><author>Ryan, Richard M</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The&quot; what&quot; and&quot; why&quot; of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior</title><secondary-title>Psychological inquiry</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychological Inquiry</full-title></periodical><pages>227-268</pages><volume>11</volume><number>4</number><dates><year>2000</year></dates><isbn>1047-840X</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(SDT: Deci and Ryan 1980, Deci and Ryan 2000), critiqued by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2016g</Year><RecNum>4166</RecNum><DisplayText>Cummins (2016g)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4166</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1591599202">4166</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Cummins, R. A. </author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Self-Determination Theory and the Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis: An examination of congruence</title><secondary-title>ACQol Open-Access Publications by Members.</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2016g</year></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University. (2016g).Reference: Fabian, M., & etal. (2020). Bowling with Trump: Economic Anxiety, Racial Identification, and Well-Being in the 2016 Presidential Election. Washington: Brookings Institute summary: We use well-being data from the Gallup Daily Poll and a measure of racial animus derived from Google search data to explain why racial identification became politically salient in the 2016 Presidential Election. We find that the oft-observed positive relationship between racial animus and Trump’s vote share is eliminated by introducing an interaction between racial animus and a measure of the basic psychological need for relatedness. We also find that rates of worry have a strong and significant positive association with Trump’s vote share, but this is offset by high levels of relatedness. Together, these two results imply that racial voting behavior in 2016 was driven by a desire for in-group affiliation as a way of buffering against economic and cultural anxiety. Such behavior is well established in laboratory studies in self-determination theory and worldview defense theory. Comment on Fabian et al (2020)While the introduction to this paper provides a useful panoramic view of efforts to explain the Trump phenomenon, the empirical research that follows is unfortunately flawed to the point that the results cannot be reliably interpreted. These flaws are several, but the most grievous is caused by the data collection instrument to measure the ‘wellbeing’ advertised in the manuscript title, which is based in Self-Determination Theory (SDT).Many of the publications, resting on SDT, use measurement instruments that fail to meet even the most rudimentary psychometric performance criteria. The novel instrument created by the current authors is no exception. In describing their choice of items for this scale, they state “While the Gallup data does not include questions drawn directly from SDT’s basic psychological needs survey (Deci and Ryan 2000, Gagné 2003), several questions in the Gallup survey are close analogues” (p.9). In relation to this procedure:1. Deci and Ryan (2000) do not provide a list of items measuring basic needs and nor does their text mention a ‘survey’.2. Gagne (2003) selected items from other scales, to create two new scales. One for use with college students to measure basic needs related to “various prosocial activities” and the other to measure basic needs among volunteer workers ‘at work’ (p.199). Neither scale was submitted to any form of factor analysis, with the items, modified from previous scales, simply used by Gagne at face value.The Gagne scales are used as the basis for the 14-item scale created by the current authors. Their stated intention is to measure two of the ‘basic needs’ nominated by SDT theory, as Relatedness and Competence. They define Relatedness as “the sense that one has nourishing, supportive, and reliable social connections” (p.7), citing ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Deci</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>1469</RecNum><DisplayText>Deci and Ryan (2000)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1469</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1415048513">1469</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Deci, E. L.</author><author>Ryan, Richard M</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The&quot; what&quot; and&quot; why&quot; of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior</title><secondary-title>Psychological inquiry</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychological Inquiry</full-title></periodical><pages>227-268</pages><volume>11</volume><number>4</number><dates><year>2000</year></dates><isbn>1047-840X</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Deci and Ryan (2000) but with no page number for this reference. In fact, the concept that Deci and Ryan had of Relatedness is more personal than this statement conveys. They propose “Relatedness refers to the desire to feel connected to others—to love and care, and to be loved and cared for” (p.231).However, Deci and Ryan (2000) also make it clear that their conception of Relatedness is not a direct measure of wellbeing, but rather is one of three ‘innate psychological needs’ [the third need is Autonomy] that must be satisfied for wellbeing to be experienced. They state “Well-being … concerns the experience of psychological health and life satisfaction” (p.243), and also make the point that “psychological health requires satisfaction of all three needs; one or two are not enough” (p.229). The Gallup data set does not contain the Relatedness items used by Gagne. So, in order to create their 7-item scale they substituted items available from the Gallup survey which they regard as ‘close analogues’ to those used by Gagne. The authors then sum the scores from these items to obtain their measure of Relatedness. The following matters may be noted:(a) The authors fail to establish factorial validity for their new scale, even though their main analysis, and reported findings, depend on the integrity of their ‘relatedness’ scale and its discrimination from their similarly constructed, ‘competence’ scale.(b) Their subsequent analysis focuses solely on ‘relatedness’. Their rationale for ignoring their ‘competence’ data is that “As economic decline in America is substantially a function of exogenous forces of globalization and technological change, there is little individuals can do to bolster their feelings of … competence” (p.3). This seems a curious rationale as there are many ways competence can be displayed by individuals other than through a resolution of national economic issues.(c) Despite the Gallup data including Global Life Satisfaction (GLS), the authors’ variables of Wellbeing, analysed in Table 2, include only Relatedness, Worry, Racial Animus, and Social Capital. They do not include GLS in their analyses.(d) Throughout their text, they use ‘Wellbeing’ and ‘Psychological Wellbeing’ as synonyms. They are not. The concept of wellbeing defined by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Deci</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>1469</RecNum><DisplayText>Deci and Ryan (2000)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1469</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1415048513">1469</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Deci, E. L.</author><author>Ryan, Richard M</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The&quot; what&quot; and&quot; why&quot; of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior</title><secondary-title>Psychological inquiry</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychological Inquiry</full-title></periodical><pages>227-268</pages><volume>11</volume><number>4</number><dates><year>2000</year></dates><isbn>1047-840X</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Deci and Ryan (2000) is extremely different from the concept of Psychological Wellbeing as defined by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Ryff</Author><Year>1989a</Year><RecNum>338</RecNum><DisplayText>Ryff (1989a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>338</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947742">338</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Ryff, C. D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being</title><secondary-title>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>1069-1081</pages><volume>57</volume><dates><year>1989a</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Ryff (1989a).(e) In describing the provenance of the items comprising their relatedness scale they state “we have close analogues for … 7 relatedness questions that effectively parallel questions in the BPN [Gagne, 2003] questionnaire” (p.9). Their concept of a ‘close analogue’ can be disputed. Table 1 shows that the original Gagne items all concern proximal relationships with family and friends, which is consistent with the spirit of the Deci and Ryan (2000) description of Relatedness shown above (to feel connected to others—to love and care, and to be loved and cared for). In contrast, the Fabian list includes only three such items, with the other four relating to feelings concerning the distal ‘community’. The first three of these in the list do not even refer to personal relationships.In summary, there seems little reason to regard the authors’ novel scale of ‘Relatedness’ as either reliable or valid.A different issues concerns the author’s presentation and treatment of their results. A crucial key to the replicability of results in this area, is the presentation of variable means and standard deviations (SDs), as calculated from raw-data. These values can then be used by other authors, to compare these simple statistics with others from independent studies. The current means and SDs are presented in their Table A1.1. Notably, however, the first four of the listed variables carry the tag “(normalized)” and the accompanying text informs “We again normalize this variable to run from 0–1 instead of 7–35” (p.12).This description is uninformative because the term ‘normalized’ in statistics can have very different meanings ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Dodge</Author><Year>2003</Year><RecNum>4169</RecNum><DisplayText>(Dodge 2003)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4169</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1591838551">4169</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Dodge, Y.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms</title></titles><dates><year>2003</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Dodge 2003). The most benign form of normalization is a simple linear transformation, as implied in the above quotation. This does not change the relative magnitude of the mean or the standard deviation (SD), but simply projects the results onto a different linear scale of measurement (here, from 0–1 instead of 7–35). A more sophisticated form of normalization does change the mean and SD. Here, the aim may be to adjust all of the variable’s distributions such that they conform to a normal distribution. When this procedure is conducted, the raw-means and SDs will differ from the adjusted means and SDs. This is crucial information for researchers seeking to compare results between studies.In Table A1.1 the first three variables are tagged as ‘normalized’. The remaining 8 variables, which include the 7 Relatedness variables plus Competence, are not tagged, thereby appearing to represent the data from raw scores. This, however, appears not to be so. As evidence, all of these latter means and SDs can be standardized onto a 0 – 100 percentage point (pp) scale through the formula presented in the Personal Wellbeing Index Manual ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013). Within the relationship scale, the two extreme means are ‘Recognition for improvements to my neighborhood’ (2.22) and ‘My relationship with my partner is strong’ (4.18). When these values are converted into pps, both have a SD of 5.5pp. This would not be possible if the presented results had been calculated from raw scores. Because raw-score distributions representing these sorts of data are naturally negatively skewed, due to being under homeostatic control ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2017a</Year><RecNum>2946</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2017a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2946</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1491111749">2946</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Dunn, D. S.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition</title><secondary-title>Oxford Bibliographies Online</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2017a</year><pub-dates><date>10 April 2018</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>New York </pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls><related-urls><url>;(Cummins 2017a), a change in the mean will signal a necessary change in the SD.In summary, while the authors display considerable statistical sophistication in their treatment of their data, the interpretation of their results is most uncertain due to the unknown psychometric character of their Relatedness measurement scale, which has neither demonstrated reliability nor validity. Additionally, the presentation of variable means and SDs, normalized to a common distribution, has the implication that future researchers cannot simply check the basic congruence of their data to achieve a replication. It is concluded that both the results presented in this paper, and the conclusions from those results, are unreliable.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 14th June, 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryAustralian Council of Social Service. (2020). Poverty in Australia 2020: Part 2 - Whois affected? Sydney: Author report, Part 2 of Poverty in Australia 2020, provides the human face of poverty in Australia and explains who is most affected and at risk. Looked at through the varied aspects of life – our age, gender, family relationships, paid work and sources of income, disability and other characteristics - the report provides an insight into who really lives in poverty, and the nature of that experience.Being unemployed remains the greatest risk to livingin povertyThe report confirms that as at 2017 being unemployed and of working age remains the greatest poverty risk factor, with two-thirds (66%) of people in households where the main income-earner is unemployed living in poverty. This is a direct result of the historically very low rate of unemployment payments in Australia. In January 2018 (mid-point of the ABS Survey period) the single rate of Youth Allowance (plus Rent Assistance and Energy Supplement) was $164pw below the poverty line and Newstart Allowance (plus these supplements) was $117pw below.Media newsThe four loneliest types of people in AustraliaAlex Haslam, Catherine Haslam and Tegan Cruwys found the quality of social connections is around four times more important as a predictor of retirees' physical and mental health than the state of their finances. But when was the last time you saw an ad on TV telling you to get your social life in order (rather than your pension plan) before you stop working? When was the last time a health campaign or your family doctor warned you of the dangers of loneliness?Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersDr Kylie RoutledgeResearch fellow, The University of SydneyKeywords:?Wellbeing promotion, mental illness prevention, social and emotional well-being, youthMs Kate DoswellClinical Advisor Functional Family Therapy, Anglicare VictoriaKeywords:?Assessment tool, research, comparison dataMs Lorraine PoulosLorraine Poulos and Associates, Lorraine Poulos and AssociatesKeywords:?Aged care-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST Cummins, R. A. (2016g). Self-Determination Theory and the Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis: An examination of congruence. In R. A. Cummins (Ed.), ACQol Open-Access Publications by Members. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University. , R. A. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. In D. S. Dunn (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies Online. Retrieved from , E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1980). Self-determination theory: When mind mediates behavior. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 1, 33-43. Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The" what" and" why" of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268. Dodge, Y. (2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms. New York: Oxford University Press.International Wellbeing Group. (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Retrieved from , C. D. (1989a). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1069-1081. ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/23: 040620Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.TrustBackground:‘The Truth’ takes centre stage where ever it goes. In war it is the first casualty (1917 US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson: ), in courts of law it is a promise to God ‘---to tell the whole truth…’, and in romantic relationships ‘truth hurts’. Truth is commonly understood as the opposite of false, and is a concept in both philosophy and science. Within the social sciences, truth forms the basis of ‘trust’, as the feelings of confidence and security in another person. In societal terms, Social Capital as described by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Putnam</Author><Year>1993</Year><RecNum>1520</RecNum><DisplayText>Putnam (1993)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1520</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1416276814">1520</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Putnam, R. D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The prosperous community: social capital and public life</title><secondary-title>The american prospect</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>The american prospect</full-title></periodical><volume>13</volume><number>Spring), Vol. 4. Available online: . prospect. org/print/vol/13 (accessed 7 April 2003</number><dates><year>1993</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Putnam (1993), predicts automatically differential levels of trust between group insiders and outsiders. Insiders, especially family, tell the truth and can be trusted. Outsiders less. So, how much does ‘trust’ link to Subjective Wellbeing (SWB)? One theoretical prediction comes from combining insiders/outsiders with an understanding of SWB composition.SWB comprises two parts. One is the variable component, comprising the cognitive/emotional complex generated each moment by thoughts and percepts. The second is the stable mood component (Homeostatically Protected Mood: HPMood), which is an individual difference, produced as the phenotype of each person’s set-point. While HPMood pervades all evaluative thoughts, it does so with varying strength depending on whether the target of evaluation is proximal (the self: the ultimate insider) or distal (non-self: outsider) ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2018a</Year><RecNum>2895</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2895</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1486353818">2895</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Hutchinson, D.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M.</author><author>Olsson, C. A.</author><author>Richardson, B.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Why self-report variables inter-correlate: The role of Homeostatically Protected Mood</title><secondary-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</full-title></periodical><pages>93-114</pages><volume>2</volume><dates><year>2018a</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s41543-018-0014-0</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a). The highest proportion of HPMood content occurs when the evaluated variable is proximal and abstract, such as in ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole?’One consequence of HPMood content is that it allows a prediction of how strongly two self-report variables will correlate. The higher their shared variance comprising HPMood, the stronger they will correlate with one another. From this, some correlations between SWB, as measured by Global Life Satisfaction (‘Satisfaction with life as a whole’- GLS) and ‘trust’ can be predicted with considerable confidence as follows. (a) Proximal-Insider vs. Proximal-Insider as self (e.g. GLS vs. Your satisfaction that you can trust yourself. Predicted outcome – a high correlation.(b) Proximal-Insider vs. Proximal-Insider as other (e.g. GLS vs. Your satisfaction that you can trust your partner). Predicted outcome – a high correlation, but lower than (a).(c) Proximal-Insider vs. Proximal-Outsider (e.g. GLS vs. Your satisfaction that you can trust the government). Predicted outcome – a low correlation.(d) Proximal-Insider vs. Distal-Outsider (e.g. GLS vs. How much the average citizen trusts the government). Predicted outcome – no correlation.This prediction of an increasing degree of disconnection between SWB and trust, as the trust variable changes from insider to distal outsider, is supported by the following two recent reports. ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Scanlon Foundation</Author><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>3999</RecNum><DisplayText>Scanlon Foundation (2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3999</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1574895205">3999</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Scanlon Foundation,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Mapping Social Cohesion</title></titles><dates><year>2019</year></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Monash University Foundation (2019) notes that “Australia is heading into recession, democracy is failing, public trust in politicians is at an all-time low, yet in terms of social cohesion [a proximal-insider variable], indicators have consistently obtained a high level of positive response with little short-term change”.In a similar vein, ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Australian National Outlook</Author><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>3875</RecNum><DisplayText>Australian National Outlook (2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3875</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1561280068">3875</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Australian National Outlook,</author></authors></contributors><titles></titles><dates><year>2019</year></dates><pub-location>Canberra</pub-location><publisher>CSIRO National Outlook (2019) reports that Australian’s trust in both public and private institutions has fallen sharply. [while at the same time, national levels of SWB have remained stable] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Khor</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4031</RecNum><DisplayText>(Khor, Cummins et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4031</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1577681307">4031</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Khor, S.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M.</author><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Jona, C.</author><author>Olsson, C. A.</author><author>Hutchinson, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Ageing Well: Healthy Transitions to Retirement. Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: Report 36.0</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>Geelong</pub-location><publisher>Deakin University ;(Khor, Cummins et al. 2020)A further set of predictions can be formulated on the basis of the subjective-objective character of the correlated variables. As noted almost 50 years ago “We would not expect [objective and subjective] indicators necessarily to move in the same direction from one measurement to another, or even to covary substantially across different individuals. It would be quite possible for the external conditions of life to ‘improve’ while people's sense of well-being declined” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Andrews</Author><Year>1976</Year><RecNum>3</RecNum><Pages>7</Pages><DisplayText>(Andrews and Withey 1976)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947407">3</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Andrews, F. M.</author><author>Withey, S. B.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Social indicators of well-being: American&apos;s perceptions of life quality</title></titles><dates><year>1976</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Plenum Press</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Andrews and Withey 1976). A very substantial literature supports this prediction PEVuZE5vdGU+PENpdGU+PEF1dGhvcj5IdWFuZzwvQXV0aG9yPjxZZWFyPjIwMTY8L1llYXI+PFJl

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ADDIN EN.CITE.DATA (Binder and Coad 2016, Huang, Wu et al. 2016, Blanchflower 2017), as does also homeostasis theory ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2000a</Year><RecNum>608</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2000a, Cummins, Lau et al. 2004)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>608</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947789">608</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Objective and subjective quality of life: An interactive model</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>55-72</pages><volume>52</volume><dates><year>2000a</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2004</Year><RecNum>2418</RecNum><record><rec-number>2418</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1457054466">2418</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Lau, Anna LD</author><author>Stokes, Mark</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>HRQOL and subjective well-being: Noncomplementary forms of outcome measurement</title><secondary-title>Expert review of pharmacoeconomics &amp; outcomes research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Expert review of pharmacoeconomics &amp; outcomes research</full-title></periodical><pages>413-420</pages><volume>4</volume><number>4</number><dates><year>2004</year></dates><isbn>1473-7167</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins 2000a, Cummins, Lau et al. 2004). SWB homeostasis is all about maintaining the chronic sense of self in a narrow positive range. It therefore reacts against changing objective conditions with various forms of adaptation ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2017a</Year><RecNum>2946</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2017a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2946</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1491111749">2946</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Dunn, D. S.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition</title><secondary-title>Oxford Bibliographies Online</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2017a</year><pub-dates><date>10 April 2018</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>New York </pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls><related-urls><url>;(Cummins 2017a) designed to achieve SWB stability. The exception to this process occurs when homeostasis is overwhelmed by challenges that are too strong and persistent to allow for effective adaptation. Then, when homeostasis fails, the external source of challenge assumes control of the subjective environment, such that subjective variables, such as SWB and Trust, start to correlate with the level of the challenging agent. An example of such an objective agent is unemployment. However, it should be recognised that such correlations represent an outcome of pathology, not normal functioning.From the above, clear theoretical leads, it is evident that researchers embarking on a fishing expedition within survey data, aiming to elucidate the correlates of Trust and SWB, will be casting unbaited hooks by concentrating their efforts on distal, outsider, and objective variables.Reference: Glatz, C., & Eder, A. (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. doi: summary: This paper offers elaborate analyses regarding the effects of social- as well as institutional trust as parts of social capital on subjective well-being (SWB) … We observe a weak positive trend regarding social trust as well as SWB over time, but no significant change in institutional trust … we find a positive effect of social trust on SWB … In view of institutional trust, we see a positive effect on SWB on the individual and aggregate cross-sectional level, but not over time … we observe no relation between economic growth and SWB after controlling for unemployment, but a positive effect of decreasing unemployment and inflation on SWB. Our data suggests that establishing an environment with high social trust across Europe would be rewarded with a happy ment on Glatz & Eder (2020).CumminsThis study describes a sophisticated statistical approach to an interesting topic. The methodology involved cross-sectional data collected by the European Social Survey, on at least 7 occasions between 2002 and 2018. The effective sample comprised 19 countries with each survey sample involving a minimum 1,500 respondents in each country. SWB was measured by the sum of Global Life Satisfaction and Global Life Happiness, each measured on a 0-10 response scale. The construct validity of the ‘trust’ measures were confirmed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. A wide range of demographic data was also collected.Their analyses include multilevel modelling, which is exemplary. This statistic effectively avoids the (commonly reported) simple correlation of individual-level (e.g. SWB) and group-level (e.g. GDP, Gini) variables. Such correlations are invalid, as described by the Ecological Fallacy see ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Piantadosi</Author><Year>1988</Year><RecNum>2575</RecNum><Prefix>see </Prefix><Suffix> for elaboration</Suffix><DisplayText>(see Piantadosi, Byar et al. 1988 for elaboration)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2575</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1467518524">2575</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Piantadosi, S.</author><author>Byar, D. P.</author><author>Green, S. B.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The ecological fallacy</title><secondary-title>American journal of epidemiology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>American journal of epidemiology</full-title></periodical><pages>893-904</pages><volume>127</volume><number>5</number><dates><year>1988</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(see Piantadosi, Byar et al. 1988 for elaboration).Despite these positive features, the study lacks a theoretical basis, therefore appears as a fishing expedition based on correlations between commonly reported variables, and ends up describing results that are mainly already well documented. Their single notable result is not specific to Trust, but rather to the devastating consequences of unemployment on SWB. This is, despite finding a positive effect of economic growth on SWB, this relationship vanishes when unemployment is used as a covariate (p. 429). The positive correlation of SWB with social trust and institutional trust similarly disappears, as is anticipated by the ‘background’ section above.Problems of interpretationThe authors have misinterpreted the meaning of population SWB levels. In conjunction with their Figure 1 they suggest “four categories are derived from the mean-index scaled from 0 to 10 [rescaled here from 0-100 for consistency with the rest of the text], albeit ‘extremely dissatisfied’ reaches from 0 to 20, ‘dissatisfied’ from 25 to 45, ‘satisfied’ from 50 to 70 and ‘extremely satisfied’ from 75 to 100”. The authors appear to be unaware of the basic SWB distribution, which has a distinct negative skew. In order for their sample mean to achieve 72 to 74pp, around 95% of their respondents would have scored between 50 and 100. Those scoring between 50 and 70 are not ‘satisfied’. They are below the normal range and under homeostatic distress. Those scoring between 70 and 90 are simply normal, not ‘extremely satisfied’ as imagined by the authors. In sum, their interpretation of SWB values on p.425 is invalid.They also claim that SWB and social trust have increased over time, using latent growth curve modelling (Table 2). However, the maximum degree of change for both variables is 2 percentage points, and significance is dependent on the final (8th) estimation (Figures 1 and 2). Additionally, the significance estimate on p<.05 for SWB is fragile and would become non-significate with a Bonferroni correction for multiple tests of significance. Additionally in relation to these results, change within individual countries is claimed (p.427) but with no indication of significance level. In summary, their claims of changed levels are of questionable reliability.Finally, it is unfortunately common to find authors concluding, invalidly, that the correlations of ‘trust’ with other variables can be interpreted causally. For example, ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Fujiwara</Author><Year>2008</Year><RecNum>3459</RecNum><DisplayText>Fujiwara and Kawachi (2008)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3459</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1520506507">3459</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Fujiwara, T.</author><author>Kawachi, Ichiro</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>A prospective study of individual-level social capital and major depression in the United States</title><secondary-title>Journal of Epidemiology &amp; Community Health</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Epidemiology &amp; Community Health</full-title></periodical><pages>627-633</pages><volume>62</volume><number>7</number><dates><year>2008</year></dates><isbn>0143-005X</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Fujiwara and Kawachi (2008) incorrectly interpret the inverse correlation between trust and depression as trust being protective against depression (see ACQOL Bulletin Vol 2/11: 150318). The current authors make similar claims of causation. For example, Table 3 is titled “The impact of social and institutional trust on subjective well-being”. Such claims are unfounded and misleading – it is just as likely that the level of SWB influences the level of trust or, even more likely, that both variables are under the influence of a third ‘driving’ variable in the form of Homeostatically Protected Mood ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2018a</Year><RecNum>2895</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2895</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1486353818">2895</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Hutchinson, D.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M.</author><author>Olsson, C. A.</author><author>Richardson, B.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Why self-report variables inter-correlate: The role of Homeostatically Protected Mood</title><secondary-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</full-title></periodical><pages>93-114</pages><volume>2</volume><dates><year>2018a</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s41543-018-0014-0</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a). Curiously, in their concluding section, the authors acknowledge that in “interpreting our results, we have to take certain restriction into account. First of all, our statistical analysis does not allow to derive causality” (p.435). Indeed it is so.In summary, despite the technical sophistication of this manuscript, it adds trivially to the existing literature and provides a considerable level of misinformation.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 7th June, 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryReference: Dickinson, H., & Yates, S. (2020). More than isolated: The experience of children and young people with disability and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Report on CYDA’s 2020 COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and children and young people with disability survey. Canberra: Public Service Research Group, School of Business, UNSW survey was launched just five days after the World Health Organization declared the pandemic on 11 March and remained open for five and a half weeks, attracting just under 700 responses – predominantly from family members of children and young people with disability. Respondents identified a broad range of impacts, including the inability to access essential products and services and the cancellation of supports and educational programs, all of which generated additional caring responsibilities. Households reported feeling scared, uncertain about the best ways to act, and that this was having an impact on the mental health of all family members.? Half of survey respondents experienced a decline in their mental health either for themselves or for the child or young person with disability. This increased over the period of the survey.? The majority of respondents were unable to buy essential supplies, e.g. groceries, special dietary products, hygiene products, which peaked at the commencement of the pandemic period. Many of these essential goods were necessary for the children and young people with disability because of their conditions.? One in three respondents experienced cancellation of support workers (either by self or service) and NDIS services.Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaTactics Gaslighters Use to Control, Confuse, and AbuseHow emotionally abusive people can make you question reality. Jack Ph.D.The term “gaslighting” owes its origins to a play and the 1944 film based on it called Gaslight, in which a man manipulates his wife into believing she has gone insane. Gaslighting refers to various forms of psychological manipulation which can lead the person on the receiving end to question their memory, judgment, and sense of what is real. If someone is on the receiving end of gaslighting for some time, it can be damaging to their self-esteem and extremely disempowering, leaving them open to controlling and abusive behaviours. The impact of gaslighting behaviours cannot be overestimated. It is a form of emotional abuse which goes straight to our core beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. from the ACQol siteGoogle Analytics inclusive period: May 2020Number of users who initiated at least one session during the date range: 1,433Number of sessions: 1,800Membership changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersDr Evan LauUniversity Malaysia SarawakKeywords: Economics, wellbeing, Social studiesMr Brad SandersonResearch Director, Smiling MindKeywords: Mindfulness, Physical Activity, Wellbeing, Stress-----------------------ReferencesAndrews, F. M. and S. B. Withey (1976). Social indicators of well-being: American's perceptions of life quality. New York, Plenum Press.Australian National Outlook (2019). Canberra, CSIRO , M. and A. Coad (2016). "How Satisfied are the Self-Employed? A Life Domain View." Journal of Happiness Studies 17: 1409-1433.Blanchflower, D. G. (2017). Happiness. Bulletin of the Public Policy Observatory in Cali; Policy Brief #17: Life satisfaction: Measurement and its implications for public policy formulation. L. Martinez. Colombia, Universidad Icesi in Cali: 36-40.Cummins, R. A. (2000a). "Objective and subjective quality of life: An interactive model." Social Indicators Research 52: 55-72.Cummins, R. A. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. Oxford Bibliographies Online. D. S. Dunn. New York Oxford University Press.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.Cummins, R. A., A. L. Lau and M. Stokes (2004). "HRQOL and subjective well-being: Noncomplementary forms of outcome measurement." Expert review of pharmacoeconomics & outcomes research 4(4): 413-420.Fujiwara, T. and I. Kawachi (2008). "A prospective study of individual-level social capital and major depression in the United States." Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health 62(7): 627-633.Huang, J., S. Wu and S. Deng (2016). "Relative income, relative assets, and happiness in urban China." Social Indicators Research 126(3): 971-985.Khor, S., R. A. Cummins, M. Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, T. Capic, C. Jona, C. A. Olsson and D. Hutchinson (2020). Ageing Well: Healthy Transitions to Retirement. Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: Report 36.0. Geelong, Deakin University , S., D. P. Byar and S. B. Green (1988). "The ecological fallacy." American journal of epidemiology 127(5): 893-904.Putnam, R. D. (1993). "The prosperous community: social capital and public life." The american prospect 13(Spring), Vol. 4. Available online: . prospect. org/print/vol/13 (accessed 7 April 2003).Scanlon Foundation (2019). Mapping Social Cohesion. Melbourne, Monash University Bulletin Vol 4/22: 280520 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Time-trends in population surveysBackground: Many studies will be in the publication pipeline, each reporting the effects of Covid-19 on the subjective wellbeing (SWB) of population samples. Many of these will cite prior SWB data as evidence of pre-virus levels, but how reliable will these estimates be?The topic of SWB trends in population samples has received attention in recent issues of the Bulletin [3/51:191219; 3/52:261219: ]. The most reliable results come from Australia, where the population has been surveyed 34 times over the period 2002 and 2019, with each sample being nationally representative of gender and geographic location, each survey has comprised some 2,000 respondents, and SWB has been measured using a multi-item index (the Personal Wellbeing Index). The results demonstrate that the combined survey means average 75.43 percentage points (pp) and that all surveys lie within a 2.6pp range ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Khor</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4160</RecNum><DisplayText>(Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4160</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1590377163">4160</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Khor, S; </author><author>Fuller-Tysziewicz, M; &amp; </author><author>Hutchinson, D. .</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Australian normative data for Subjective Wellbeing</title><secondary-title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 6th Edition. International Wellbeing Group.</secondary-title></titles><section>xx</section><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University ;(Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2020). However, results from other economically developed countries are less reliable, which has led authors to very different views as to whether population trends are rising, falling, or are stable.The major methodological problem is that such studies are rarely longitudinal. More commonly, their data come instead from multiple cross-sectional samples, and there are many reasons for such samples to differ from one another. The most obvious of these is the occurrence of either a major national event or the sudden onset of systematic population-level changes in the circumstances of living. However, homeostasis theory ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2017a</Year><RecNum>2946</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2017a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2946</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1491111749">2946</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Dunn, D. S.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition</title><secondary-title>Oxford Bibliographies Online</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2017a</year><pub-dates><date>10 April 2018</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>New York </pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls><related-urls><url>;(Cummins 2017a) predicts that neither of these would be expected to produce a major chronic change in national levels of SWB. National events should exert an acute, not a chronic change is SWB levels, and if such changed circumstances are chronic, it would be expected that homeostatic adaptation would occur, thereby restoring the earlier levels of SWB. Indeed, the Australian data show that population-levels can remain within a tight normative range even in the face of major events, such as the Global Financial Crisis and raging bushfires across the country ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Khor</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4031</RecNum><Suffix>: Figure 4.1</Suffix><DisplayText>(Khor, Cummins et al. 2020: Figure 4.1)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4031</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1577681307">4031</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Khor, S.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M.</author><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Jona, C.</author><author>Olsson, C. A.</author><author>Hutchinson, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Ageing Well: Healthy Transitions to Retirement. Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: Report 36.0</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>Geelong</pub-location><publisher>Deakin University ;(Khor, Cummins et al. 2020: Figure 4.1). A different source of variation in SWB between successive samples is the composition of each sample. Reliable estimates of trends between successive samples depend on each sample representing the underlying population, on each measurement occasion, equally. However, the reality is that all ‘national’ surveys use biased samples that none veridically represent their populations. They almost always omit people who are institutionalized, who are not fluent in the language of the survey, who are homeless, etc. They also omit people who are unwilling to complete the survey. But, in terms of the question of comparability between successive samples, these limitations do not matter provided that the demographic composition of the sample does not vary over time and that the sample is large enough to even-out the distribution of uncontrollable psychological variables that associate with SWB, such as personality differences.To some extent the process of generating demographically equivalent samples is straightforward. The most relevant demographic variables are well known and include age, money, relationship structure, and engagement in work of some kind. The question as to the minimum size of the samples is far more complex, and I am unaware of any theoretical assistance in making such determinations. Thus, in the absence of theoretical guidance, the fall-back source of information is empirical, and the Australian example may be a useful reference point. This is because the sample size and specifications, provided earlier, have been demonstrated to yield successive cross-sectional surveys with means that lie within a 2.6pp range. Using this criterion, it can be concluded that many national surveys use samples that are quite likely too small to be reliable, especially within countries with large populations. For example, in the USA, the General Social Survey samples some 3,000-4,000 respondents [; Appendix A] in a population of 330 million people. In comparison, the Australian sample size of 2,000 represents a population of only 25 million. So the equivalent USA sample, per 25 million, is 227-303 people, which is surely too low to be reliably representative.What seems clear is that more data on this issue are required, using the criterion that an adequate sample composition and size will, under normal national conditions, yield successive survey means that approximate the 2.6pp range demonstrated in Australia. One potential source are data from the European Social Survey, conducted every two years, and with impressive credentials Reference: Glatz, C., & Eder, A. (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. doi: summary: [The major topic of this paper is ‘trust’. Here, however, only their GLS results are to be discussed, derived from the European Social Survey, including 36 countries and eight time-points between 2002 and 2016]Comment on Glatz & Eder (2020).CumminsThe European Social Survey covers adults in every European country (N=31), with samples which typically range between 1,500 and 3,000 individuals per country and year. The most populous of these countries is Germany, with around 3x the Australian population, rather smaller is Britain, France, Italy, Spain which have about twice the Australian population, while the remainder have around the same or a smaller population than Australia.Sampling adheres to ESS sampling principles ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Lynn</Author><Year>2004</Year><RecNum>4159</RecNum><DisplayText>(Lynn, Hader et al. 2004)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4159</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1590213516">4159</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lynn, P.</author><author>Hader, S.</author><author>Gabler, S.</author><author>Laaksonen, S.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Methods for achieving equivalence of samples in cross-national surveys: the European SocialSurvey experience: ISER Working Paper Series, No. 2004-09</title></titles><dates><year>2004</year></dates><pub-location>Colchester</pub-location><publisher>University of Essex, Institute forSocial and Economic Research (ISER)</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Lynn, Hader et al. 2004) which specifications include: Samples must be representative of all persons aged 15 and over, with individuals selected by strict random probability methods. The single-question Global Life Satisfaction (GLS) is worded: “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays? …where 0 means extremely dissatisfied and 10 means extremely satisfied”. In terms of normative ranges, because GLS is a single question, it is inherently less reliable than a multi-item index such as the Personal Wellbeing Index ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013). The PWI normative range for national survey mean scores in Australia is 2.60pp (range 74.13 to 76.73pp) ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Khor</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4160</RecNum><DisplayText>(Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4160</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1590377163">4160</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Khor, S; </author><author>Fuller-Tysziewicz, M; &amp; </author><author>Hutchinson, D. .</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Australian normative data for Subjective Wellbeing</title><secondary-title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 6th Edition. International Wellbeing Group.</secondary-title></titles><section>xx</section><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, Deakin University ;(Khor, Fuller-Tysziewicz et al. 2020). The normative range for GLS is 3.49pp (range 75.75 to 79.24pp). The lower values for the PWI are caused by the addition of cognitive/emotion generated by the domains.Glatz & Eder report their combined results in their Figure 1. This figure is the composite result for the 19 countries for which data, for at least 7 time-points, were available (see their p. 424). Using these 19 countries, the combined survey mean scores over the years 2002 to 2016 range from 72.0 to 74.0pp, a range of just 2.0pp. While these survey means are some 4pp below the Australian range, the level of variation between surveys is very similar.These results are encouraging to the view that a criterion can be set, by which to judge the reliability of survey estimates of national SWB using GLS. This criterion is that the variation in the level produced by each sample, over at least five consecutive surveys, not exceed 4pp. If any member is aware of another report containing results that can inform this criterion, please contact robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auReferences: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 31th May, 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryHall, S., Fildes, J., Liyanarachchi, D., Plummer, J., & Reynolds, M. (2020). Young, Willing and Able: Youth Survey Disability Report 2019. Sydney: Mission Australia young people aged between 15 and 19 who participated in Youth Survey 2019, and of those, 1,623 reported a disability. They were asked to rate how happy they were with their life as a whole. Over four in 10 (43.0%) young people with disability indicated that they felt happy/very happy with their lives overall, which is notably lower compared with participants without disability (62.0%). It is alarming to see that more than double the proportion of respondents with disability felt very sad/sad with life as a whole (24.1% compared with 10.1% of participants without disability).Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaLockdown singing: the science of why music helps us connect in isolation M. Greenberg and Ilanit GordonOne of the most encouraging phenomena we have begun to see in response to social distancing laws are the innovative ways that people are starting to bond with each other, particularly musically. For example, videos of neighbours singing with each other across their balconies in Italy, which then spread to other countries during the beginning of the lockdown. This need to bond – through music especially – relates to the fundamental features of being human. In some ways, amid the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are experiencing a global social psychological experiment that is giving us insight into what lies at the core of our humanity.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersMs Vicka Kharisma Yulidar BaharPhD Candidate, Tokyo Institute of TechnologyKeywords: Food, Food Insecurity, Well-Being, SustainabilityDr Bruno ArpinoAssociate Professor, University of FlorenceKeywords: Ageing, Social determinants of health, Subjective wellbeing, Mental health, Intergenerational relationships, Grand parenting-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST Cummins, R. A. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. Oxford Bibliographies Online. D. S. Dunn. New York Oxford University Press.International Wellbeing Group (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University.Khor, S., R. A. Cummins, M. Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, T. Capic, C. Jona, C. A. Olsson and D. Hutchinson (2020). Ageing Well: Healthy Transitions to Retirement. Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: Report 36.0. Geelong, Deakin University , S., M. Fuller-Tysziewicz and D. Hutchinson (2020). 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 , P., S. Hader, S. Gabler and S. Laaksonen (2004). Methods for achieving equivalence of samples in cross-national surveys: the European SocialSurvey experience: ISER Working Paper Series, No. 2004-09. Colchester, University of Essex, Institute forSocial and Economic Research (ISER).ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/21: 210520Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Happiness Pie updateBackground: In the previous issue of this Bulletin, two critiques of the ‘happiness’pie’ publication ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Lyubomirsky</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>482</RecNum><DisplayText>(Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. 2005)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>482</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">482</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lyubomirsky, S.</author><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Schkade, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change</title><secondary-title>Review of General Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Review of General Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>111-131</pages><volume>9</volume><dates><year>2005</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. 2005) were presented. These critiques took the form of a published paper ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Brown</Author><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>3892</RecNum><DisplayText>(Brown and Rohrer 2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3892</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1564109413">3892</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Brown, N. J. L.</author><author>Rohrer, Julia M</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Easy as (happiness) Pie? A Critical Evaluation of a Popular Model of the Determinants of Well-being</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>1-17</pages><dates><year>2019</year></dates><isbn>1389-4978</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Brown and Rohrer 2019) and comment by Cummins. The main points of critique are as follows:(a) The statistical depiction of the happiness-pie, in the original paper, is untenable (both critiques). Additional major points of critique from Brown & Rohrer are:(b) Brown & Rohrer: “Lyubomirsky et al.’s (2005) examination of the determinants of chronic happiness levels draws on the well-known logic of variance decomposition. For example, psychologists frequently report how the percentage of variance of a certain outcome can be explained by a set of predictors (typically using the coefficient of determination, R2), or the percentage of variance that a new construct can explain over and above established measures (incremental R2). However, such a variance decomposition can only be interpreted in terms of variation within a certain population (e.g., “10% of the between-subject variance in happiness can be explained by life circumstances”), and cannot be translated into individual- level variation (e.g., “10% of a person’s variance in happiness can be explained by that person’s life circumstances”), unless it was explicitly established on the within-subject level which … is not the case for the studies underlying Lyubomirsky et al.’s model)”(pp. 1287-1288).(c) Brown & Rohrer: “Even if the numbers used to partition the happiness pie held on the within subject level, they would still not necessarily imply anything about the potential of possible volitional activities or interventions… The variance that can be explained by certain factors will necessarily be constrained by the variability of these factors in the population. For example, imagine that a highly effective method was found that allowed individuals to intentionally raise their chronic happiness levels by multiple points… If almost everybody in the population adapted the method, it would no longer explain much variance in chronic happiness levels, because it would have consistently raised the level of the whole population. Hence, the variance attributable to this hypothetical intervention would change, even if its potential to increase an individual’s well-being remained constant” (p.1288).“Likewise, researchers should carefully reconsider the usage of terms such as “volitionalactivities”. What might be a matter of choice for some people can be a question of circumstances for others” (p.1295).(d) Brown & Rohrer: “The conceptualization of the happiness pie and its underlying variance decomposition is only correct when all three factors are independent (i.e., they do not interact and do not covary)… However, this assumption is unlikely to hold” [they cite examples] (p.1289).(e) Brown & Rohrer: “The distinction between the slices of the happiness pie might reify common misunderstandings regarding the nature of heritability estimates. While it seems popular to assume that high heritability implies low malleability, this is not the case: A trait can be both highly heritable and malleable at the same time. For example, the heritabilityof general intelligence is high, but education reliably increases intelligence” [references provided] (p.1289).(f) Brown & Rohrer: “There is a considerable lack of clarity about how the … figure of 10% [for the contribution of life circumstances] was arrived at” (p.1292). So Brown and Rohrer reviewed the original sources to look for this information. They conclude “this well-publicized figure may have been derived from an erroneous conflation of ‘classification variables’ or ‘demographic factors’ with the much wider category of ‘life circumstances’…” (p.1293).Reference: Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2020). Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1-10.Author summary: The Sustainable Happiness Model (SHM) has been influential in positive psychology and well-being science. However, the ‘pie chart’ aspect of the model has received valid critiques. In this article, we start by agreeing with many such critiques, while also explaining the context of the original article and noting that we were speculative but not dogmatic therein. We also show that subsequent research has supported the most important premise of the SHM – namely, that individuals can boost their well-being via their intentional behaviors, and maintain that boost in the longer-term. However, such effects may be weaker than we initially believed. We describe three contemporary models descended from the thinking embodied in the SHM – the Eudaimonic Activity Model, the Hedonic Adaptation Prevention model, and the Positive Activity Model. Research testing these models has further supported the premise that how people live makes a difference for their ments on Sheldon & Lyubomirsky (2020)CumminsThe paper under examination ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Sheldon</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4151</RecNum><Suffix>: attached</Suffix><DisplayText>(Sheldon and Lyubomirsky 2020: attached)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4151</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1589013269">4151</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Lyubomirsky, Sonja</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued?</title><secondary-title>The Journal of Positive Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>The Journal of Positive Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>1-10</pages><dates><year>2020</year></dates><isbn>1743-9760</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Sheldon and Lyubomirsky 2020: attached) has been published as a reply to the several critical appraisals of their original ‘happiness-pie’ publication ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Lyubomirsky</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>482</RecNum><DisplayText>(Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. 2005)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>482</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">482</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lyubomirsky, S.</author><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Schkade, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change</title><secondary-title>Review of General Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Review of General Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>111-131</pages><volume>9</volume><dates><year>2005</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. 2005). In the introduction to their reply, the authors give special credit to the critique by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Brown</Author><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>3892</RecNum><DisplayText>Brown and Rohrer (2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3892</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1564109413">3892</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Brown, N. J. L.</author><author>Rohrer, Julia M</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Easy as (happiness) Pie? A Critical Evaluation of a Popular Model of the Determinants of Well-being</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>1-17</pages><dates><year>2019</year></dates><isbn>1389-4978</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Brown and Rohrer (2019), as causing the authors to re-evaluate their original proposition regarding the nature and distribution within the ‘happiness-pie’ conception. These points of criticism have been listed above.In this adversarial situation, defending authors are faced with various options. The simplest is to acknowledge a lapse of judgement, agree that the points of critique are valid, and formally withdraw the matter in contention. A step more complex is to agree with some points of critique, contest others with reasoned, scientifically-based argument, and come to a summative evaluation of the residual claimed material. The third approach is discursive. It involves justifying the original proposition on vague grounds, avoiding direct confrontation with any of the specific points of critique, thereby leaving the matter in contention virtually untouched, and provides distraction by taking the reader into related areas. Either of the first two approaches are part and parcel of the normal scientific process. Authors make mistakes of judgement, the critiquing process allows such errors to be aired, retracted as required, and scientific understanding advances. The third approach does not meet the requirements for scientific advancement of understanding. As a further point of context, the six major points of the Brown and Rohrer critique, as listed in the ‘background’ section above, are formidable. Each point is based on a general scientific principle such that, where it is shown that the principle has been violated, valid defence is most difficult to muster.It is unfortunately evident that the authors, Sheldon and Lyubomirsky, have offered no valid counter argument to any of the major points of critique. They do, however, engage in various avoidance tactics, which include setting-up a straw-man.“If happiness is not fully determined by a person’s genetics and circumstances, then there must be something left over for intentional behavior” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Sheldon</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4151</RecNum><Pages>1</Pages><DisplayText>Sheldon and Lyubomirsky (2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4151</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1589013269">4151</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Lyubomirsky, Sonja</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued?</title><secondary-title>The Journal of Positive Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>The Journal of Positive Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>1-10</pages><dates><year>2020</year></dates><isbn>1743-9760</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Sheldon and Lyubomirsky (2020)(p.1). There is no reliable research suggesting happiness is fully determined by genetics and circumstances. Neither is there any reliable research suggesting happiness cannot be modified by intentional activity. These matters are irrelevant to the Brown and Rohrer critique.Closer to the actual critique, Sheldon and Lyubomirsky agree that “Brown and Rohrer (2019) have provided the most elaborated analysis, especially of the initial percentage estimates we provided” (p.1). Yet they do not address the issue (point d in the ‘background’ section above) raised by Brown and Rohrer, that “The conceptualization of the happiness pie and its underlying variance decomposition is only correct when all three factors are independent … However, this assumption is unlikely to hold” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Brown</Author><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>3892</RecNum><Pages>1289</Pages><DisplayText>(Brown and Rohrer 2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3892</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1564109413">3892</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Brown, N. J. L.</author><author>Rohrer, Julia M</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Easy as (happiness) Pie? A Critical Evaluation of a Popular Model of the Determinants of Well-being</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>1-17</pages><dates><year>2019</year></dates><isbn>1389-4978</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Brown and Rohrer 2019) p1289. Indeed it is more impossible than ‘unlikely’. Oddly, however, Sheldon and Lyubomirsky 2020 describe their ‘happiness-pie’ model as having ”three overlapping kinds of influences”. This is odd for two reasons. First, it is wrong. Neither the word ‘overlapping’ nor the descriptive intention of overlapping appear in their original paper. Second, their alternative representation makes the factors dependent, which then automatically negates the fixed ‘happiness-pie’ percentages.Most of their remaining text is devoted to reviewing their own ideas within positive psychology, and have no direct relevance to the specific critiques that have been listed. The gap between positive psychology and psychological science is evident.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 24th May, 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.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 <tanja.capic@deakin.edu.au>WebMasterWe have added a resource under the Health-related sites at Group is dedicated to help individuals suffering from substance abuse and prevent new cases through credible information and spreading awareness to as many as we can reach.Brief reportMaurizio PUGNO <m.pugno@unicas.it>The activity of the World Wellbeing Panel (of which I am a member) may be of interest to ACQol has recently provided suggestions on how to promote wellbeing in Covid-19's time:“A final word from the WWP Panel Editors on emerging from the covid lockdown…In a recent Australian Broadcasting Commission Q&A discussion on COVID-19, WWP Panel member Gigi Foster encouraged all assembled to consider the real costs of a covid lockdown; this is how Tony Beatton interprets the counterfactual that Professor Foster sought to communicate:?We are in the midst of a covid paradigm shift: social distancing; stay at home; closed borders; stagnant economies.??It is well understood that humans like a steady as she goes life, free of uncertainty. But, we now live in uncertain times experiencing life shocks on a daily basis: fear of catching covid-19; locked in our homes; denied the right to go about our normal lives; police fining us for behaving normally; our fellow citizens falling sick, dying. We miss contact with our loved ones, our extended family, friends and workmates. Millions of us have lost our jobs and are dealing with financial ruin; how do we feed our children??Dealing with so much change usually takes a lifetime, gives us time to adapt. With more life shocks hitting us in a month than we experience in a lifetime, how will we mentally cope. While current political response rightly focusses on flattening the curve, this covid lockdown is leaving a long-term physiological scar on society that may never heal.There are windows of opportunity to end this covid lockdown earlier rather than later: as Professor Foster discussed,?the young appear to be more resilient to the virus. Our political leaders need to open their minds and consider how a longer covid lockdown is causing irreparable damage to the mental health of the people.?Healthy citizens restart economies, create markets, pay taxes; the mentally ill remain locked in their homes, depressed, with suicidal thoughts, incapable of resuming normal lives, a long-term cost on society.”?Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaMen more reluctant to go to the doctor – and it’s putting them at risk?Diana Sanchez and Mary Himmelstein We have a cultural script about masculinity that tells men they need to be tough, brave, strong and self-reliant. It’s exemplified in phrases like “be a man” and “man up”. Men learn from an early age if they don’t act in this tough, masculine way they lose their status and respect as men.?Our recent study found men who buy into the traditional cultural script about masculinity and believe they must be brave and self-reliant in order to be respected, had more barriers to seeking care compared to those who did not endorse these beliefs.?Individuals go to doctors to take care of their bodies – we should think of that as embodying a strength not a weakness. Ignoring symptoms and avoiding the doctor only ends up hurting the individual in the long run.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersMr Peter HayesMasters Student, Australian National UniversityKeywords: Indigenous well-being, Multilevel modelling, Causal research, Policy and discourse, Interdisciplinary methodologies and construct validityDr Kerrie BuhagiarDirector - Major Program Delivery, Smiling MindKeywords: Mindfulness, Wellbeing, Mental health, Youth-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST Brown, N. J. L. and J. M. Rohrer (2019). "Easy as (happiness) Pie? A Critical Evaluation of a Popular Model of the Determinants of Well-being." Journal of Happiness Studies: 1-17.Lyubomirsky, S., K. M. Sheldon and D. Schkade (2005). "Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change." Review of General Psychology 9: 111-131.Sheldon, K. M. and S. Lyubomirsky (2020). "Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued?" The Journal of Positive Psychology: 1-10.ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/20: 140520Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Dividing the happiness pieBackground: What is chronic happiness, also referred to as subjective wellbeing (SWB)? When attempting to answer this question, most researchers cite a definition by Diener and colleagues. While their precise wording differs somewhat from time to time, an example that has received over 2,000 citations is ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Diener</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>4150</RecNum><DisplayText>(Diener, Lucas et al. 2002)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4150</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1588905372">4150</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Diener, E.</author><author>Lucas, Richard E</author><author>Oishi, Shigehiro</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Snyder, C. R.</author><author>Lopez, S. J.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and life satisfaction</title><secondary-title>Handbook of positive psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Handbook of positive psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>63-73</pages><volume>2</volume><dates><year>2002</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Oxford University press</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Diener, Lucas et al. 2002). “Subjective wellbeing is defined as a person's cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life. These evaluations include emotional reactions to events as well as cognitive judgments of satisfaction and fulfilment. Thus, subjective well-being is a broad concept that includes experiencing pleasant emotions, low levels of negative moods, and high life satisfaction” (p.63). However, they also point out that ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Bradburn</Author><Year>1969</Year><RecNum>795</RecNum><DisplayText>(Bradburn 1969)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>795</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1348617841">795</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Bradburn, N. M.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The structure of psychological well-being</title></titles><dates><year>1969</year></dates><pub-location>Chicago</pub-location><publisher>Aldine</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Bradburn 1969) “showed that pleasant and unpleasant affect are somewhat independent and have different correlates-they are not simply opposites of one another. Thus, the two affects must be studied separately to gain a complete picture of individuals' well-being” (p.64). They also state “Subjective well-being judgments reflect cognitive and emotional reactions to life circumstances” (p.66).Definitions such as this contribute strongly to the confused use of constructs and nomenclature by SWB authors. Specifically:(a) The assumed cognitive component refers variously to ‘an evaluation of life’, an evaluation of both ‘satisfaction and fulfilment’, ‘ high life satisfaction’, while also reflecting ‘reactions to life circumstances’. There is a crucial issue of validity in these statements, which they do not address, which is that people respond to the strange and novel (to them) question ‘How satisfied are you with your life as a whole’ (Global Life Satisfaction: GLS) in a couple of seconds. And they do so reliably. How people can use cognition to provide their response has never been explained. The alternative, which is far more simple and likely, is that people answer based on their average felt affect at the time of responding.(b) The affective component refers to ‘an evaluation of life’, the experience of both ‘pleasant emotions and low levels of negative moods’, however, ‘pleasant and unpleasant affect are sufficiently independent to require separate scales of measurement’. Notably, however, the presence of negative affect as a component of SWB has not been demonstrated. Rather, the concurrent experience of negative affect causes lower positive SWB.In summary, authors seeking a definition of SWB have extracted from this jumble of ideas whatever bits appeal to them. Hence wide-ranging definitional confusion.An alternative view of the composition of SWB comes from Homeostasis Theory which, applied to SWB, provides a far more determined picture. It makes clean statements which are simply testable through the application of psychological science. 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ADDIN EN.CITE.DATA (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007, Blore, Stokes et al. 2011, Tomyn and Cummins 2011a).(ii) The level of Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood) normally dominates each SWB response. HPMood is: (a) generated as the phenotype of each person’s affective setpoint; (b) its level is an individual difference which does not change over time; (c) HPMood comprises a composite affect of content, happy and alert; (d) it provides a mildly positive and activated affective background to all thoughts about the self ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2014a</Year><RecNum>813</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>813</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1351118016">813</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Li, L.</author><author>Wooden, M.</author><author>Stokes, M.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>A demonstration of set-points for subjective wellbeing</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>183-206</pages><volume>15</volume><dates><year>2014a</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s10902-013-9444-9</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Capic</Author><Year>2018</Year><RecNum>3195</RecNum><record><rec-number>3195</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1501231491">3195</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Li, N.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>1-28</pages><volume>137</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2018</year></dates><urls><related-urls><url>10.1007/s11205-017-1585-5</url></related-urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018).(iii) The ‘cognitive’ component of SWB is normally measured as emotion. This emotional affect comprises the collective average affect, derived from all cognitive/affective response to thoughts and percepts, present in consciousness at the time of responding. (iv) Emotions are normally volatile and stronger than the background HPMood. This allows them to be identified as information requiring attention. (v) The chronic strength of emotion is modulated by Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis. This is a homeostatic system designed to retain the experience of SWB close to setpoint for each person ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2017a</Year><RecNum>2946</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2017a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2946</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1491111749">2946</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Dunn, D. S.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition</title><secondary-title>Oxford Bibliographies Online</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2017a</year><pub-dates><date>10 April 2018</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>New York </pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls><related-urls><url>;(Cummins 2017a).(vi) While homeostasis is normally effective in controlling the chronic level of SWB, thereby causing the remarkable stability of SWB levels over time ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Anglim</Author><Year>2015</Year><RecNum>2262</RecNum><DisplayText>(Anglim, Weinberg et al. 2015)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2262</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1447908722">2262</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Anglim, J.</author><author>Weinberg, Melissa K</author><author>Cummins, Robert A</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Bayesian hierarchical modeling of the temporal dynamics of subjective well-being: A 10 year longitudinal analysis</title><secondary-title>Journal of Research in Personality</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Research in Personality</full-title></periodical><pages>1-14</pages><volume>59</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>2015</year></dates><isbn>0092-6566</isbn><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1016/j.jrp.2015.08.003</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(Anglim, Weinberg et al. 2015), strong and persistent negative experiences can overwhelm homeostatic control. When this occurs, SWB falls well below its setpoint on a chronic basis, resulting in an enhanced probability of psychopathology, especially depression ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>629</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins and Nistico 2002, Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2014)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>629</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947789">629</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Nistico, H.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Maintaining life satisfaction: The role of positive cognitive bias</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>37-69</pages><volume>3</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2002</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Richardson</Author><Year>2014</Year><RecNum>1638</RecNum><record><rec-number>1638</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1421880751">1638</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Richardson, B.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. D.</author><author>Tomyn, A. J.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Psychometric equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for normally functioning and homeostatically defeated Australian adults</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>43-56</pages><volume>15 </volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2014</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>;(Cummins and Nistico 2002, Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2014).It is notable that Brown and Roher have chosen to ignore homeostasis in the formulation of their critique, even though the theory is clearly relevant. A footnote (p. 1289) states “The meaning of ‘S’ remains conceptually somewhat unclear throughout Lyubomirsky et al.’s (2005) article, as the authors referred to it as the ‘happiness set point’ but then simply used heritability estimates to gauge its impact. A conceptual discussion of the relation between the concept of an individual “set point” and the percentage of population-level variance in well-being explained by genetic factors is beyond the scope of the present article.” This is an inadequate rationale to avoid homeostasis, which is an individual-level construct.Reference: Brown, N. J. L., & Rohrer, J. M. (2019). Easy as (happiness) Pie? A Critical Evaluation of a Popular Model of the Determinants of Well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1-17.Author summary: In an influential article, ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Lyubomirsky</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>482</RecNum><DisplayText>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>482</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">482</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lyubomirsky, S.</author><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Schkade, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change</title><secondary-title>Review of General Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Review of General Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>111-131</pages><volume>9</volume><dates><year>2005</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005) put forward a model (subsequently popularized under the name of the “happiness pie”) in which approximately 50% of individual differences in happiness are due to genetic factors and 10% to life circumstances, leaving 40% available to be changed via volitional activities. We re-examined Lyubomirsky et al.’s claims and found several apparent deficiencies in their chain of arguments on both the empirical and the conceptual level. We conclude that there is little empirical evidence for the variance decomposition suggested by the “happiness pie,” and that even if it were valid, it is not necessarily informative with respect to the question of whether individuals can truly exert substantial influence over their own chronic happiness level. We believe that our critical re-examination of Lyubomirsky et al.’s seminal article offers insights into some common misconceptions and pitfalls of scientific ment on Brown & Rohrer (2019)CumminsIt is always encouraging to see psychological science fighting back against positive psychology populism. The paper under examination, ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Lyubomirsky</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>482</RecNum><DisplayText>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>482</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">482</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lyubomirsky, S.</author><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Schkade, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change</title><secondary-title>Review of General Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Review of General Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>111-131</pages><volume>9</volume><dates><year>2005</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005), has been cited over 3,500 times, so it quite disturbing to consider the reach of this misinformation. The paper is clearly fundamentally flawed, as has been detailed by Brown and Rohrer. The centre of their attention is the ‘happiness pie’ figure, reproduced below.As Brown & Rohrer point out, the figure represents a statistical impossibility. If one measures happiness with a reliability of .80, then the three factors together would contribute 80% of the variance in happiness, not 100% as the authors have imagined. The remaining 20% of variance is not accessible for any explanatory purpose. Moreover, this 80% scenario is improbably high, because most measures have considerably lower reliability. It is most surprising that the reviewers for Review of General Psychology failed to detect this basic statistical error in reasoning.A reasoned estimate of the genetic component within SWB is provided by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2018a</Year><RecNum>2895</RecNum><DisplayText>Cummins, Capic et al. (2018a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2895</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1486353818">2895</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Hutchinson, D.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M.</author><author>Olsson, C. A.</author><author>Richardson, B.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Why self-report variables inter-correlate: The role of Homeostatically Protected Mood</title><secondary-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</full-title></periodical><pages>93-114</pages><volume>2</volume><dates><year>2018a</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s41543-018-0014-0</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>Cummins, Capic et al. (2018a). Their Table 5 reports the correlation between GLS and PWI before and after the shared variance provided by HPMood has been removed [HPMood is the phenotype of the genetically determined setpoint]. Over two separate estimates, the average raw-score correlation is 0.95, and after HPMood removal it is .47, or from 90.25% shared variance to 22.09%. In other words, the genetic component of HPMood accounted for 75.52% of the raw-score estimate of 90.25% shared variance.This estimation, of available modifiable variance in SWB, is further informed by considering the effects of multiple regression. In the PWI manual ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><Suffix>: Appendix B1</Suffix><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013: Appendix B1)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013: Appendix B1) are presented a series of analyses in which the PWI domains are regressed against GLS. These seven domains have been rigorously selected to most effectively account for the variance in GLS. What these analyses show is that these domains together account for about 50% of the variance in GLS. However, of this total variance accounted for, about 73.4% is shared variance between the domains, (in other words the genetic component: HPMood), and 26.6% is unique variance contributed by individual domains (the potentially modifiable portion). In summary, these two quite different methods of calculation arrive at a remarkably similar result. The maximum amount of available and measurable variance in SWB that can be modified, by whatever means, is about 20 to 25% of the total scale variance. This is about half of the estimated 50% by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Lyubomirsky</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>482</RecNum><DisplayText>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>482</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">482</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lyubomirsky, S.</author><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Schkade, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change</title><secondary-title>Review of General Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Review of General Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>111-131</pages><volume>9</volume><dates><year>2005</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005).But that is not all. Their pie chart makes two other assertions as:1. That 10% of the variance in happiness is due to circumstances. This estimate is inconsistent with both homeostasis and common sense. If someone is under severe personal challenge from their personal circumstances, such that homeostasis fails, then their level of SWB falls below 50pp. Under such conditions, their level of happiness/SWB is dominated by their circumstances.2. That ‘intentional activity’ contributes 40% of the happiness variance. ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Lyubomirsky</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>482</RecNum><DisplayText>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>482</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">482</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lyubomirsky, S.</author><author>Sheldon, K. M.</author><author>Schkade, D.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change</title><secondary-title>Review of General Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Review of General Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>111-131</pages><volume>9</volume><dates><year>2005</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Lyubomirsky, Sheldon et al. (2005) do not provide any specific argument for this claim of 40%. Rather, they deduce it from the following claims. Since “it appears that increasing one’s set point and changing one’s life circumstances are not fruitful avenues for sustainable increases inchronic happiness” (p.119) … “Thus, it remains the case that only life changes involving intentional activity can be expected to lead to sustainable changes in well-being” (p.126). This deduction is clearly unwarranted since the propositions on which it is based are false.In summary, it is very disappointing that a paper such as this was published by three highly-cited authors, in a high-impact, peer-reviewed journal. This publication provides an uninformed, illogical argument, and is without scientific merit.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight Oz time, on Sunday 17th May, 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryBiddle, N., Edwards, B., Gray, M., & Sollis, K. (2020). Hardship, distress, and resilience: The initial impacts of COVID-19 in Australia. Canberra: ANU paper provides a summary of the impact of COVID-19 on labour market outcomes, income, financial stress, social cohesiveness, political attitudes, subjective wellbeing, and psychological distress. It is based on data from the 33rd ANUpoll which collected information from 3,155 Australians over the period 14-27 April 2020. It is the first longitudinal survey data on the impact of COVID-19 in Australia, with respondents to the April ANUpoll also interviewed in January and February 2020. The findings suggest large declines in employment and income, significant increases in social isolation and psychological distress, changes in household structure, and significant uncertainty about the future. At the same time, we observe greater confidence in government and the public service, large improvements in social trust, and substantial observance of physical distancing measures.Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaNow let's flatten the mental health curve HickieIn response to COVID-19, the clear risks for a substantial decline in our national "mental wealth" has less to do with the immediate health anxiety and much more to do with the loss of social cohesion, and the real and immediate threats to our economic future. These economic downturns often have their greatest impacts on the mental health and wellbeing of those who are already most marginal, including the young, the unemployed, those reliant on casual employment and those with pre-existing mental ill-health. If prolonged, they also have profound effects on the cognitive and emotional development of children and young people, partially through the disruption of education but also through social isolation, family breakdown, family violence and increased alcohol and other substance misuse.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new memberDr Franck JAOTOMBOPresident, AmalteyaKeywords: Optimal Functioning, Personal Development, Psychometrics, Quantitative Methods, Measurement-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST 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.2015.08.003Blore, 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/s11205-010-9599-2Bradburn, N. M. (1969). The structure of psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine.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. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. In D. S. Dunn (Ed.), Oxford Bibliographies Online. Retrieved from , 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/s41543-018-0014-0Cummins, 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/s10902-013-9444-9Cummins, R. A., & Nistico, H. (2002). Maintaining life satisfaction: The role of positive cognitive bias. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(1), 37-69. 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/s10902-007-9066-1Diener, 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.International Wellbeing Group. (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Retrieved from , S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: the architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9, 111-131. Richardson, B., Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. D., Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2014). 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:, 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/s10902-010-9235-5ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/19: 070520Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.India vs AustraliaBackground: Both India and Australia are vast countries with obvious differences but interesting similarities. The most obvious difference is probably population density. Despite Australia having about double the land-mass of India, its population of 25million is dwarfed by India’s 1,392m. Indeed, the city of Mumbai has almost the same number of people (20m) as the whole of Australia. Two other major differences are wealth, with per capita GDP purchasing power parity: India $9k, Australia $55K. And the other is religion, with India a basically religious country (80% Hindu) and Australia much less so (50% Christian, many nominal, and 30% no religion). India is also classified as a collectivist culture, while Australia is strongly individualistic ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020, April 23</Year><RecNum>4129</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020c, April 23)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4129</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587606110">4129</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>High-context and low-context cultures</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 23</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020c, April 23).But it is the similarities that are intriguing. Both were British colonies and their public services and legal systems reflect that influence. Both countries play the very odd game of Test Cricket with great enthusiasm and regularly compete against one another, both drive on the left side of the road, India has English as the second official language (after Hindi), and both have a similar Gini coefficient of .34 - .37 (World Bank) ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020, April 18</Year><RecNum>4120</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020b, April 18)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4120</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587147134">4120</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>List of countries by income equality</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 18</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020b, April 18). It is this latter statistic that particularly draws attention. It is about the same as the UK and Canada (.34).The extent that these or other similarities influence culture is unknown. However, it is worthy of speculation since the few sources of evidence point to remarkable similarities between Indian and Australian people in the way they respond to self-report questions concerning subjective wellbeing (SWB). For example: ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Vitters?</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>4121</RecNum><DisplayText>Vitters?, R?ysamb et al. (2002)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4121</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587185087">4121</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Vitters?, J.</author><author>R?ysamb, Espen</author><author>Diener, Ed</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Gullone, E.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>The concept of life satisfaction across cultures: Exploring its diverse meaning and relation to economic wealth</title><secondary-title>The universality of subjective wellbeing indicators</secondary-title></titles><pages>81-103</pages><dates><year>2002</year></dates><pub-location>Netherlands</pub-location><publisher>Springer</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Vitters?, R?ysamb et al. (2002) report comparisons on the Satisfaction With Life Scale ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Diener</Author><Year>1985</Year><RecNum>646</RecNum><Prefix>SWLS: </Prefix><DisplayText>(SWLS: Diener, Emmons et al. 1985)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>646</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947789">646</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Diener, E.</author><author>Emmons, R. A.</author><author>Larsen, R. J.</author><author>Griffin, S.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The satisfaction with life scale</title><secondary-title>Journal of Personality Assessment</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Personality Assessment</full-title></periodical><pages>71-75</pages><volume>49</volume><dates><year>1985</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(SWLS: Diener, Emmons et al. 1985) using data derived from small samples of university students (India N=92; AUS =288: see their Table 2). The mean scores convert to India 57.0 percentage points (pp) and Australia 60.0pp. [The SWLS is usually rated some 10pp lower than other measures of the SWB construct.] ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Singh</Author><Year>2015</Year><RecNum>1372</RecNum><DisplayText>Singh, Ruch et al. (2015)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1372</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1410915030">1372</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Singh, K.</author><author>Ruch, Willibald</author><author>Junnarkar, Mohita</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Effect of the Demographic Variables and Psychometric Properties of the Personal Well-Being Index for School Children in India</title><secondary-title>Child Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Child Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>571-585</pages><volume>8</volume><dates><year>2015</year></dates><isbn>1874-897X</isbn><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s12187-014-9264-4</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Singh</Author><Year>2015</Year><RecNum>1372</RecNum><record><rec-number>1372</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1410915030">1372</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Singh, K.</author><author>Ruch, Willibald</author><author>Junnarkar, Mohita</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Effect of the Demographic Variables and Psychometric Properties of the Personal Well-Being Index for School Children in India</title><secondary-title>Child Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Child Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>571-585</pages><volume>8</volume><dates><year>2015</year></dates><isbn>1874-897X</isbn><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s12187-014-9264-4</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>Singh, Ruch et al. (2015) used the Personal Wellbeing Index-School (PWI), with 1,300 Indian adolescents recruited from schools in Delhi and adjoining rural areas. The 13-15y scored 82.37pp (SD 12.90), those 16-18y scored 77.56pp (SD 13.54). The PWI in Australia averages about 75pp. ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Fontaine</Author><Year>2014</Year><RecNum>4114</RecNum><DisplayText>Fontaine and Yamada (2014)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4114</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586763709">4114</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Fontaine, X.</author><author>Yamada, Katsunori</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Caste comparisons in India: Evidence from subjective well-being data</title><secondary-title>World Development</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>World Development</full-title></periodical><pages>407-419</pages><volume>64</volume><dates><year>2014</year></dates><isbn>0305-750X</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Fontaine and Yamada (2014) conducted face-to-face interviews with about 3,500 Indians recruited from six major cities. The respondents came mainly from people classified as disadvantaged within India’s Caste system (see p.408). Responding to a 0-10 scale of current happiness, the mean is about 70pp. ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Agrawal</Author><Year>2011</Year><RecNum>4140</RecNum><DisplayText>Agrawal, Murthy et al. (2011)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4140</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1588400181">4140</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Agrawal, J.</author><author>Murthy, Pratima</author><author>Philip, Mariamma</author><author>Mehrotra, Seema</author><author>Thennarasu, K</author><author>John, John P</author><author>Girish, N</author><author>Thippeswamy, V</author><author>Isaac, Mohan</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Socio-demographic correlates of subjective well-being in urban India</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>419-434</pages><volume>101</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>2011</year></dates><isbn>0303-8300</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Agrawal, Murthy et al. (2011) middle class from Bangalore (N=1,099), SWLS, 63.3pp.Two observations regarding these results are as follows:(a) The SWLS yields a mean value for SWB that is roughly 10pp below comparable scales, such as the PWI. These lower values are influenced by two aspects of the scale. First, the extreme wording of items (e.g. “In most ways my life is close to my ideal”). This causes a defensive reaction in respondents, such that they avoid the top of the response scale. This form of bias may be especially the case for East Asian respondents ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Oishi</Author><Year>2006</Year><RecNum>3295</RecNum><DisplayText>(Oishi 2006)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3295</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1509237561">3295</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Oishi, S.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The concept of life satisfaction across cultures: An IRT analysis</title><secondary-title>Journal of Research in Personality</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Research in Personality</full-title></periodical><pages>411-423</pages><volume>40</volume><number>4</number><dates><year>2006</year></dates><isbn>0092-6566</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Oishi 2006). Second, the inclusion of a counterfactual item (“If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing”) is likely to be confusing for people who have not been trained within a Western culture ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Bloom</Author><Year>1981</Year><RecNum>3308</RecNum><DisplayText>(Bloom 1981)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3308</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1509830401">3308</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Bloom, A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The linguistic shaping of thought</title></titles><dates><year>1981</year></dates><pub-location>Hillsdale, NJ</pub-location><publisher>Earlbaum</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Bloom 1981).(b) No matter whether the SWLS or the PWI are used, the results for India and Australia are remarkably similar. In summary, these SWB values from India seem to be more in keeping with Anglophone than with East Asian countries (see ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/17). So further estimates of national levels in India are of great interest.Reference: McIntyre, E., Saliba, A., & McKenzie, K. (2020). Subjective wellbeing in the Indian general population: a validation study of the Personal Wellbeing Index. Quality of Life Research, 29, 1073–1081.Author summary: 2004 Indian adults completed a cross-sectional online survey, presented in English, and split to include either the 7-item or 8-item versions of the PWI. The scale means for both versions were similar (7-item = 74.43, 8-item = 73.82) and within the normative range for Western countries. Achieving in life had the lowest domain scores for both versions, while the spirituality or religion domain had the highest domain score in the 8-item version. It is concluded that the spirituality or religion domain may be an important contributor of SWB in ment on McIntyre et al (2020)CumminsThis is an interesting and well conducted study, which has produced useful information on the cultural response-bias of predominantly middle-class Indian citizens. The mean sample PWI score (74.43) is well within the Australian normative range of 73.78 to 76.68 percentage points (pp) ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><Suffix>: Table E2</Suffix><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013: Table E2)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013: Table E2). So, the relative contribution of each PWI domain to the total score is of considerable interest.The most informative statistic by which to determine the relative contribution of each domain to SWB is through multiple regression, where the seven domains are regressed against the single item of Global Life Satisfaction (see PWI manual). However, GLS was not reported in the McIntyre paper, so the only relevant statistic is the response strength of each domain.These values are shown below for the Indian and Australian samples.PWI domainMean IndiaMean AusRANKIndiaRANK\AusAchieving in life-India70.5173.4375Future security73.8371.2766.5Standard of living74.6678.2133Health74.1474.434.54Personal relationships74.1579.394.52Part of your community76.1371.2726.5How safe you feel77.6579.6411PWI (global)74.43It is interesting to observe that most of the domains are similarly ranked between the two countries, and that both give Personal Safety the highest ranking. However, three domains are ranked differently using the criterion of at least two ranks of difference. Whereas collectivist India ranks ‘Feeling part of your community’ as #2, individualist Australia ranks it equal last but ranks ‘Personal relationships’ higher (Aus #2; India #4.5). On the other hand, whereas Australia ranks ‘Achieving in life’ as #5, India ranks it last. While these results do seem to reflect cultural expectations, they only indicate the relative level of satisfaction with each domain. More important, from a scientific perspective, it how much unique variance each domain contributes to GLS. It is this statistic that gives the relative strength of each domain’s contribution to SWB. Such results are yet to be produced. In other comments on this paper, it is exemplary that the authors engaged in data-cleaning prior to analysis. On the other hand, they make no comment on the use of a gating item (‘Do you have spiritual or religious beliefs?’) prior to the 8th domain question of satisfaction with religion or spirituality (see PWI manual). Assuming, therefore, that this device was not used, some people with no personal sense of religion or spirituality would have provided data. Even though such people are a minority in India, their data inclusion makes the satisfaction estimates for this domain unreliable.In conclusion, it is apparent that the PWI appears to be valid and reliable for use among middle-class Indians. The separation of SWB into domains also provides additional insights into cross-cultural differences. This current demonstration, of similar levels of SWB between two countries classified as either collectivist or individualist, entertains the hypothesis that this cultural classification does not, of itself, cause different levels of population SWB. References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight on Sunday 10th May Oz time 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryWilson, S., & etal. (2020). Everyday humanitarianism during the 2019/2020 Australian bushfire crisis. Melbourne: Social Innovation Research Institute, Swinburne University of Technology. response to the 2019-2020 bushfire crisis, Australians engaged in an astounding level of charitable giving and volunteering in order to help communities and wildlife affected by the devastating bushfires. While it is true that established organisations played a critical role in the emergency response to the bushfire crisis, and will be instrumental in recovery and rebuilding efforts, it was also apparent that Australians bypassed charitable organisations and organised their own hyper-local, agile humanitarian responses to the crisis using the knowledge, skills and resources they had to hand.Most of these activities and initiatives were invisible to people outside the communities in which these responses were enacted. Moreover, many of these initiatives flashed into and out existence, disappearing from view once they served their purpose.Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaParents, you don’t always need to entertain your kids – boredom is good for them SheanPeople hate being bored. So much so that in one study, one-quarter of participants said they would rather give themselves a painful shock than be in a room with no external stimulus (music, books, phones) for 15 minutes. Boredom can come from lack of rest and nutrition, lack of mental stimulation or too much repetition (lack of novelty). People with a high sensitivity to reward, meaning those who need constant stimulation to feel satisfied, are more at risk of being bored. Although the idea of boredom sounds very unappealing. It can actually lead to creativity, train our concentration and attention. Thus, sitting with our boredom and solving it teaches us to go to different places in our minds when we don’t have external stimulation. Psychologist Heather Lench, who explores motivation, says boredom stops us ploughing the same old furrow, and pushes us to try to seek new goals or explore new territories or ideas. Rather than reject it, work with it and see what you and your children can create.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. from the ACQol siteGoogle Analytics inclusive period: April 2020Number of users who initiated at least one session during the date range: 1,199Number of sessions: 1,495Membership changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersDr Saeed SolaymaniAssistant professor, Arak UniversityKeywords: Poverty, Income inequalityProfessor Valdiney Gouveia Professor of Social Psychology Head, Department of Psychology, Federal University of ParaibaKeywords: Life satisfaction; gratitude; vitality; resilience; positivity; altruism.Professor Hung WongAssociate Professor, Department of Social Work; Director, Centre for Quality of Life, HKIAPS, The Chinese University of Hong KongKeywords: Happiness, Health, Hope, Hong Kong, HousingProfessor Mariano RojasProfessor, UNIRKeywords: Happiness, Well-being, Subjective Well-being, Economics, Economic DevelopmentDr. Yin ZHANGAssistant Professor, Program Director of BSSc in Communication (Data and Media Communication Concentration), Hong Kong Baptist UniversityKeywords: Well-being, Social Capital, Poverty, QOL Index, Public PolicyAssociate Professor Bonnie YimAssociate Professor of Education, Deakin UniversityKeywords: wellbeing, early childhood, young children, teachers, Asia-pacific regionDr. Kenneth KeithProfessor Emeritus, Psychological Sciences, University of San DiegoKeywords: Cross-Cultural QOL, Intellectual Disability-----------------------ReferencesAgrawal, J., P. Murthy, M. Philip, S. Mehrotra, K. Thennarasu, J. P. John, N. Girish, V. Thippeswamy and M. Isaac (2011). "Socio-demographic correlates of subjective well-being in urban India." Social Indicators Research 101(3): 419-434.Bloom, A. (1981). The linguistic shaping of thought. Hillsdale, NJ, Earlbaum.Diener, E., R. A. Emmons, R. J. Larsen and S. Griffin (1985). "The satisfaction with life scale." Journal of Personality Assessment 49: 71-75.Fontaine, X. and K. Yamada (2014). "Caste comparisons in India: Evidence from subjective well-being data." World Development 64: 407-419.International Wellbeing Group (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University.Oishi, S. (2006). "The concept of life satisfaction across cultures: An IRT analysis." Journal of Research in Personality 40(4): 411-423.Singh, K., W. Ruch and M. Junnarkar (2015). "Effect of the Demographic Variables and Psychometric Properties of the Personal Well-Being Index for School Children in India." Child Indicators Research 8: 571-585.Vitters?, J., E. R?ysamb and E. Diener (2002). The concept of life satisfaction across cultures: Exploring its diverse meaning and relation to economic wealth. The universality of subjective wellbeing indicators. E. Gullone and R. A. Cummins. Netherlands, Springer: 81-103.Wikipedia contributors (2020b, April 18). List of countries by income equality. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. contributors (2020c, April 23). High-context and low-context cultures. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Bulletin Vol 4/18: 300420 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Cultural response bias and migrationIn response to the discussion of cross-cultural response bias in last two issues of the Bulletin, Sarah Khor <sarah.khor@deakin.edu.au> has provided the following comments.“A most interesting discussion and one that seems to make a lot of sense from personal experience. Trying to 'fit' into a society that is largely individualistic, but having grown up in colonised Malaysia, I find some differences between societies that are largely collectivist, others influenced by individualist cultures, some resulting from the transition towards individualism, and others that are largely individualist.What would be interesting, then, to add to the body of evidence, is whether we can separate the Australian cultural melting pot into ethnic groups. This could be through asking whether people have lived in Australia as a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd generation, and then measuring their tendencies towards values of collectivism and individualism. Such a study could reveal differences in SWB stratified by immigration status which may be influenced by degrees of individualism or collectivism.”Cummins comments:As Sarah says, Australia is a ‘cultural melting pot’. In 2018, there were 7.3 million migrants living in Australia, equivalent to 29% of the population born overseas. Indeed, in that year, every single country from around the world was represented in Australia's population ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Australian Bureau of Statistics</Author><Year>2019c</Year><RecNum>4131</RecNum><DisplayText>(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2019c)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4131</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587877243">4131</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Australian Bureau of Statistics,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>3412.0 - Migration, Australia, 2017-18</title></titles><dates><year>2019c</year></dates><pub-location>Canberra</pub-location><publisher>Author ;(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2019c). Of these migrants, the traditional source continued to be England, but rapidly increasing numbers (see ABS Graph 1.3) are arriving from China and India. These latter two sources are of great interest in the light of the previous Bulletin discussion (Vol 4/17: 230420) concerning the issue of Cultural Response Bias. That is, the tendency for cultures to teach their people the socially acceptable way to respond when asked for a self-evaluation of their feeling state. This form of teaching influences the measurement of subjective wellbeing (SWB) to the extent that, on a 0-100 percentage point (pp) scale of satisfaction with life, Australia rates an average of 75pp, while East Asian nations, such as China, average about 10pp lower. Most interesting, however, India rates at much the same SWB level as Australia ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>McIntyre</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4115</RecNum><Prefix>see`, e.g. </Prefix><DisplayText>(see, e.g. McIntyre, Saliba et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4115</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586764020">4115</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>McIntyre, E.</author><author>Saliba, Anthony</author><author>McKenzie, Kirsty</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective wellbeing in the Indian general population: a validation study of the Personal Wellbeing Index</title><secondary-title>Quality of Life Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Quality of Life Research</full-title></periodical><pages>1073–1081</pages><volume>29</volume><dates><year>2020</year></dates><isbn>0962-9343</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(see, e.g. McIntyre, Saliba et al. 2020) despite being classified as a collectivist culture. Cultural Dimensions Theory was devised by Geert Hofstede, Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management, University of Maastricht. Hofstede is a social psychologist, has an h-index of 104, and his publications have received over 150,000 citations. He is the most cited European social scientist. While his work has attracted strong critiques ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Venaik</Author><Year>2016</Year><RecNum>4138</RecNum><Prefix>e.g. </Prefix><DisplayText>(e.g. Venaik and Brewer 2016)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4138</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1588180797">4138</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Venaik, S.</author><author>Brewer, P.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>National culture dimensions: the perpetuation of cultural ignorance</title><secondary-title>Management Learning</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Management Learning</full-title></periodical><pages>563-589</pages><volume>47</volume><number>5</number><dates><year>2016</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(e.g. Venaik and Brewer 2016), the cultural dimension that has most strongly survived is individualism-collectivism ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Hofstede</Author><Year>1984</Year><RecNum>1726</RecNum><DisplayText>(Hofstede 1984)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1726</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1426544914">1726</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Hofstede, G.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values</title></titles><dates><year>1984</year></dates><pub-location>Beverley Hills, CA</pub-location><publisher>Sage</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Hofstede 1984). Individualism represents a social outlook that emphasizes the self-perceived worth of the individual, collectivism emphasises cohesiveness among individuals and prioritization of the group over the self. In general within the SWB literature, countries high in individualism (e,g. Australia) rate higher on measures of SWB than do countries high in collectivism (e.g. China). However, such differences are confounded by a variety of other factors, especially national wealth. So the above results by McIntyre et al are of special interest to cultural theorists.This combination of factors is starting to look like a perfect framework to run an acculturation study along the lines that Sarah has suggested. Data could be gathered from a general population survey which would likely to identify good sample sizes of immigrants from:Britain -high SWB –high individualism India -high SWB – low individualismChina -low SWB – low individualismThere are, however, several variables that would also need to be accounted for. One of these is whether the immigrant is a migrant or a refugee.Refugee or MigrantA refugee is a displaced person who has been forced to cross national boundaries and who cannot return home safely. Such a person may be called an asylum seeker until granted refugee status ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020, April 27</Year><RecNum>4132</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020d, April 27)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4132</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587952876">4132</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Refugee</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 27</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020d, April 27). Refugees are governed by statutes and Government policies which seek to implement Australia's obligations under the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, to which Australia is a party. Australia has a very mixed record on its acceptance of refugees, which continues to this day ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020, April 27</Year><RecNum>4133</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020e, April 27)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4133</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587953456">4133</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Asylum in Australia</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 27</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020e, April 27). Between 1980 and the present Australia accepted approximately 15,000 refugees each year, a number dwarfed by the number of migrants, who numbered 526,300 arrivals in 2018 ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Australian Bureau of Statistics</Author><Year>2019c</Year><RecNum>4131</RecNum><DisplayText>(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2019c)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4131</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587877243">4131</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Australian Bureau of Statistics,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>3412.0 - Migration, Australia, 2017-18</title></titles><dates><year>2019c</year></dates><pub-location>Canberra</pub-location><publisher>Author ;(Australian Bureau of Statistics 2019c), many of which were temporary.Migration implies more choice in the decision to leave one’s country and settle elsewhere. However, while this is true of the motivational ‘pull’ factors (e.g. better living conditions), there may also be operating ‘push’ factors (e.g. persecution) that make leaving a necessity ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020f, April 27</Year><RecNum>4134</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020f, April 27)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4134</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587964378">4134</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Emigration</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 27</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020f, April 27). These three underlying causes for seeking Australian citizenship (refugee, push-factor, pull-factor), are important distinctions for research into the subsequent life quality of such people. A differential history of traumatic exit or middle-class choice, will coexist with differential frames of reference regarding the perception of life quality and, quite possibly, personality type. Yet very few studies of ‘migrants’ make this distinction within their samples. Considering a possible studyThere are many publications concerning the wellbeing of migrants, but they are generally disappointing in term of advancing understanding the acculturation process. An example is the study of ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Kogan</Author><Year>2018</Year><RecNum>3520</RecNum><DisplayText>Kogan, Shen et al. (2018)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3520</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1527134549">3520</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Kogan, I.</author><author>Shen, Jing</author><author>Siegert, Manuel</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>What Makes a Satisfied Immigrant? Host-Country Characteristics and Immigrants’ Life Satisfaction in Eighteen European Countries</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>1-27 </pages><dates><year>2018</year></dates><isbn>1389-4978</isbn><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s10902-017-9896-4</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>Kogan, Shen et al. (2018) – attached.Their study combined data from six [cross-sectional] waves of the European Social Survey (ESS), between 2002 and 2012 in 18 European countries. Each country sample was divided into ‘migrants’ and ‘natives’. Their dependent variable is Global Life Satisfaction (GLS).Disappointingly, their hypotheses evidence a very light theoretical touch, involving little more than correlations between economic/social conditions and GLS. Such research is commonplace, repetitive, and marginally informative. This area of research needs some new element to extend understanding. Two such elements are available from Australian data. One is the availability of established population norms for SWB. The other is a newly-established, longitudinal cohort (N≈1,500), which will enter its 3rd wave in a few months. So, the next questionnaire could test more interesting ideas, such as:1. What is the level of migrant SWB in Australia, compared with national normative ranges?2. Does the level of migrant SWB move towards, or away from, the normative range over time since arrival?3. What variables, both psychological and demographic, are associated with such SWB movement?4. Do the above relationships differ between British, Indian, and Chinese immigrants?5. Do the above relationships differ between refugees and migrants?Our current longitudinal survey instrument contains a variety of demographic and psychological variables, including the Personal Wellbeing Index ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013) to measure SWB. So, what is required to further this proposed study, is a set of no more than 5 questions to allow identification of the required subsample. The purpose of these questions is only to identify the subsample. Then, future surveys can ask these people for more detailed information, such as the ‘push’-‘pull’ factors mentioned earlier.A draft set of items is as follows:------------------------------------------------This section concerns your ancestrya) Thinking about when you or your family first came Australia, did you or they arrive as refugees or migrants?a1) Refugee a2) Migrantb) About how many years ago did you or your family first arrive in Australia?b1) [number of years]c) How many years have you personally lived in Australia?c1) [number of years] [note: this number together with their age, given elsewhere, will allow a determination of whether they are Australian born]d) Thinking about the racial ancestry of your parents, are either or both of them:d1) English from England –[none/one/both/]d2) Indian from India–[none/one/both]d3) Chinese from China- [none/one/both]d4) None of the above.e) Are you an Australian citizen?e1) Yes/No-------------------------------------------Feedback on suggested questions and new ideasIf you can suggest alternative questions, or offer edits to the ones above, please send your ideas to [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]. References: see end of BulletinFurther general discussion on the above topic, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight on Sunday 3rd May Oz time 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryFarmer, J., De Cotta, T., Knox, J., & Adler, V. (2020). LONELINESS, SOCIAL CONNECTION AND COVID-19. Swinburne University, Melbourne: Centre for Social Impact have long known that loneliness and social isolation cause people significant emotional pain and can have a negative impact on their health and wellbeing. Now, with Covid-19, we are being told to socially distance. This risks making the problems associated with loneliness worse. It’s important we focus on keeping up social connections even while physically distancing. This factsheet highlights some short-term tips on how we can be healthy social humans in these unusual times.Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaSo 2020 Isn’t Going To Plan? Let Go And Embrace The Curves WarrellLife is full of curve balls. Some you sense are coming around the corner. Others hit you out of nowhere. There’s no time to duck or put plans in place. Instead it strikes you out of nowhere, knocks you to the ground and leaves your head spinning... wondering “What the heck?!” Little wonder so many people feel so anxious right now. Little wonder so many have fallen into fearcasting, conjuring up worst case scenarios and wrangling with a whole raft of fears about what their future may hold. All of which just stoke further stress.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. ADDIN EN.REFLIST Australian Bureau of Statistics (2019c). 3412.0 - Migration, Australia, 2017-18. Canberra, Author , G. (1984). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverley Hills, CA, Sage.International Wellbeing Group (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University.Kogan, I., J. Shen and M. Siegert (2018). "What Makes a Satisfied Immigrant? Host-Country Characteristics and Immigrants’ Life Satisfaction in Eighteen European Countries." Journal of Happiness Studies: 1-27 McIntyre, E., A. Saliba and K. McKenzie (2020). "Subjective wellbeing in the Indian general population: a validation study of the Personal Wellbeing Index." Quality of Life Research 29: 1073–1081.Venaik, S. and P. Brewer (2016). "National culture dimensions: the perpetuation of cultural ignorance." Management Learning 47(5): 563-589.Wikipedia contributors (2020d, April 27). Refugee. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. contributors (2020e, April 27). Asylum in Australia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. contributors (2020f, April 27). Emigration. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Bulletin Vol 4/17: 230420Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Cultural Response BiasIn response to the discussion of cross-cultural response bias in last week’s Bulletin, Ruut Veenhoven <veenhoven@ese.eur.nl> has provided the following comments.“I am less pessimistic about the comparability of self-rated happiness across cultures. Like in any measurement there is bias and in cross-cultural comparison inevitably ‘cultural measurement bias’, such as different response tendencies. There are many potential biases, which may strengthen or compensate each other. I have described several possible sources of cultural bias in the measurement of life-satisfaction in my paper ‘Cross-national differences in happiness: Cultural measurement bias or effect of culture? International Journal of Wellbeing, 2012, 2: 333-353 available at also tried to estimate the size their joint effects, using the following reasoning:How much measurement bias? Any measurement involves bias and this measurement of happiness in nations will be no exception. So the question is not whether measurement bias is involved, but rather how much. The above analysis of societal correlates provides a cue.? As we have in Scheme 5, this handful of societal characteristics explains 75% of the observed differences in happiness. The variables involved are of an objective nature and their measurement is unlikely to be affected by the distortions presumed to be involved in the measurement of happiness. As such this high degree of explained variance marks that something solid is being measured and that the bias in the measurement of happiness can be no more than 25%. Following this line of reasoning we must also acknowledge that the set of variables involved is far from complete. We have to make do with variables on which international statistics are available and we lack such data on potentially important things such as the quality of friendships in nations. If we had more data we could probably explain some 90% of the cross-national differences in happiness. What is more: the measurement of societal characteristics is not free of error either, not even the measurement of income per head and this also detracts from the explained variance. Together, this means that the bias in the measurement of happiness is small at best, probably about 5%.?? ?So I think that it is likely that the Costa-Ricans feel really happier than the Japanese, though I cannot exclude the possibility that these are exceptional cases, where several sources of distort in the same direction and thus result in an above average 5% size of bias. However, as long as we have no strong indication for that, we better take these self-report data as they are, rather than switching prematurely to even more debatable ‘objective’ indicators of wellbeing.”Cummins replies:Ruut raises a most interesting issue for our consideration. While our discussion of cultural response bias has been a recurring theme in the Bulletin, he asks us to consider particular evidence for (or against) the phenomenon. In examining this issue, reference is also made to Ruut’s referenced publication, which is attached ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Veenhoven</Author><Year>2012</Year><RecNum>4124</RecNum><DisplayText>(Veenhoven 2012)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4124</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587359525">4124</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Veenhoven, R.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Cross-national differences in happiness: Cultural measurement bias or effect of culture?</title><secondary-title>International Journal of Wellbeing</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>International Journal of Wellbeing</full-title></periodical><pages>333-353</pages><volume>2</volume><number>4</number><dates><year>2012</year></dates><isbn>1179-8602</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Veenhoven 2012). His paper does a great job in listing general sources of bias in cross-cultural research. The particular topic for the current discussion is systematic response bias. That is, the predictable tendency for one group of people to respond to questions of personal evaluation in a way that is different from that used by another group. This is not an error of responding, it is a difference in response style. The most relevant corresponding section within the attached paper is: “4.1.3 Differences due to response style? [This] claim holds that in collectivistic societies, such as Japan, people will tend to present themselves as 'average' citizens. Therefore, they will respond modestly and be apt to choose the midpoint of the response scale. … If this claim is true, average happiness must be lower in collectivistic countries than inindividualistic ones. This is indeed the case (Veenhoven 1999), but that does not necessarilysignify cultural measurement bias, since the difference can also be due to differences inlivability of cultures, collectivism fitting human nature less well” (p.6).Ruut has pointed to a home truth of great importance. Since we have no way of directly measuring this proposed form of bias, all evidence is circumstantial. So, are these systematic differences in SWB level between countries with developed economies due to a cultural response bias, or are they due to something else entirely? Working with the evidence that is currently available, so I will now track through the potential alternative explanations in relation to the East Asian countries of China, Hong Kong, Macau, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. Substantial information on subjective wellbeing (SWB) is available from these countries, their levels of reported SWB are similar to one another and average about 10 percentage points (pp) below that of Anglophone countries. The two main comparisons will be between Japan and Australia.So, starting with the most obvious comparison, do these East Asian countries have a lower SWB due to low national wealth? To the contrary, they represent some of the world’s largest and most prosperous economies, dubbed by the World Bank as an East Asian Renaissance. The economy of?Japan is the third-largest in the world by nominal GDP, the fourth-largest by purchasing power parity, and the world’s second largest developed economy. Japan is also the world’s third largest automobile manufacturing country, has the largest electronics goods industry, and is often ranked among the world’s most innovative countries ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Lumen</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4125</RecNum><DisplayText>(Lumen 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4125</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587364256">4125</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lumen,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>East Asia in the 21st Century: The Rising Economies of East Asia</title><secondary-title>Boundless World History</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><publisher>Author ;(Lumen 2020). So, if a country like Japan, rich, cultured, and educated, rates lower in Global Life Satisfaction (GLS) than Costa Rica ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Helliwell</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4108</RecNum><Prefix>see </Prefix><Suffix>: Figure 2.1</Suffix><DisplayText>(see Helliwell, Layard et al. 2020: Figure 2.1)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4108</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1585795639">4108</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Helliwell, J. F.</author><author>Layard, R.</author><author>Sachs, J.</author><author>De Neve, J-E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>World Happiness Report 2020</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Sustainable Development Solutions Network ;(see Helliwell, Layard et al. 2020: Figure 2.1), this seems to be at severe odds with a centrally-accepted truth within SWB research; that population SWB has a predictable positive relationship with the average living conditions in the country. So, going with this central view, it may be reasonable concluded that the lower SWB reported by Japan is not caused by poor living conditions, and that the raw-data comparisons made by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Helliwell</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4108</RecNum><DisplayText>Helliwell, Layard et al. (2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4108</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1585795639">4108</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Helliwell, J. F.</author><author>Layard, R.</author><author>Sachs, J.</author><author>De Neve, J-E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>World Happiness Report 2020</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Sustainable Development Solutions Network , Layard et al. (2020) are invalid as a ranking of life quality. A more insightful term of comparison, which bridges the objective and subjective dimensions of life quality, was coined by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Veenhoven</Author><Year>1993</Year><RecNum>1930</RecNum><DisplayText>Veenhoven (1993a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1930</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1432088816">1930</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Veenhoven, R.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Berting, J.</author><author>Zijuerveld, A.C. </author><author>de Beus, J.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Happiness in nations, subjective appreciation of life in 56 nations, 1946-1992. </title><secondary-title>Studies in Social-Cultural Transformation</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>1993a</year></dates><pub-location>Rotterdam</pub-location><publisher>RISBO</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Veenhoven (1993a). He states “The livability of a society is the degree to which its provisions and requirements fit with the needs and capacities of its members. For example: a society is not livable if it does not provide good institutional arrangements for 'safety': i.e. if it lacks a working legal system. A society is also unlivable if it requires behaviors of its members for tasks they cannot perform well: i.e. if a society requires 'autonomy', while its socialization practices produce dependent persons. In such societies people feel chronically anxious and incapable, which is clearly not living 'well'” (pp.14-15).All of the East Asian nations have excellent legal, professional, and institutional arrangements for government services of all kinds. So, their lower SWB is not due to failure in this sector. So that leaves the issue of reduced ‘autonomy’, which is being proposed as consequent to a collectivist culture. A problem for this explanation is that India is classed as a collectivist nation ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020, April 23</Year><RecNum>4129</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020c, April 23)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4129</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1587606110">4129</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>High-context and low-context cultures</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 23</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020c, April 23) and yet its national average level of SWB is 74.4pp, which is equivalent to that of Australia ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>McIntyre</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4115</RecNum><DisplayText>(McIntyre, Saliba et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4115</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586764020">4115</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>McIntyre, E.</author><author>Saliba, Anthony</author><author>McKenzie, Kirsty</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective wellbeing in the Indian general population: a validation study of the Personal Wellbeing Index</title><secondary-title>Quality of Life Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Quality of Life Research</full-title></periodical><pages>1073–1081</pages><volume>29</volume><dates><year>2020</year></dates><isbn>0962-9343</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(McIntyre, Saliba et al. 2020).Given that these demographic factors seem unable to account for the low level of reported SWB in the East Asian countries, one way forward is to consider the SWB response in terms of its constituent parts, as determined by psychological science. Of particular interest is which components of this response are linked with the low East Asian scores.The initial division of SWB is into genetic and experiential components. The genetic component is described as Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood) PEVuZE5vdGU+PENpdGU+PEF1dGhvcj5EYXZlcm48L0F1dGhvcj48WWVhcj4yMDA3PC9ZZWFyPjxS

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ADDIN EN.CITE.DATA (Davern, Cummins et al. 2007, Blore, Stokes et al. 2011, Tomyn and Cummins 2011a). HPMood is proposed as an individual difference, representing the phenotype of each person’s setpoint. HPMood comprises a combination of the three mood affects: content, happy and alert. Since it is an individual difference, the level of HPMood within each response does not change, thus contributing to the remarkable chronic stability of SWB ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Anglim</Author><Year>2015</Year><RecNum>2262</RecNum><DisplayText>(Anglim, Weinberg et al. 2015)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2262</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1447908722">2262</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Anglim, J.</author><author>Weinberg, Melissa K</author><author>Cummins, Robert A</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Bayesian hierarchical modeling of the temporal dynamics of subjective well-being: A 10 year longitudinal analysis</title><secondary-title>Journal of Research in Personality</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Research in Personality</full-title></periodical><pages>1-14</pages><volume>59</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>2015</year></dates><isbn>0092-6566</isbn><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1016/j.jrp.2015.08.003</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(Anglim, Weinberg et al. 2015). Moreover, due to its composition, HPMood also provides a weak, positive affective background to all thoughts about the self. Thus, when people respond to a self-report question, such as Global Life Satisfaction (GLS), their response comprises both HPMood (at the level of that person’s setpoint) together with whatever other cognitive/affective content is present in consciousness at that time. This latter content is emotion, which informs about the affective level of the combined internal states and sensory percepts. So this emotion component is both highly variable and also normally stronger than HPMood. This relative strength differential allows the brain to detect emotional change above the HPMood background. The end result is a stable HPMood, and a variable level of SWB, all managed by a system called SWB Homeostasis ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2017a</Year><RecNum>2946</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2017a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2946</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1491111749">2946</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Dunn, D. S.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition</title><secondary-title>Oxford Bibliographies Online</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2017a</year><pub-dates><date>10 April 2018</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>New York </pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls><related-urls><url>;(Cummins 2017a).From this, a key issue for the current discussion is whether the distribution of setpoints differs between cultures. The answer is, we do not know. The only demonstrations of setpoint distributions to date have used Australian data ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Capic</Author><Year>2018</Year><RecNum>3195</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3195</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1501231491">3195</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Li, N.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>1-28</pages><volume>137</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2018</year></dates><urls><related-urls><url>10.1007/s11205-017-1585-5</url></related-urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2014a</Year><RecNum>813</RecNum><record><rec-number>813</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1351118016">813</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Li, L.</author><author>Wooden, M.</author><author>Stokes, M.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>A demonstration of set-points for subjective wellbeing</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>183-206</pages><volume>15</volume><dates><year>2014a</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s10902-013-9444-9</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018). However, a likely answer is that the distribution of setpoints is a universal constant for humankind, analogous to the setpoint for core body temperature. This proposition is based on the three separate and similar estimates reported in the above two publications. On a zero to 100 percentage point (pp) response scale, the distribution of setpoints was found to be normal between 70 – 90pp, with a mean of 80pp. This range has face-validity in terms of a system functioning to maintain the normal positivity of SWB, while also allowing some limited upward range (signalling joy) and a more nuanced and extensive downward range allowing graded signalling of undesirable situations. It is challenging to conceive why a different range of setpoints would be more adaptive on a population basis.Therefore, accepting the above as a reasonable hypothesis to work with, it is the cognitive/affective emotional component that causes levels of measured SWB to vary. So, this raises Ruut’s proposal (see above) “that the bias in the measurement of happiness is small at best, probably about 5%”. Our calculations suggest a different estimate. Data collected from equivalent demographic groups have shown a SWB average of around 75pp in Australia and of around 65pp in East Asia ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Chen</Author><Year>2008b</Year><RecNum>1369</RecNum><Prefix>e.g. </Prefix><DisplayText>(e.g. Lau, Cummins et al. 2005, Chen and Davey 2008b)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1369</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1410887095">1369</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Chen, Z.</author><author>Davey, Gareth</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Normative life satisfaction in Chinese societies</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>557-564</pages><volume>89</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>2008b</year></dates><isbn>0303-8300</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Lau</Author><Year>2005</Year><RecNum>682</RecNum><record><rec-number>682</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947790">682</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lau, A. L. D.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>McPherson, W.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>An Investigation into the Cross-Cultural Equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>403-430</pages><volume>72</volume><dates><year>2005</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>doi: 10.1007/s11205-004-0561-z</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(e.g. Lau, Cummins et al. 2005, Chen and Davey 2008b). Similar levels of difference have been demonstrated in samples matched on age, gender and education ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Iwata</Author><Year>1994</Year><RecNum>3389</RecNum><DisplayText>(Iwata, Saito et al. 1994, Iwata, Roberts et al. 1995)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3389</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1513612846">3389</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Iwata, N.</author><author>Saito, Kazuo</author><author>Roberts, Robert E</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Responses to a self-administered depression scale among younger adolescents in Japan</title><secondary-title>Psychiatry research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychiatry Research</full-title></periodical><pages>275-287</pages><volume>53</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>1994</year></dates><isbn>0165-1781</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Iwata</Author><Year>1995</Year><RecNum>2838</RecNum><record><rec-number>2838</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1483929804">2838</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Iwata, N.</author><author>Roberts, Catherine R</author><author>Kawakami, Norito</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Japan-US comparison of responses to depression scale items among adult workers</title><secondary-title>Psychiatry Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychiatry Research</full-title></periodical><pages>237-245</pages><volume>58</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>1995</year></dates><isbn>0165-1781</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Iwata, Saito et al. 1994, Iwata, Roberts et al. 1995) and others using age and education as covariates ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Lee</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>262</RecNum><DisplayText>(Lee, Jones et al. 2002)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>262</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947718">262</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lee, J. W.</author><author>Jones, P. S.</author><author>Mineyama, Y.</author><author>Zhang, X. E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Cultural differences in responses to a Likert scale</title><secondary-title>Research in Nursing and Health</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Research in Nursing and Health</full-title></periodical><pages>295-306</pages><volume>25</volume><dates><year>2002</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Lee, Jones et al. 2002). Notably, the magnitude of this 10pp difference is very substantial in SWB terms, representing the full annual income range of the combined Australian surveys (N=60,000 respondents): Personal Wellbeing Index (<$15K [70.63pp] to $251-500K [80.56pp] Table A3.4) ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2013b</Year><RecNum>1361</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Woerner et al. 2013b)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1361</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1410256812">1361</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Woerner, J.</author><author>Weinberg, M.</author><author>Collard, J.</author><author>Hartley-Clark, L.</author><author>Horfiniak, K.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Australian Unity Wellbeing Index: -Report 30.0 - The Wellbeing of Australians: Social media, personal achievement, and work</title></titles><dates><year>2013b</year></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University. ;(Cummins, Woerner et al. 2013b).StocktakeIt has so far been proposed that the systematic East Asia – Anglophone difference in SWB is both reliable and substantial, that it involves the emotion component of SWB, and that the difference cannot be reasonably accounted for by the objective circumstances of living. It therefore appears likely that the cause lies in some psychological difference between the cultures, which is exerting a chronic influence on the responses to self-report questions. There would seem to be two possible explanations of such a phenomenon. One is national differences in personality. While there is a large literature on this topic PEVuZE5vdGU+PENpdGU+PEF1dGhvcj5EaWVuZXI8L0F1dGhvcj48WWVhcj4yMDAzPC9ZZWFyPjxS

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ADDIN EN.CITE.DATA (e.g. Spector 1997, Diener, Oishi et al. 2003, Steel, Taras et al. 2017), even attempting a simple summary is beyond the scope of this discussion. The second potential explanation is simpler; cultural training ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Jang</Author><Year>2017</Year><RecNum>3362</RecNum><DisplayText>(Jang, Kim et al. 2017)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3362</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1512277867">3362</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Jang, S.</author><author>Kim, Eun Sook</author><author>Cao, Chunhua</author><author>Allen, Tammy D</author><author>Cooper, Cary L</author><author>Lapierre, Laurent M</author><author>O’Driscoll, Michael P</author><author>Sanchez, Juan I</author><author>Spector, Paul E</author><author>Poelmans, Steven AY</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale across 26 countries</title><secondary-title>Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of cross-cultural psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>560-576</pages><volume>48</volume><number>4</number><dates><year>2017</year></dates><isbn>0022-0221</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Jang, Kim et al. 2017). The East Asian cultural sphere comprises nations that were historically influenced by the Confucian Chinese culture ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Huntington</Author><Year>1996</Year><RecNum>2684</RecNum><DisplayText>(Huntington 1996)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2684</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1474056763">2684</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Huntington, S.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The clash of civilizations and remaking of world order</title></titles><dates><year>1996</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Touchstone</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Huntington 1996). An explanation as to why this may influence ‘the Japanese tendency to suppress positive affect expression’ is provided by ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Iwata</Author><Year>1995</Year><RecNum>2838</RecNum><DisplayText>Iwata, Roberts et al. (1995)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2838</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1483929804">2838</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Iwata, N.</author><author>Roberts, Catherine R</author><author>Kawakami, Norito</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Japan-US comparison of responses to depression scale items among adult workers</title><secondary-title>Psychiatry Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychiatry Research</full-title></periodical><pages>237-245</pages><volume>58</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>1995</year></dates><isbn>0165-1781</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Iwata, Roberts et al. (1995). They suggest that, while the expression of positive feelings about oneself are normally part of American culture ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Ying</Author><Year>1989</Year><RecNum>3390</RecNum><DisplayText>(Ying 1989)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3390</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1513626456">3390</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Ying, Y-W.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Nonresponse on the center for epidemiological studies-depression scale in Chinese Americans</title><secondary-title>International Journal of Social Psychiatry</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>International Journal of Social Psychiatry</full-title></periodical><pages>156-163</pages><volume>35</volume><number>2</number><dates><year>1989</year></dates><isbn>0020-7640</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Ying 1989) in traditional Japanese and Chinese Confucian society, individual psychological wellbeing is subordinated to the wellbeing of the group ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Ying</Author><Year>1988</Year><RecNum>3391</RecNum><DisplayText>(Ying 1988)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3391</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1513626841">3391</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Ying, Y‐W.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Depressive symptomatology among Chinese‐Americans as measured by the CES‐D</title><secondary-title>Journal of clinical psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Clinical Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>739-746</pages><volume>44</volume><number>5</number><dates><year>1988</year></dates><isbn>1097-4679</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Ying 1988). Thus, the maintenance of social harmony is one of the most important values. People have been taught since childhood to understate their own virtues and not to behave assertively. This causes them to judge positive affect through a comparison with others, as a relativistic and modest judgment. Indeed, the virtue of modesty is a traditional norm induced by Confucian ethics. Even when a person regards them self as being as good as others, they hesitate to voice this opinion because such behavior is considered impolite. So, what evidence do we have that this proposed ‘Confucian bias’ gets us closer to answering Ruut’s concern, that our evidence is circumstantial? One line of evidence regards the cultural bias in terms of a reduced level of reported positive affect. That is, the Confucian bias does not concern the reported level of negative affect. This difference has been empirically confirmed. Two studies report that the lower East Asian responses, compared to Anglophone responses, occurs for positively worded self-report items but not for equivalent, but negatively worded items ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Iwata</Author><Year>1995</Year><RecNum>2838</RecNum><DisplayText>(Iwata, Roberts et al. 1995, Lee, Jones et al. 2002)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2838</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1483929804">2838</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Iwata, N.</author><author>Roberts, Catherine R</author><author>Kawakami, Norito</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Japan-US comparison of responses to depression scale items among adult workers</title><secondary-title>Psychiatry Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychiatry Research</full-title></periodical><pages>237-245</pages><volume>58</volume><number>3</number><dates><year>1995</year></dates><isbn>0165-1781</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Lee</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>262</RecNum><record><rec-number>262</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947718">262</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lee, J. W.</author><author>Jones, P. S.</author><author>Mineyama, Y.</author><author>Zhang, X. E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Cultural differences in responses to a Likert scale</title><secondary-title>Research in Nursing and Health</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Research in Nursing and Health</full-title></periodical><pages>295-306</pages><volume>25</volume><dates><year>2002</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Iwata, Roberts et al. 1995, Lee, Jones et al. 2002). In summary, there is clearly a substantial body of evidence supporting the proposition that a cultural response bias exists when comparing the level of SWB between Anglophone and East Asian peoples. A reasonable conclusion, therefore, is that the raw data comparisons of SWB levels between such nations do not valid represent their relative subjective life quality. However, as Ruut has pointed out, interpretive caveats apply. First, while the strength of cultural response bias is bound to be different between cultures, the data are insufficient to make valid corrective estimates of SWB levels. Second, the evidence for this bias remains circumstantial because no direct measure of this ‘bias’ phenomenon has yet been devised. Third, due to the lack of direct construct measurement, the psychological substrate of the bias is not understood, beyond the fact that it involves the emotion component of SWB. In conclusion, a reliable source of bias has been identified in the international comparisons of population levels of SWB. Until this bias is understood, thereby allowing such comparisons to be statistically adjusted for their relative bias, international comparisons of raw SWB levels as a proxy for life quality are surely invalid.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this topic, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight on Monday 27th April Oz time, 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryFarmer, J., & and others. (2020). Improving the mental health of rural Australians: a review. Melbourne: Swinburne University of Technology show that mental illness prevalence is similar across Australia, yet there is incidence of higher rural emergency health service admissions and suicides in rural/ remote areas. There also is less uptake of Medicare-subsidised benefits for mental illness in rural/remote areas. We raise two overarching problems: Social disadvantage: rural areas tend to have higher socio-economic disadvantage, higher costs, longer distance to specialist services, higher Indigenous population who experience historical cultural trauma. Internationally, rural economies are in long-term decline. Services do not meet existing needs: services are fragmented – provided by different providers and systems; timely local access to expertise is inaccessible; knowledge is not widespread, encouraging stigma; it is unclear if social supports are widely available.Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– Media'Tiny Habits' Are The Key To Behavioral Change Godoy?Changing our behaviors can feel like a monumental task. We pressure ourselves to go big or go home. Not surprisingly, these big expectations are often unrealistic, and that's a recipe for disappointment and self-criticism. Instead, we should think small — as in tiny behaviors that can become habits. The idea is to make these behavior changes so small that they're easy to do When you learn how to feel good about your successes, no matter how tiny, then that changes how you think about yourself and your opportunities. That's what leads to transformation.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersAssociate Professor Ozkan CikrikciHead of Department of Counselling, faculty of education department of counselling, Ordu UniversityKeywords: WellbeingProfessor Daniel T.L. ShekChair Professor of Applied Soical Sciences, Li and Fung Professor in Service Leadership Education and Associate Vice-President, The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityKeywords:?adolescent well-being, family well-being, Chinese well-being, positive youth development, leadershipMs Emma ReynoldsDoctoral Candidate, Massey UniversityKeywords:?Queer, Transgender, Wellbeing, Psycho-social-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST 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.Blore, J. D., M. A. Stokes, D. Mellor, L. Firth and R. A. Cummins (2011). "Comparing multiple discrepancies theory to affective models of subjective wellbeing." Social Indicators Research 100(1): 1-16.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.Chen, Z. and G. Davey (2008b). "Normative life satisfaction in Chinese societies." Social Indicators Research 89(3): 557-564.Cummins, R. A. (2017a). Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition. Oxford Bibliographies Online. D. S. Dunn. New York Oxford University Press.Cummins, R. A., L. Li, M. Wooden and M. Stokes (2014a). "A demonstration of set-points for subjective wellbeing." Journal of Happiness Studies 15: 183-206.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. , M., R. A. Cummins and M. Stokes (2007). "Subjective wellbeing as an affective/cognitive construct." Journal of Happiness Studies 8(4): 429-449.Diener, E., S. Oishi and R. E. Lucas (2003). "Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life." Annual review of psychology 54(1): 403-425.Helliwell, J. F., R. Layard, J. Sachs and J.-E. De Neve (2020). World Happiness Report 2020. New York, Sustainable Development Solutions Network , S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and remaking of world order. New York, Touchstone.Iwata, N., C. R. Roberts and N. Kawakami (1995). "Japan-US comparison of responses to depression scale items among adult workers." Psychiatry Research 58(3): 237-245.Iwata, N., K. Saito and R. E. Roberts (1994). "Responses to a self-administered depression scale among younger adolescents in Japan." Psychiatry research 53(3): 275-287.Jang, S., E. S. Kim, C. Cao, T. D. Allen, C. L. Cooper, L. M. Lapierre, M. P. O’Driscoll, J. I. Sanchez, P. E. Spector and S. A. Poelmans (2017). "Measurement invariance of the Satisfaction With Life Scale across 26 countries." Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 48(4): 560-576.Lau, A. L. D., R. A. Cummins and W. McPherson (2005). "An Investigation into the Cross-Cultural Equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index." Social Indicators Research 72: 403-430.Lee, J. W., P. S. Jones, Y. Mineyama and X. E. Zhang (2002). "Cultural differences in responses to a Likert scale." Research in Nursing and Health 25: 295-306.Lumen (2020). East Asia in the 21st Century: The Rising Economies of East Asia. Boundless World History, Author , P. E. (1997). Job satisfaction: Application, assessment, causes, and consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.Steel, P., V. Taras, K. Uggerslev and F. Bosco (2017). "The Happy Culture: A Theoretical, Meta-Analytic, and Empirical Review of the Relationship Between Culture and Wealth and Subjective Well-Being." Personality and Social Psychology Review before print: 1-42.Tomyn, A. J. and R. A. Cummins (2011a). "Subjective wellbeing and homeostatically protected mood: Theory validation with adolescents." Journal of Happiness Studies 12(5): 897-914.Veenhoven, R. (1993a). Happiness in nations, subjective appreciation of life in 56 nations, 1946-1992. . Rotterdam, RISBO.Veenhoven, R. (2012). "Cross-national differences in happiness: Cultural measurement bias or effect of culture?" International Journal of Wellbeing 2(4): 333-353.Ying, Y.-W. (1989). "Nonresponse on the center for epidemiological studies-depression scale in Chinese Americans." International Journal of Social Psychiatry 35(2): 156-163.Ying, Y. W. (1988). "Depressive symptomatology among Chinese‐Americans as measured by the CES‐D." Journal of clinical psychology 44(5): 739-746.ACQol Bulletin Vol 4/16: 160420Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Wellbeing science and national policyFollowing my discussion of ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Evans</Author><Year>2017</Year><RecNum>3914</RecNum><DisplayText>Evans (2017)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3914</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1567109258">3914</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Evans, J.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The end of History and the Invention of Happiness, CWiPP Working Paper No.11 </title></titles><dates><year>2017</year></dates><pub-location>Sheffield</pub-location><publisher>Centre for Wellbeing in Public Policy, University of Sheffield</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Evans (2017) in the previous Bulletin, Peter Achterberg [peter.achterberg@rivm.nl] comments as follows:“What I feel is also missing in this discussion, is the recent history of the broader concept of ‘well-being’? (I dare not say objective well-being…?….) and its relevance for balancing and comparing the possible outcomes of policy decisions. This in turn has to do with the basic human discussions about dominant values and the need (in my view) to try and balance them. Personal (autonomy) and community values, including health, economy, social participation, sustainability, economic and social safety and security….(Although the current neoliberal ‘market’ dogma that dominates many national policies does not take the balance of values all too seriously in my view).?In policy decisions, for example around (public) health (take current corona crisis) we clearly see that policy measures against corona also point at possible dangers for other values, such as ‘the economy’, ‘personal affluence (income)’, ‘social participation and interaction’ and safety and security, all in relation to personal and community health. The binding element to guide the ultimate policy decisions may well be an outcome in terms of societal wellbeing of the community, including personal subjective wellbeing. At the national level the desired outcome is – as goes for subjective well-being comparisons – very culture dependent and that explains that different countries also take different corona measures.In general I feel that in comparing economic policy measures with health policy measures, with environmental or agricultural measures etc, we may benefit from also using a measure that can be related to the outcome of all of these policy decisions. A national (universal is not feasible because of cultural differences) measure of expected well-being was/is thought to be able to deliver that ability to compare policy options.Many countries have made attempts in that direction (5-10 years ago?), but even so many developed their own specific operationalisations of this measure of well-being…..This richness was seen as a failure of the concept, but – in my view – just pointed at its ability to deal with cultural differences.Still, I think the attempts at least were brave and I feel that this type of ‘integrative’ thinking, that was earlier manifested in policy terms such as ‘health in all policies’ and ‘wider determinants of health’ is now deeply embedded in the thinking that underlies the SDG’s (Sustainable Development Goals). So, my question: could SWB play a role in the SDG’s?”Cummins comments: Peter leads us to consider whether SWB can be considered as an ‘international standard’ by which to balance personal wellbeing and Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs). What a fascinating question – and I do hope other members will join this discussion. Let me start by considering whether Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) could be used as an international standard. In such a scenario, the aspirational level to be achieved by all governments would be for all of their citizens to have a normal-range SWB. Peter suggests that, while this could be potentially useful as a ‘key-performance indicator’ for policy developers, it is not feasible because of cultural differences in responding to scales of SWB. Let me examine this issue more closely.It is true that international comparisons of raw SWB levels are invalid. The reason is straight-forward. Culture teaches people to regard them self, and their communication with others, in ways that are consistent with common values. This allows these people to interact with one another in culturally-sanctioned ways. Such training applies particularly to self-reports, which involve the communication of a personal feeling-state to another member. So, when asked ‘How satisfied are you with your life in general?’ someone from a Latin American country may consider a very positive response to be socially expected. On the contrary, someone from Japan might regard such a response as boastful and socially unacceptable. As an example, on a standard 0-100 percentage-point (pp) scale, Costa Rica rates as 71pp while Japan rates as 59pp. Such a difference CAN NOT be simply interpreted as ‘Costa Ricans are happier than Japanese’, as is commonly claimed ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Helliwell</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4108</RecNum><Prefix>e.g. </Prefix><Suffix>: Figure 2.1</Suffix><DisplayText>(e.g. Helliwell, Layard et al. 2020: Figure 2.1)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4108</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1585795639">4108</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Helliwell, J. F.</author><author>Layard, R.</author><author>Sachs, J.</author><author>De Neve, J-E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>World Happiness Report 2020</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Sustainable Development Solutions Network ;(e.g. Helliwell, Layard et al. 2020: Figure 2.1). Such a claim makes no sense. On three key objective indices, Japan is more conducive to a higher life quality [Costa Rica vs. Japan – GDP/Cap $18.6 vs $46.0; Gini 47.8 vs 33.9; HDI 0.79 vs 0.92].Unfortunately, our current knowledge of cultural response bias is insufficient for it to be validly measured as a unique entity. So within any SWB estimate, its contribution to the measured level remains unknown. Until this understanding becomes available, most comparisons of SWB levels between countries should be regarded as uninterpretable, as Peter suggests. But there are two kinds of exceptions.The first of these concerns gross deficits in any of the resources supporting normal levels of SWB. The most obvious of these is money. Poverty is reliably, and unsurprisingly, associated with abnormally low wellbeing. For example, the SWB of general population Indian samples is around 70-75pp ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Fontaine</Author><Year>2014</Year><RecNum>4114</RecNum><DisplayText>(Fontaine and Yamada 2014, McIntyre, Saliba et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4114</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586763709">4114</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Fontaine, X.</author><author>Yamada, Katsunori</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Caste comparisons in India: Evidence from subjective well-being data</title><secondary-title>World Development</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>World Development</full-title></periodical><pages>407-419</pages><volume>64</volume><dates><year>2014</year></dates><isbn>0305-750X</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite><Cite><Author>McIntyre</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4115</RecNum><record><rec-number>4115</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586764020">4115</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>McIntyre, E.</author><author>Saliba, Anthony</author><author>McKenzie, Kirsty</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective wellbeing in the Indian general population: a validation study of the Personal Wellbeing Index</title><secondary-title>Quality of Life Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Quality of Life Research</full-title></periodical><pages>1073–1081</pages><volume>29</volume><dates><year>2020</year></dates><isbn>0962-9343</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Fontaine and Yamada 2014, McIntyre, Saliba et al. 2020), whereas ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Biswas-Diener</Author><Year>2001</Year><RecNum>2623</RecNum><DisplayText>Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2623</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1470967405">2623</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Biswas-Diener, R.</author><author>Diener, E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Making the best of a bad situation: Satisfaction in the slums of Calcutta</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>329-352</pages><volume>55</volume><dates><year>2001</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Biswas-Diener and Diener (2001) report the SWB of Calcutta slum dwellers as 61.5pp, while that of pavement dwellers was 30.8pp. However, this is simply stating the obvious and so not interesting from a policy perspective.The second way SWB has the potential to be used as a guide for policy is when levels are compared within cultures. The most refined interpretation of such internal data depend on the establishment of normative ranges and setpoints. Each of these procedures complement one another and supply mutual verification of the calculated normative ranges, as can be demonstrated. Using Australian survey data (N=55,764), the normal range for SWB (Personal Wellbeing Index) is 75.25pp and SD 12.45pp. Creating a normal range as x2SDs around the mean gives 50.35pp to 100.15pp ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2013</Year><RecNum>462</RecNum><Suffix>`, Table E1</Suffix><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2013, Table E1)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>462</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947764">462</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2013</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2013, Table E1).A completely different form of calculation concerns the estimate of setpoints for Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood), which are the major determinant of SWB level under normal circumstances. These calculations ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2014a</Year><RecNum>813</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>813</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1351118016">813</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Li, L.</author><author>Wooden, M.</author><author>Stokes, M.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>A demonstration of set-points for subjective wellbeing</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>183-206</pages><volume>15</volume><dates><year>2014a</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s10902-013-9444-9</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite><Cite><Author>Capic</Author><Year>2018</Year><RecNum>3195</RecNum><record><rec-number>3195</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1501231491">3195</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Li, N.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators</title><secondary-title>Social Indicators Research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>1-28</pages><volume>137</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2018</year></dates><urls><related-urls><url>10.1007/s11205-017-1585-5</url></related-urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins, Li et al. 2014a, Capic, Li et al. 2018), again performed on Australian data, show setpoints calculated for Global Life Satisfaction and HPMood both exist as a normal range extending from about 65/70 to 90pp. Moreover, the level of SWB varies, for each person, about 8.25 points on either side of their setpoint. This implies that the lowest and highest value for SWB that can be considered to be under normal homeostatic control is (65-8.25) to (90+8.25) or 56.75 to 98.25pp. This is a quite reasonable approximation of the empirical normative range above. In summary, both methods converge to indicate that, for Australian individuals, SWB lying between 50 to100pp can be considered normal range. Values of SWB below 50pp are pathological, indicative of homeostatic failure ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Richardson</Author><Year>2014</Year><RecNum>1638</RecNum><DisplayText>(Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2014)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1638</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1421880751">1638</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Richardson, B.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. D.</author><author>Tomyn, A. J.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Psychometric equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for normally functioning and homeostatically defeated Australian adults</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>43-56</pages><volume>15 </volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2014</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>;(Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2014) and with an enhanced probability of depression ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2002</Year><RecNum>629</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins and Nistico 2002)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>629</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947789">629</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Nistico, H.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Maintaining life satisfaction: The role of positive cognitive bias</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>37-69</pages><volume>3</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2002</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins and Nistico 2002). The clear implication is that they require additional resources in order to re-establish homeostatic control. On the other hand, more nuanced understanding can be generated, such that while males who are engaged in fulltime home or family care have a 2pp lower SWB than males in full-time employment, they remain within the normal range.One final interesting feature of these results is that the setpoint mean for the Australian population is 80pp while the empirical SWB mean is 75pp. This implies that there is a 5pp deficit which could be redressed by a redistribution of resources. This gap is, thus, policy aspirational to close.So, in summary, even though at this stage of understanding, SWB differences between cultures cannot be validly interpreted, differences in the level of SWB within population samples can have clear policy implications for resource allocation. This is particularly the case if normative ranges are established for the culture in question.Peter also asks about ‘wellbeing’, and I am going to side-step that boggy pit. Essentially, the term has neither an agreed meaning nor form of measurement ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2014a</Year><RecNum>796</RecNum><Prefix>for discussion see </Prefix><DisplayText>(for discussion see Cummins 2014a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>796</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1348618025">796</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Michalos, A.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective Indicators of Wellbeing</title><secondary-title>Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research</secondary-title></titles><pages>6429-6431</pages><dates><year>2014a</year></dates><pub-location>Dordrecht, Netherlands</pub-location><publisher>Springer ;(for discussion see Cummins 2014a). Rather, let me turn to the United Nation’s attempt to manifest ‘wellbeing’ through their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and see whether SWB is a part of their thinking. SDGs are a collection of 17 global goals designed to be a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". The SDGs were set in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly and intended to be achieved by the year 2030 and the United Nations at with definitions: Wikipedia states “Sustainable development is the organizing principle for meeting human development goals while simultaneously sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services based upon which the economy and society depend. The desired result is a state of society where living conditions and resources are used to continue to meet human needs without undermining the integrity and stability of the natural system” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020, April 14</Year><RecNum>4117</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020a, April 14)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4117</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586939024">4117</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Sustainable development.</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 14</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020a, April 14).That seems like a lovely idea – the sort of statement with which international committees might unanimously agree. But a closer examination reveals problems. The statement proposes that the SDGs can be met through the conditional use of natural resources, such that these resources are ‘sustained’, such that their use does not compromise the natural ecology. But how? The Development Goals they list are ALL intimately linked to money. More money, makes it more likely is each goal realizable. Even their ‘well-being’ is defined by objective criteria only. So how does the UN imagine poor countries realizing their goals while also engaging in ‘sustainable development’? Wikipedia notes this problem as: “The concept of sustainable development has been, and still is, subject to criticism, including the question of what is to be sustained in sustainable development. It has been argued that there is no such thing as a sustainable use of a non-renewable resource, since any positive rate of exploitation will eventually lead to the exhaustion of earth's finite stock … It has also been argued that the meaning of the concept has opportunistically been stretched from 'conservation management' to 'economic development', and that the Brundtland Report ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Keeble</Author><Year>1988</Year><RecNum>4112</RecNum><DisplayText>(Keeble 1988)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4112</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586652804">4112</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Keeble, B. R.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Brundtland report: ‘Our common future’</title><secondary-title>Medicine and War</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Medicine and War</full-title></periodical><pages>17-25</pages><volume>4</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>1988</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1080/07488008808408783</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(Keeble 1988) promoted nothing but a business as usual strategy for world development, with an ambiguous and insubstantial concept attached as a public relations slogan” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Wikipedia contributors</Author><Year>2020, April 14</Year><RecNum>4117</RecNum><DisplayText>(Wikipedia contributors 2020a, April 14)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4117</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586939024">4117</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book Section">5</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Wikipedia contributors,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Sustainable development.</title><secondary-title>Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. , April 14</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Wikipedia contributors 2020a, April 14).The essence of ‘sustainable development’ as described by Keeble is a combination of extra economic growth and greater distribution of resources (p.20). However, in the absence of very determined specifications, this simply confirms the ‘business as usual’ conclusion above. Economic development using non-renewables is a short-term goal. More equitable resource distribution is a long-term goal. The evident danger is economic development with low accountability for achieving increased resource distribution.The attached report from the ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>United Nations</Author><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>4113</RecNum><DisplayText>United Nations (2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4113</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1586663334">4113</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>United Nations,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019</title></titles><dates><year>2019</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Author</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>United Nations (2019) reasonably confirms this bleak conclusion. However, of more interest to QOL scholars is the balance of objective and subjective variables. Only one of the 17 Goals is potentially relevant as ‘#3 Good Health and Well-being’, but the expanded description defines ‘well-being’ using objective criteria only. Once again, Subjective Wellbeing has been ignored.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this topic, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight on Monday 20th April Oz time 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryPennington, A., & Stanford, J. (2020). Working from Home: Opportunities and Risks. Canberra: Australia Institute COVID-19 pandemic is probably sparking a more lasting shift in the nature of our work. Various home work, telework, and remote work arrangements were already becoming more common before the pandemic, reflecting a range of motivations: including lower labour and infrastructure costs for employers, and greater convenience and flexibility for workers. Now home work is experiencing a more powerful, sudden impetus. And normal employment patterns will not suddenly be restored, even once the health emergency has passed and we are able to go back to work. Private businesses will be organizationally and financially battered by the pandemic; consumer-facing industries will face continuing health-related restrictions on their activity; and desperate workers will seek any means of supporting themselves, including various independent ventures conducted from their own homes. Some workers may prefer to continue working from home, and hence demand flexibility to do so after the pandemic passes. Others will be longing to get back to normal work, and the human interactions that come with it.For all these reasons, therefore, working from home will likely become more common in coming years. For millions of workers, indeed, it will become the ‘new normal.’ Since this form of work is here to stay, here are several economic and legal issues that will have to be considered as the trend becomes more common:Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaTeen Moms at High Risk for Depression and AnxietyKayla Mckiski if being a teen mom isn't hard enough, two-thirds of young mothers are grappling with at least one mental health issue, researchers say, including depression, anxiety and hyperactivity. That's up to four times higher than in teens who aren't parents and among mothers who are 21 and older, the findings showed. "Young mothers can face a great deal of adversity both before and after becoming a parent, yet next-to-nothing has been known about the rates and types of significant mental health problems among these women in our community," Van Lieshout said.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersProfessor. Fabrizio AntoliniAssociate Professor in Business Statistics; Director of Local Economic Observatory, University of TeramoKeywords:?National Accounts, GDP Tourism, HappinessProfessor Biagio SimonettiAssociate Professor, University of SannioKeywords:?Statistics-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST 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.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. (2014a). Subjective Indicators of Wellbeing. Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. A. Michalos. Dordrecht, Netherlands, Springer : 6429-6431.Cummins, R. A., L. Li, M. Wooden and M. Stokes (2014a). "A demonstration of set-points for subjective wellbeing." Journal of Happiness Studies 15: 183-206.Cummins, R. A. and H. Nistico (2002). "Maintaining life satisfaction: The role of positive cognitive bias." Journal of Happiness Studies 3(1): 37-69.Cummins, R. A., J. Woerner, A. Tomyn, A. Gibson and T. Knapp (2006). Australian Unity Wellbeing Index - Report 16.0. The Wellbeing of Australians - Mortgage patments and home ownership. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University , J. (2017). The end of History and the Invention of Happiness, CWiPP Working Paper No.11 Sheffield, Centre for Wellbeing in Public Policy, University of Sheffield.Fontaine, X. and K. Yamada (2014). "Caste comparisons in India: Evidence from subjective well-being data." World Development 64: 407-419.Helliwell, J. F., R. Layard, J. Sachs and J.-E. De Neve (2020). World Happiness Report 2020. New York, Sustainable Development Solutions Network Wellbeing Group (2013). Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 5th Edition. Melbourne, Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University.Keeble, B. R. (1988). "The Brundtland report: ‘Our common future’." Medicine and War 4(1): 17-25.McIntyre, E., A. Saliba and K. McKenzie (2020). "Subjective wellbeing in the Indian general population: a validation study of the Personal Wellbeing Index." Quality of Life Research 29: 1073–1081.Richardson, B., M. D. Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, A. J. Tomyn and R. A. Cummins (2014). "The Psychometric equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for normally functioning and homeostatically defeated Australian adults." Journal of Happiness Studies 15 (1): 43-56.United Nations (2019). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019. New York, Author.Wikipedia contributors (2020, April 14). Sustainable development. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Bulletin Vol 4/15: 090409Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.Philosophy, Politics and PsychologyBackground: The author writes with authority as a journalist trained in the perspectives of philosophy and history, who has an interest in the UK politics of subjective wellbeing (SWB). Thus, his account of the connection between SWB and national policy represents a reasonably disinterested view of the contribution made by psychological science. At a surface level the connection appears quite positive. SWB is regularly discussed in the media, it is measured by most national and international surveys, in the form of Global Life Satisfaction, and regularly gets a mention in government documents. But at a deeper level of analysis the picture looks quite different. It becomes clear there are two quite different kinds of SWB information. One is the populist approach, which most commonly concerns ‘happiness’. The second is the reliable, valid, and peer-reviewed literature concerning SWB science. His points of discussion, connecting SWB with national policy, may be contextualized as follows:1. Discussion where SWB and policy link to the wisdom of Ancient Greek philosophers and their relevant philosophical terms (eg eudaimonia).2. The embedding of such links within broader philosophical and political considerations.3. The relevance of positive psychology, especially ‘flourishing’, ‘resilience’ and ‘grit’.4. The linkage of ‘happiness’ research with moral and spiritual issues of freedom and control. Especially a concern that ‘psychologists and technocrats’ could declare 'we the experts have discovered the scientific formula for flourishing. Now you, the masses, should heed this proven formula, pull your socks up, and get happy'.Of course, these four points of emphasis represent the views of a single commentator, whose training has led him to these perspectives. But this account also speaks to a general failure of the SWB science to be regarded as relevant to government policy. What actually takes the attention of politicians, many of whom have a weak grasp of science, are the negative aspects of SWB reports, such as:‘There is nothing much new in this happiness research’ (it just repeats the wisdom of the Ancient Greeks).‘There is danger in this happiness research’ (it may impose on our freedoms)‘There is confusion in this happiness research (popular press and positive psychology)In summary, the scientific literature on SWB is all but invisible to those people responsible for formulating national policy. So, without proposing a technocracy, how might the relevance of SWB science be made more evident?Reference: Evans, J. (2017). The end of History and the Invention of Happiness, CWiPP Working Paper No.11 Sheffield: Centre for Wellbeing in Public Policy, University of Sheffield.Author summary: This paper explores how the contemporary politics of wellbeing moves beyond classical liberal ideas of the state as protector of 'negative liberty' and back to Ancient Greek ideas of the state as the promoter of flourishing or eudaimonia. It looks at the influence of Aristotle and the Stoics on UK mental health and education policy, particularly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and wellbeing classes. It ends by discussing whether government schemes for wellbeing promotion are illiberal, concludes that they potentially are, and suggests a way to make interventions more pluralistic and ment on Evans (2017)Over a decade ago we published a paper entitled “Encouraging Governments to Enhance the Happiness of Their Nation: Step 1: Understand Subjective Wellbeing” ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2009b</Year><RecNum>1342</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins, Lau et al. 2009b)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1342</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1409816614">1342</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Lau, A. L. D.</author><author>Mellor, David</author><author>Stokes, Mark A</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Encouraging governments to enhance the happiness of their nation: step 1: understand subjective wellbeing</title><secondary-title>Social indicators research</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Social Indicators Research</full-title></periodical><pages>23-36</pages><volume>91</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2009b</year></dates><isbn>0303-8300</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins, Lau et al. 2009b). The conclusions of remain relevant as: “The message to politicians should be kept simple and clear. SWB can be easily measured and the role of Government should be to shape society and distribute resources in ways that enhance population wellbeing. This means adhering to the traditional policies such as those concerned with good economic management, the promotion of a society that is law-abiding and safe, with access to paid employment. It should also incorporate the distribution of financial and service resources to those in need defined, perhaps, by low SWB. The combination of such circumstances will allow people to experience their normal levels of wellbeing and so enhance the happiness, productivity and livability of society as a whole” (pp.34-35).This conclusion does not call on the wisdom of Ancient Greeks, nor does it threaten freedoms except, perhaps, those who abhor sharing resources. Additionally, the aim is simple to understand, as concerning the support of SWB homeostasis through the targeted provision of resources. Notably, both theory and the empirical literature support the effectiveness of such an approach. So, why do the Policy Barons show such little interest?It would be easy to blame a general lack of interest in evidence from a phenomenological science. Or to blame ideological indolence, or political and economic agendas which are misaligned with such an approach. Or, the Barons simply not caring – their performance pressure coming from economics not psychology.While there may be some truth in all of these reasons for being ignored, there is another dark force, which likely puts all others in the shade. The academics who provide the theoretical and evidential literature on SWB science simply do not have their act together. They appear as a multitude of self-interest groups, displaying nomenclature anarchy and little interest in forging a common theoretical and scientific basis for understanding SWB. The field is reaping what it has sown.Five reasons for the lack of cohesive advancement in SWB science are proposed as follows:1. The lack of an agreed nomenclature.The greatest single impediment to advancing acceptance of SWB as a policy-relevant is chaotic nomenclature. It is surely not surprising that policy makers show indifference in the face of a variable with quite arbitrary descriptions ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2018b</Year><RecNum>3437</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2018b)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3437</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1518646321">3437</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>K. D. Keith</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Measuring and interpreting subjective wellbeing in different cultural contexts: A review and way forward</title><secondary-title>Elements of Psychology and Culture</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2018b</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Cambridge University Press</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins 2018b). Starting with the most general terminology, the term ‘wellbeing’ describes a global conception of life quality (Cummins, 2014). Although this concept is too vague to be matched by a valid form of measurement, as soon as ‘wellbeing’ is dissected, it separates into objective and subjective variables. Focussing on the subjective ‘wellbeing’, the term ‘happiness’ has been used to describe all positive feelings about the self (Veenhoven, 2010), as a synonym for SWB (Chang & Nayga, 2010), as referring to average levels of positive and negative affect (Seidlitz & Diener, 1993), and as a single affect within the classification system described by the circumplex model of affect (Russell, 2003).So, given that there is no simple way for the reader to know what the author intends to convey by using such terms as SWB or happiness, it would seem self-evident that an author’s use of any relevant term must be accompanied by a tight definition of its intended meaning. Because this rarely happens, confusion reigns.2. Comparing the SWB of countries. Senior and respected academics persist in publishing invalid results which achieve widespread media recognition. Annually, over the past eight years, Helliwell, Layard and Sachs have published their World Happiness Report ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Helliwell</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4108</RecNum><DisplayText>(Helliwell, Layard et al. 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4108</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1585795639">4108</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Helliwell, J. F.</author><author>Layard, R.</author><author>Sachs, J.</author><author>De Neve, J-E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>World Happiness Report 2020</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Sustainable Development Solutions Network ;(Helliwell, Layard et al. 2020). The section that always entices media attention is the international comparisons of national happiness levels, based on Gallup poll data and a 0-10 rating on the Cantril ladder. They use causal language to ‘explain’ differences between countries (their Table 2.1) and do not seem perturbed that, on any reasonable criteria regarding wealth and societal structure, many of their comparisons make no sense. For example on a 0-10 scale of happiness, Mexico scores 6.5 (24th) while Japan scores 5.8 (62nd). Their discussion of cultural bias is limited to a small section on p.54 which mentions that the “Latin American and Caribbean region …[has a] generally high level of affective well-being …[which] may be due to, for example, stronger family relationships, social capital, and culture-related factors”. In fact, all cultures teach a response bias concerning self-reports, which makes their Table 2.1 comparisons invalid ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2018b</Year><RecNum>3437</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2018b)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3437</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1518646321">3437</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>K. D. Keith</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Measuring and interpreting subjective wellbeing in different cultural contexts: A review and way forward</title><secondary-title>Elements of Psychology and Culture</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2018b</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Cambridge University Press</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Cummins 2018b). For previous comments on earlier editions of this Happiness Report see Bulletin Vol 2/13; 3/14 and 3/15.3. The use of primitive and crude measurement.It all started so well, as documented in a history of SWB measurement ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2000</Year><RecNum>621</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins and Gullone 2000)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>621</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947789">621</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Conference Proceedings">10</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Gullone, E.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Why we should not use 5-point Likert scales: The case for subjective quality of life measurement</title><secondary-title>Second International Conference on Quality of Life in Cities</secondary-title></titles><pages>74-93</pages><dates><year>2000</year></dates><pub-location>Singapore: National University of Singapore</pub-location><urls><related-urls><url>;(Cummins and Gullone 2000). ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Freyd</Author><Year>1923</Year><RecNum>3167</RecNum><DisplayText>Freyd (1923)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3167</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1499994822">3167</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Freyd, M.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The graphic rating scale</title><secondary-title>Journal of Educational Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Educational Psychology</full-title></periodical><volume>14</volume><number>83-102</number><dates><year>1923</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Freyd (1923) discusses the various forms of response scale available at that time and notes that they tended to be based on 10-choice or 100-choice formats. But then ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Likert</Author><Year>1932</Year><RecNum>3168</RecNum><DisplayText>Likert (1932)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3168</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1499995151">3168</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Likert, R.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>A technique for the measurement of attitudes</title><secondary-title>Archives in Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Archives in Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>1-55</pages><volume>140</volume><dates><year>1932</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Likert (1932) simplified these to a 5-choice scale, while ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Gurin</Author><Year>1960</Year><RecNum>1378</RecNum><DisplayText>Gurin, Veroff et al. (1960)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1378</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1411696798">1378</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Gurin, Gerald</author><author>Veroff, Joseph</author><author>Feld, Sheila</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Americans view their mental health: A nationwide interview survey</title></titles><dates><year>1960</year></dates><pub-location>New York</pub-location><publisher>Basic Books</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Gurin, Veroff et al. (1960) took it down to three ‘Taking all things together, how would you say things are these days—would you say you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy these days? Such scales do not support the discriminative capacity of humans in their ability to reliably make 7±2 levels of discrimination on a perceptual continuum ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Miller</Author><Year>1956</Year><RecNum>2829</RecNum><DisplayText>(Miller 1956)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2829</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1483335547">2829</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Miller, G. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information</title><secondary-title>Psychological review</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychological Review</full-title></periodical><pages>81-97</pages><volume>63</volume><number>2</number><dates><year>1956</year></dates><isbn>1939-1471</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Miller 1956) [this key publication has received about 31,000 citations]. So, in accordance with ‘Miller’s Law’, response scales for SWB should contain 9 categories to accommodate skilled discriminators. The contemporary use of 0-10 category response scales seem adequate, but, since 95% of respondents (in Australia) score between 5 and 10, such scales offer the normal-range respondent 6 categories, which is not only within the capacity of most people but also sufficient to generate interval (cardinal) data. Yet, numerous researchers and survey designers persist in collecting data using out-dated, truncated response scales.4. The use of logistic regression.As an example of a survey which continues to use an inferior response scale, the Eurobarometer ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Eurobarometer</Author><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>2898</RecNum><DisplayText>(Eurobarometer 2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2898</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1486424576">2898</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Eurobarometer</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Eurobarometer surveys</title><secondary-title>;(Eurobarometer 2019) employs a 4-choice satisfaction with life scale (Very unsatisfied; Rather unsatisfied; Rather satisfied; Very satisfied). Not only is this a very blunt instrument with which to measure SWB, but also when used in a logistic regression provides an invalid measure of SWB. For example, ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite AuthorYear="1"><Author>Lenzi</Author><Year>2018</Year><RecNum>4101</RecNum><DisplayText>Lenzi and Perucca (2018)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4101</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1585360128">4101</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Lenzi, C.</author><author>Perucca, Giovanni</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Are urbanized areas source of life satisfaction? Evidence from EU regions</title><secondary-title>Papers in Regional Science</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Papers in Regional Science</full-title></periodical><pages>S105-S122</pages><volume>97</volume><dates><year>2018</year></dates><isbn>1056-8190</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>Lenzi and Perucca (2018), whose paper was discussed in the previous Bulletin, combined the two ‘unsatisfied’ categories, and the two ‘satisfied’ categories, to create their binary split for analysis. However, from the use of 0-10 category data it is understood that SWB scores have a normal population range of 5-10, and that scores below 5 (the midpoint) represent psychopathology and homeostatic defeat ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Richardson</Author><Year>2014</Year><RecNum>1638</RecNum><DisplayText>(Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2014)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>1638</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1421880751">1638</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Richardson, B.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. D.</author><author>Tomyn, A. J.</author><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>The Psychometric equivalence of the Personal Wellbeing Index for normally functioning and homeostatically defeated Australian adults</title><secondary-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Happiness Studies</full-title></periodical><pages>43-56</pages><volume>15 </volume><number>1</number><dates><year>2014</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>;(Richardson, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz et al. 2014). Thus, whereas Lenzi and Perucca intended their analysis to represent different levels of life satisfaction, in fact, they were comparing one normal SWB group (satisfied) with a group high in depression (unsatisfied). It is almost certain that the results of this paper will be miss-cited as a consequence.5. Unuseful complexity.Instead of conducting straight-forward theory-testing through the application of simple statistics, a huge number of contemporary papers take the opposite approach. They perform fishing-expeditions, justified by weak rationales, using complex multivariate statistics, and report results that will never be replicated. Such researchers do SWB science a disservice by adding more confusion than understanding.In sum, we scientists of the phenomenological realm, have ourselves to blame for being ignored by people making national policy decisions that matter. For this situation to change, journal editors, as the gate-keepers of our standards, have responsibility to increase the standard of reported SWB research. Useful approaches would be to insist of the use of carefully defined nomenclature, to require full acknowledgement of cultural response bias when reporting international comparisons, to require the reporting of means and variances for all dependent variables, and refusing to publish exploratory studies using multivariate statistics.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight on Monday 13th April Oz time 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.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 <tanja.capic@deakin.edu.au>WebMasterIestyn Polley <iestyn.polley@deakin.edu.au>Executive Web DeveloperThe January – March issues of the ACQol Bulletin [Vol 4/01-13; 04/01/20 - 26/03/20] have been archived at Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryEvans, M., Jennings, W., & Stoker, G. (2020). How does Australia compare: What makes a leading democracy? Report No.6. Canberra: Museum of Australian Democracy. quality of democratic governance has come into sharp focus during the global crisis precipitated by coronavirus. Although Australia will beat the pandemic, is the Australian system of governance robust enough to win the trust of its citizens and enable them to negotiate the measures necessary to contain, eradicate and recover from the virus in good time? Are other democracies responding more effectively to the challenge? We find many positives that reflect the standing of Australia as a long-established liberal democracy. Citizens in Australia have a comparatively high sense of the achievements of their democracy, its importance and its delivery of freedoms. They do not perceive their political system to be as prone to corruption as citizens of many other countries. Yet notwithstanding the lack of focus on corruption, Australians exhibit greater distrust in their political system compared to many other countries. What they lack in trust in politicians contrasts with their degree of trust in science.Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaWill social isolation lead to more deaths of despair?Abraham Gutman Throughout the 20th century, mortality rates have declined worldwide. The improvements in life expectancy are so impressive that Princeton economist and Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton dedicated a whole book, "The Great Escape," to how it happened. But the richest country in world history has seen a reversal of fortune. In the past few years, life expectancy in the United States has declined. It's against this concerning background that the coronavirus pandemic hit.Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersMs Aisha AlshdefatLecturer, Sultan Qaboos UniversityKeywords:?Quality, Well-beingMs. Rasha Abu-BakerLecturer, Sultan Qaboos UniversityKeywords:?Quality, PlanningDr Fernando BrunaAssociated professor, University of A CorunnaKeywords:?Culture, Human values, Family, Multilevel, Spatial-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST Cummins, R. A. (2018b). Measuring and interpreting subjective wellbeing in different cultural contexts: A review and way forward. New York: Cambridge University Press.Cummins, R. A., & Gullone, E. (2000). Why we should not use 5-point Likert scales: The case for subjective quality of life measurement. Paper presented at the Second International Conference on Quality of Life in Cities, Singapore: National University of Singapore.Cummins, R. A., Lau, A. L. D., Mellor, D., & Stokes, M. A. (2009b). Encouraging governments to enhance the happiness of their nation: step 1: understand subjective wellbeing. Social Indicators Research, 91(1), 23-36. Eurobarometer. (2019). Eurobarometer surveys. . Freyd, M. (1923). The graphic rating scale. Journal of Educational Psychology, 14(83-102). Gurin, G., Veroff, J., & Feld, S. (1960). Americans view their mental health: A nationwide interview survey. New York: Basic Books.Helliwell, J. F., Layard, R., Sachs, J., & De Neve, J.-E. (2020). World Happiness Report 2020. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network , C., & Perucca, G. (2018). Are urbanized areas source of life satisfaction? Evidence from EU regions. Papers in Regional Science, 97, S105-S122. Likert, R. (1932). A technique for the measurement of attitudes. Archives in Psychology, 140, 1-55. Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81-97. Richardson, B., Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M. D., Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2014). 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: Bulletin Vol 4/14: 020420 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Robert A. Cummins [robert.cummins@deakin.edu.au]Back-issues of the Bulletin are available at 1: The ACQol site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only. 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.City vs Rural SWB in EuropeBackground: Following-on from the discussion last week, Peter Achterberg <peter.achterberg@rivm.nl> has drawn our attention to this paper and comments:“Maybe some input to the subject of international variation and its interpretation from the Europe Union, which provides the natural experiment in varying factors related to life satisfaction and quality of life related issues. The observations for life satisfaction show patterns that are often overlapping with those observed for personal well being and for subjective (self-perceived) health). Next to cultural differences between countries overall their appear to be forms of selective migration involved. Poor EU countries have poor scoring rural areas, rich EU countries the opposite…with occasional high scores for mid urban-rural areas. Selection by migration, i.e. in poor countries we see those who are healthy and feeling well move to work in the cities, or in the richer countries we see the rich moving to live their happy lives in (sub)urbia”.Reference: Lenzi, C., & Perucca, G. (2018). Are urbanized areas source of life satisfaction? Evidence from EU regions. Papers in Regional Science, 97, S105-S122.Author summary: This paper studies the relationship between urbanization and life satisfaction inEuropean NUTS 2 regions in the period 2004–2011 based on individual level data. Results suggest that life satisfaction is greater in regions characterized by intermediate levels of urbanization. Urbanization benefits also filter down along the regional urban hierarchy and are especially positive for those individuals living in rural areas of urbanized regions. Eastern European countries depart from this average trend, and, generally, experience negative direct and indirect urbanization effects, especially in the most urbanized regions.Cummins commentsThe provided paper does not directly address the issue of selective migration. And while Peter’s described motivation for movement between city and rural no doubt applies to some people, whether it has the capacity to offer an explanation for the Lenzi and Perucca results is moot. Two alternative lines of discussion can be offered, for the presented city vs rural differences in Subjective Wellbeing (SWB). One involves geographic differences in available resources to support homeostatic control ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2017a</Year><RecNum>2946</RecNum><DisplayText>(Cummins 2017a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2946</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1491111749">2946</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author></authors><secondary-authors><author>Dunn, D. S.</author></secondary-authors></contributors><titles><title>Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis - Second edition</title><secondary-title>Oxford Bibliographies Online</secondary-title></titles><dates><year>2017a</year><pub-dates><date>10 April 2018</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>New York </pub-location><publisher>Oxford University Press</publisher><urls><related-urls><url>;(Cummins 2017a); but this lies beyond the scope of the provided paper. The second point of discussion is a concern that, while the reported results generally follow a well-worn path (SWB rural > urban), the paper itself has such major methodological issues that the reported results are likely to be unreliable. First, however, a bright spot, which is the authors’ definition of ‘cities’.One of the major problems for researchers studying the urban-rural divide, in terms of differing levels of SWB, is how to describe the various geographic regions of interest. This paper offers clarity by defining ‘a city region’ within a larger geographic area as: “the presence in a region either of a core city linked by functional ties to a hinterland, or a polycentric geographical unit, which frequently leads to the formation of networked city regions” (p.S106). From an international perspective, comprising cities of all shapes and sizes, this definition usefully avoids pronouncing the number of inhabitants, rather highlighting its core function and diverse structural configuration.The second descriptive term used by the authors does not fare so well. ‘Borrow size’ (p. S108) refers to the observation that the urbanization effects of cities spill-over to the surrounding area. “The borrow-size concept suggests that smaller places can take advantage of some of the urbanization benefits of their neighbours without incurring in the related disadvantages” (p.S108). A concern with this description is that it presents a value-judgement of necessary urban advantage and freedom of choice. This is surely not correct. Disadvantage due to urban contiguity can also be experienced, such as may be caused by the presence of strangers on day-trips and elevated real estate prices. In this light, and as defined, the term ‘borrow –size’ exerts an unwarranted positive bias on approaching the research question of whether SWB levels in semi-rural environments are higher than the levels in cities. Other matters of concern with the Lenzi & Perucca paper are as follows:Generalization of resultsEurope is the sixth largest continent, divided into some 50 sovereign states. These states evidence great diversity, but there are gross differences between the West and East. Generally, West Europe is rich and densely settled, while Eastern Europe is much poorer and is less densely populated. Curiously, however, there is no international agreement concerning which countries comprise each region. So it is imperative for a paper such as this, which compares data derived from these two European divisions, to name the countries from which data were obtained. However, the countries are not identified.Even more confusing, the West vs East Europe comparisons (p.S115) actually test for differences between Central and Eastern vs. Western EU countries. Again, the countries providing these data are not named. The failure of the authors to provide this list of countries makes their results non-replicable and, so, of reduced value.A further limiting perspective on the generalizability of these results, is that the authors’ major analysis concerns the urban/rural divide in Western Europe, and this world region has a most unusual character. As the authors note, this is one of the most urbanized regions of the world, so what might be regarded as ‘rural’ in Western Europe might be functioning as a quite different classification in Eastern Europe, or Australia. With the lowest population density in the world (2.8 inhabitants per square kilometre) Australia uses a five-level system of regional classification as: Highly Accessible, Accessible, Moderately Accessible, Remote, Very Remote ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and National Key Centre for Social Applications of Geographic Information Systems</Author><Year>2001</Year><RecNum>4106</RecNum><DisplayText>(Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and National Key Centre for Social Applications of Geographic Information Systems 2001)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4106</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1585702669">4106</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and National Key Centre for Social Applications of Geographic Information Systems,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Measuring remoteness: Accessibility/Remoteness Index of Australia (ARIA) (Occasional Papers New Series No. 14, Rev. ed.). </title></titles><number>&#xD;</number><dates><year>2001</year></dates><pub-location>Canberra</pub-location><publisher>Department of Health and Aged Care</publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and National Key Centre for Social Applications of Geographic Information Systems 2001). The authors do not consider this possible classificatory explanation for their anomalous results in respect of Eastern Europe.Ecological Fallacy“Using per capita GDP as a proxy for the available income of households is questionable, as discussed by several works (see for instance Stiglitz et al. 2010). Therefore, we tried to replace per capita GDP with a measure of per capita net disposable income, still defined at the [regional] level” (p.S111, footnote). ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite Hidden="1"><Author>Stiglitz</Author><Year>2010</Year><RecNum>1365</RecNum><record><rec-number>1365</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1410564899">1365</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Book">6</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Stiglitz, J.</author><author>Sen, Amartya</author><author>Fitoussi, Jean-Paul</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Report by the commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress</title></titles><dates><year>2010</year></dates><pub-location>Paris</pub-location><publisher>Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress </publisher><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>The authors are on the right track in avoiding the use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in their correlational analyses, but do not seem to have grasped the reason for this potential error. The rationale is identified by the term Ecological Fallacy. In this context, the term ‘ecological’ refers to a variable that is measured at the level of the overall group, such as GDP, as opposed to most variables in psychology, such as SWB, which are measured at the level of the individual (see Piantadosi, Byar et al. 1988 for elaboration). When a national-level variable is correlated with an individual-level variable, the central statistical (and logical) problem is a violation of the assumption that the variables being compared are comparable, especially in exhibiting approximately equal levels of variation (Variance). This requirement is violated because (life satisfaction) exhibits far more variation than (GDP), thereby invalidating the analysis (Blalock 1964). The problem can be overcome through the use of Multi-level modelling (see Lüdtke, Marsh et al. 2008). But the current authors’ solution to use an alternative group-level variable, in the form of per capita net disposable income measured at a regional level, does not avoid the ecological fallacy. The authors’ calculations in this regard are invalid.TerminologyThere is the usual confusion with terminology, here exacerbated by the authors attempted detail. They state “In a considerable body of literature, life satisfaction, happiness and subjective well-being are assumed as synonymous and used interchangeably” [this is true and correct] “Yet… Life satisfaction refers to cognitive states (i.e. it is a measure of cognition) while happiness refers to emotions and intimate matters of life (i.e. it is a measure of affect)” (p.S106-Note 1). This is incorrect on two counts. First, life satisfaction, as in Global Life Satisfaction (GLS), mainly comprises affect, not cognition ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Cummins</Author><Year>2018a</Year><RecNum>2895</RecNum><Prefix>see </Prefix><DisplayText>(see Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>2895</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1486353818">2895</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Cummins, R. A.</author><author>Capic, T.</author><author>Hutchinson, D.</author><author>Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, M.</author><author>Olsson, C. A.</author><author>Richardson, B.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Why self-report variables inter-correlate: The role of Homeostatically Protected Mood</title><secondary-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Wellbeing Assessment</full-title></periodical><pages>93-114</pages><volume>2</volume><dates><year>2018a</year></dates><urls></urls><electronic-resource-num>10.1007/s41543-018-0014-0</electronic-resource-num></record></Cite></EndNote>(see Cummins, Capic et al. 2018a). For example, when these latter authors examined the raw score correlations between GLS and the Personal Wellbeing Index ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>International Wellbeing Group</Author><Year>2020</Year><RecNum>4076</RecNum><DisplayText>(International Wellbeing Group 2020)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>4076</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1581994710">4076</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Electronic Book">44</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>International Wellbeing Group,</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Personal Wellbeing Index Manual: 6th Edition</title></titles><dates><year>2020</year><pub-dates><date>26 June 2019</date></pub-dates></dates><pub-location>Melbourne</pub-location><publisher>Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University</publisher><isbn>ISBN 1 74156 048 9</isbn><urls><related-urls><url>;(International Wellbeing Group 2020), the two variables shared about 90% of their variance. However, after accounting for shared affect, in the form of Homeostatically Protected Mood, the shared variance fell to about 22% (see their Table 5).The second point of misunderstanding is that, while ‘happiness’ is indeed an affect, it is whimsical to think it refers to affairs of the heart. The psychological construct of affect can be understood in terms of two dimensions. One is the affective circumplex ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Russell</Author><Year>1980</Year><RecNum>167</RecNum><DisplayText>(Russell 1980)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>167</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1343947677">167</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Russell, J. A.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>A circumplex model of affect</title><secondary-title>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</full-title></periodical><pages>1161-1178</pages><volume>39</volume><dates><year>1980</year></dates><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Russell 1980), which provides a taxonomic classification. The other is the difference between mood and emotion ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Author>Forgas</Author><Year>1995</Year><RecNum>3755</RecNum><DisplayText>(Forgas 1995)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>3755</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="z2xarpe9cfrvp4ezdxk5ddx9dsrzr05f22sa" timestamp="1543647292">3755</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Journal Article">17</ref-type><contributors><authors><author>Forgas, J. P.</author></authors></contributors><titles><title>Mood and judgment: the affect infusion model (AIM)</title><secondary-title>Psychological bulletin</secondary-title></titles><periodical><full-title>Psychological Bulletin</full-title></periodical><pages>39-66</pages><volume>117</volume><number>1</number><dates><year>1995</year></dates><isbn>1939-1455</isbn><urls></urls></record></Cite></EndNote>(Forgas 1995). In summary, ‘life satisfaction’ represents a dominantly affective evaluation of life in general. In conclusion, while the authors’ results are generally consistent with expectations based on a substantial prior literature, they are not sufficiently methodologically sound to be regarded as adding to that literature.References: see end of BulletinFurther discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: robert.cummins@deakin.edu.auSubstantive comments received by midnight on Monday 6th April Oz time 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.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.Brief reportSourced from the Analysis & Policy ObservatoryFarmer, J., De Cotta, T., Knox, J., & Adler, V. (2020). LONELINESS, SOCIAL CONNECTION AND COVID-19. Swinburne University, Melbourne: Centre for Social Impact. have long known that loneliness and social isolation cause people significant emotional pain and can have a negative impact on their health and wellbeing. Now, with Covid-19, we are being told to socially distance. This risks making the problems associated with loneliness worse. It’s important we focus on keeping up social connections even while physically distancing. This factsheet highlights some short-term tips on how we can be healthy social humans in these unusual times.Media newsTanika Roberts [trobe@deakin.edu.au]Executive Volunteer, Bulletin Co-Editor– MediaCoronavirus news on social media stressing you out? Here's how to handle the anxiety Luis PelaezThe ever-shifting news has some people constantly checking their phones for updates—and others saying they're ready to walk away from their feeds entirely. "It's really the perfect recipe for anxiety and panic," said licensed clinical psychologist Debra Kissen of Chicago. And stress, it should be noted, may be a factor in heart disease. Kissen acknowledged the coronavirus pandemic is unprecedented because of the way uncertainty has crept into "every little nook and cranny" of life. People worry: Is your neighbor's cough going to be the one? Is that touch going to be what does you in? Will I get infected in the supermarket?Additional recommend reading‘Today’s Research’, edited by Dr Bob Murray, provides a weekly digest of research, mainly in biology and the social sciences. from the ACQol siteGoogle Analytics inclusive period: March 2020Number of users who initiated at least one session during the date range: 1,195Number of sessions: 1,467Membership changesSangeetha Thomas <thomassa@deakin.edu.au>simonet@deakin.edu.au" simonet@deakin.edu.auMembership RegistrarWelcome to new membersDr Fabrizio MaturoDepartment of Mathematics and Physics, Department of Mathematics and PhysicsKeywords:?Statistics, data analysis, biostatistics, bioinformatics, RExecutive Director Jill JohnsonInternational Society for Quality of Life Studies.Keywords:?Interested in collaboration with ACQOL and ISQOLS-----------------------References ADDIN EN.REFLIST Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and National Key Centre for Social Applications of Geographic Information Systems. (2001). 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