Setting out Measures, Research Proposal Example

Abstract

This proposal aims at setting out some measures that can be used in psychological and subjective situations of safety in individual and domestic surveys. In specific, it proposes a short list of some main indicators and modules carrying out important questions needed to build them. The pointers address not only the eudemonic but also the bionic criteria thus covering the four aspects of welfare which include: the meaning in life, the main psychological needs like autonomy, competence and kinship following the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the general life satisfaction and happiness (Alesina et al 2004). It is recommended that further research explore the relationship between this indicators and the relationship with impartial measures of disadvantage. Although the perceptual states should not be taken as goals of supervision policy, it is well understood that they may provide a proper understanding of the people’s morals and manners. Further research on this therefore could help to make a clear understanding of capability poverty (Allik and Realo, 2004).

Introduction

Both developing and developed countries have experienced an outpouring on research on subjective welfare and several calls on adoption of some variant of happiness to be adopted as a rule goalmouth. The current findings that indicate that income and happiness are not linked above extremely low income categories have provoked an increase of interest in non-material features of comfort (Allik and Realo, 2004).The policy makers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom have put their interest in measuring life satisfaction as a module of wellbeing. The appeal of happiness as an indicator is diverse and easy to capture. The recent research indicates that the Danes are the happiest people in the world; there performance at work is excellent as compared to the people of Burundi and Zimbabwe who have the least happiness (Alesina et al 2004).

The emphasis on happiness has also been evaluated on various fonts with the main among them being its transitory nature, obvious conflict with other values, and usual deflation of democracy and inherent acceptance of adaptive favorites (Allik and Realo, 2004).On the other hand, it is also difficult to quarrel that psychological and personal states of welfare have inherent and instrumental values. Research has indicated that they are the main component in employment, physical safety of every individual, empowerment and also the ability to go without shame and fear. These also stand to underwrite a richer perspective to our mastering of human experience and values, and in specific the importance of their nonmaterial mechanisms.

However, while this research proposal put new emphasis on personal wellbeing brings into relief an important topic; its continuous usage may haze conceptual differences between happiness and satisfaction (Biswas D, 2006). It furthermore overlooks more vigorous measures of psychological welfare. Even though the use of perceptual measures as policy aims has been highly criticized over years, the degree to which one finds one’s life to be of great importance, functions positively, and perceives its various aspects seems to be capturing something that can be used to get a proper understanding of capability and more so of capability poverty and personal wellbeing (Allik and Realo, 2004).

This proposal is to derive seven indicators from the min questions measuring psychological welfare, life satisfaction and happiness (Biswas D, 2006). The indicator number one assesses the extent to which people recognize meaning in the lives. The indicator number two take measures on the ability to define and to progress towards meaning with the success of self-determination theory, its great concern is the extent to which persons exhibit affiliation, autonomy and capability (Alesina et al 2004). With the happiness and satisfaction, all this indicators following the right criteria typically available in the national surveys and their process of evolution over time would complement the process of antipoverty policy making.

Measuring positive functioning

The main elements of the literature on both psychological and personal welfare focus on eudemonic and mental health measures. The eudemonic measures put a lot of emphasis on human flourishing and the demonian on the other hand emphasize on the spirit and the virtues action which is known to conflict with happiness and satisfaction (Alesina et al 2004). Hedonic measures follow the principles of maximizing pleasure and avoiding pain. The mental health literature is concerned with psychological disorder which follows the criteria of clinical approach, but multicultural contexts call this into question because of the need to focus more on positive functioning. In the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the eudemonia is the idea of striving towards excellence based on one’s own unique potential as defined by Ruff and singer (1998).

This measurement has the full advantage of incorporating both the intrinsic and extrinsic in both the process and the outcome; this gives both instrumental importances in encouraging individuals on tackling challenges related to poverty in live (Biswas D, 2006). It also gives due recognition to the role of personal internal cognition in state outcome. Research has indicated that external circumstances may result in just minimal percentage of variation between individuals in measures f life gratification (Alesina et al 2004). The main effect of life fulfillment in internal circumstances led by psychological such as aspects of operatives over which persons have some control. It is individuals a good decision in life that makes them to have full control and proper checking’s of does and don’ts which constitute their idea of the good life (Allik and Realo, 2004).

According to carol and Ryff, they conclude the six constructs which represent the distinct points of convergence as to what constitute mental welfare: personal growth, autonomy, self-esteem, environmental mastery, aim in life, and positive kinship. They further study the subsequent relationship between the combinations of these six key features with socio demographic characteristics such as age, gender, race and level of education (Andrews and Withey 1976).

People have different meaning in life and the search and presence of meaning in life recurs in philosophical accounts of the good life since the ancient Greece to date. Through the works of some psychologists such as victor Frank have stated that the need for meaning is a basic human drive and there is a very strong link between meaning in life and psychological welfare of an individual (Zika 1987). Meaning is also positively linked with self-satisfaction and happiness as well as with the work enjoyment. Working with meaning gives an individual proper presentation and health working all the time than working without meaning which result in frustration and unrest (Alesina et al 2004).

Working with meaning has also been reported by psychologists to be a very powerful means of coping with negative situations. Although different psychologists disagree on proper definition of meaning, they however, agree that meaning is very crucial in life especially with decision making process (Andrews and Withey 1976).This has led to crucial discussion of meaning over time and hence it has been left open for respondents determination, with this it has accord well with the meaning of eudemonia which states that thriving is an outcome of striving for excellence based on individuals own unique potential (Allik and Realo, 2004).

Different individuals therefore have different explanation of the meaning of live but little survey work seeks to prompt respondent perceptions of meanings I their lives. Psychologists who have tried to look for the meaning of live have searched for the meaning with the presence of meaning, and his has been criticized for the reasons like being indicative of meaning instead of being simply a desire of meaning (Alesina et al 2004). Having meaning is associated with psychological wellbeing but he search for meaning is not healthy although it arise from varying motivations in different individuals and therefore may have positive or negative outcomes on psychological health. This indicates that looking for the meaning is not psychologically health but possessing proper definition is recommended thus complicating the whole process (Andrews and withey 1976).

Self-determination theory on the other hand compliment as it posits three innate psychological needs that include; competence, autonomy and kinship theorizing that fulfillment of these needs is essential for psychological growth. It further states that fulfillment of these three needs result in integrity and wellbeing of a person (Allik and Realo, 2004).They argue that these three constructs are factors that raise welfare by maximizing ones potential instead of indicating the welfare of an individual itself. Furthermore, they stated that interfering with any of these three needs is psychologically destructive. This theory was developed to explain the goal content as well as the process through which the goals are pursued. Psychologists belonging to this theory have argued that process and goal content make discrete contributions towards psychological welfare and it results in stress whether goal fulfillment is made or not provided it facilitates the basic needs (Alesina et al 2004).

Evidence proposes that self-determination theory is applicable across philosophies. In spite of cultural and ideological and positional differences, it appears that status, control and level of social interaction are collective elements of individual happiness across nations. However, self-determination theory does not suggest that the basic needs are all equal valued in all the families, cultures or social groups but it maintains that awkward approach of these needs results in general negative psychological consequences in all social cultural situations (Allik and Realo, 2004).

In hedonic point of view, the personal perceptions of wellbeing have three components which include the cognitive, positive and negative components. However, recent research indicates that the extent to which happiness and unhappiness constitute a single dimension is not true because they are not independent. Satisfaction constitutes happiness and kinship in an individual and it consider both life overall and several distinct domains that are known to be relevant (Andrews and Withey 1976).

Psychologists carefully distinguish between happiness and life satisfaction but many economists use the two measures interchangeably. In national survey instruments, there is no clear definition apart from those of the psychologists (Biswas D, 2006). This has been justified by high levels of interchangeable use on the basis of high correlations between the two variables. The use of close correlations to find the data in future would be advice sable to make the correlations close enough to make it somehow accurate. Close correlations indicates that they are capturing the same concept (Alesina et al 2004). The extend of correlation on life satisfaction and wellbeing varies greatly depending with the countries but more stable countries shows some better results compared with the third world nations an indication that shows that they attribute to the extent of individualism versus communism. The inner emotional feelings are believed to play a more significant role in individual’s life of overall life satisfaction in individual nations than in communist nations (Andrews and Withey 1976).

It is noted that because collectivism and per capita income are very high correlated, the conflation of life satisfaction and happiness appears more important in underprivileged countries than in rich countries. However, it has been suggested that the terms satisfaction and happiness that carry different connotations in English may translate differently in other languages and hence the range of correlations may arise in such communicational differences (Allik and Realo, 2004). Due to such complications, it is important to carry out more studies to gather more evidence which will give collective data on life satisfaction and on happiness separately. This is because these two terms may measure a deep seated cognitive stance and effective predispositions and hence could inform research on poverty in different ways (Alesina et al 2004).

When we try to compare survey responses with the results of physiological, psychological and the third party indicators it is concluded that the subjective well-being do capture an fundamental psychological authenticity. An international measure such as life satisfaction has the strongest advantage in that it covers all relevant resources and not the only few that are easily measurable. It is however viewed that this strength is offset by a clear dimness (Andrews and Withey, 1976).His is mainly because the global question fails to give information regarding the components of personal welfare. This at end makes it fail to give us a reason as to why people feel as they do and also fails to state how people may aggregate separate components of their lives to arrive at an overall assessment. The global questions are also prone to mood biases than the domain specific questions (Allik and Realo, 2004).

Because of such limitations, most of the works especially those focusing on capturing quality of life reflects satisfaction with respect to exact fields believed to be significant to personalities. Satisfaction therefore in many fields can be reinforcing or counteracting (Andrews and Withey, 1976).People can have some challenges and still remain satisfied depending with their psychological understanding of the situation and experience. Satisfaction can therefore be derived from the social relationship with the environment and the people they share the same environment that contain limited resources and still remain happy (Alesina et al 2004).

Some research on this task asks the respondent to identify the domains they consider relevant that this would not reflect the real scale internationally because of varied ideas. Furthermore, philosophical and psychological research indicates considerable agreement as to the components of human flourishing which can be used to draw relevant components that can be important in understanding the correlation between happiness and poverty. Other things like bodily wellbeing, material wellbeing, work, security, mental wellbeing, spiritual wellbeing and political freedom are the aspects that can lead to happiness and well-being of an individual (Andrews and Withey, 1976).

We use the cumin’s framework to structure the rudimentary list of domains that appears in the recommended survey interrogation. We propose certain items within each domain but this selection remains open to further debate (Allik and Realo, 2004).In the category of the main basic needs, the housing and food is selected as the most basic of needs for the poor, and the earnings which represents the general catchall for other types of material wants. Under productivity, we chose work. In security, we choose the physical safety. For the friends and kinship, we clarify on intimacy with reference to friends and family. For the community which is the most important especially in Cummins work and the voice of the poor the main focus is on education and the neighborhood which is the ability to help one another (Andrews and withey, 1976).

The question of the process of accumulating satisfaction in the various items and fields of life to develop an overall indicator of life satisfaction is a crucial one (Alesina et al 2004). The early versions of Cummins index try to find the perceived significant of each domain with a satisfaction score to develop a multiplicative complex. The main critics of this method are that the weights derived from such an exercise performed either no better than a similar exercise with no improvement.

Theory indicates measures of mental ill-being which import to be based on objective clinical criteria, and also be associated with clear thresholds seem to present clear measures of negative functioning. In this category, depression and suicide emerged the most obvious measures incorporated into certain surveys are the most common known to be the main cause of lack of happiness though has many causes. This is a clear indication that unhappiness is as a result of acute negative shocks such as unemployment.

Research questions

Collecting this data would license testing of a number of possibly interesting research hypotheses regarding the relationship between various psychological and personal aspects of wellbeing, and the relationship between these objective circumstances especially those relating to poverty (Allik and Realo, 2004). The research is required to better understand the extent to which the outside factors influence individual’s wellbeing against the levels at which the internal conditions such as optimism and extroversion. Researchers have found that autonomy and environmental mastery increase with age, while the purpose in life and personal growth which is the most eudemonic aspect of wellbeing decline with age thus calling for the support to the elderly persons for continuous growth. It also reports that psychological wellbeing increases with education especially with the personal growth (Alesina et al 2004).

Psychological welfare, happiness, meaning and life satisfaction appear to be distinct concepts but highly associated. The correlation between happiness and self-satisfaction are average but span a wide range. The other common arising question is the question of causation. There is a clear indication that the social and autonomy variables predict positive effect very well. The jointly indicators requires more research to determine the cause and the effect if they are jointly determined (Andrews and Withey, 1976).

Conclusion

This proposal paper has proposed collecting data to develop seven indicators of psychological wellbeing, life satisfaction and happiness. This paper has also argued that exploring relationship between these indicators and in hand with the objective criteria commonly available in national surveys and their evaluation over time could easily complement the process of antipoverty policy making (Allik and Realo, 2004). This paper does not propose these indicators because policy should be designed around them. However, we feel strongly that these indicators capture something important about why people perceive their wellbeing positively and how such welfare changes between countries over time and how this leads to understanding of capability poverty (Andrews and Withey, 1976).

References

Alesina, A. Di Tella, R. & MacCulloch, R. (2004) Inequality and happiness: Are Europeans and Americans different? Journal of public Economics, 88, pp. 2009-2042.

Allik, J. & Realo, A. (2004) Individualism-Collectivism and social capital, Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 35, pp. 29-49.

Andrews, F. & Withey, S. (1976) Social indicators of well-being: Americas perception of life quality, (New York: Plenum Press).

Biswas-D, (2006) The subjective wellbeing of the homeless, and lessons for happiness, social indicators research, 76, pp. 185-205.