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Affect Specificity as Indicators of National Well-Being: Representative Sample of Croatia

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The Human Pursuit of Well-Being

Abstract

In our survey-based study, we gathered evaluative and experiential measures of well-being and examined their correlates with different life domains variables used as predictors for each well-being measure. Subjects were a representative sample of Croatian citizens (N  =  1,129). Subjects reported life satisfaction and rated how often they felt happy, satisfied, sad, angry, depressive, and stressed over the past month. Predictors variables included measures representing various domains such as physical (health), social (seeing friends, family support, receiving help, trust, fairness), psychological (learning, respect, recognition, spirituality), and job-related variables (job satisfaction, commuting). Hierarchical regression analyses were used with age, gender, and income as covariates. Distinctive predictors of positive emotions were learning and seeing friends, while predictors of negative emotions were trust, fairness, and recognition.

This research was conducted as a part of a project “Development of National Indicators of Quality of Life” funded by the grant from the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport of the Republic of Croatia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

     The income was calculated in Euro based on currency rate of November 2007 (1 Euro  =  7.32 Croatian Kuna).

  2. 2.

     In the experience sampling studies, it was shown that positive emotions are highly intercorrelated, while the correlations among the negative emotions, still positive, are lower; thus we used more negative than positive emotions (Kahneman & Krueger, 2006).

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Correspondence to Zvjezdana Prizmić-Larsen .

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Appendix: Zero-Order Correlations Between Predictors’ Variables

Appendix: Zero-Order Correlations Between Predictors’ Variables

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

1.Age

           

2.Gender

−.03

          

3.Income

−.22**

−.07*

         

4.Health

−.52**

.02

.27**

        

5.Seeing friends

−.26**

−.02

.09**

.25**

       

6.Receiving help

−.01

−.04

−.05

.07*

.13**

      

7.Family support

−.17**

.05

.10**

.15**

.25**

.14**

     

8.Trust

−.08*

−.03

.14**

.14**

.17**

.24**

.17**

    

9.Fairness

−.05

.01

.12**

.15**

.07*

.20**

.09**

.57**

   

10.Learning

−.31**

−.02

.28**

.32**

.22**

.23**

.25**

.13**

.12**

  

11.Respect

.23**

.07

.07

.11**

.09**

.33**

.20**

.15**

.15**

.20**

 

12.Recognition

.04

−.05

.10**

.09**

.11**

.36**

.15**

.21**

.19**

.23**

.51**

13.Spirituality

.06*

.13**

−.16**

.01

.02

.03

.05

.04

.04

−.05

.05

.05

*p  <  .05; **p  <  .01

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Prizmić-Larsen, Z., Lipovčan, L.K., Brkljačić, T. (2011). Affect Specificity as Indicators of National Well-Being: Representative Sample of Croatia. In: Brdar, I. (eds) The Human Pursuit of Well-Being. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1375-8_3

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