Statistical analysis of the effect of socio-political factors on individual life satisfaction
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SUBMITTER: Itani A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC11344825 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Abstract This article addresses hitherto overlooked factors that might contribute to lower political knowledge among citizens with socio-economic problems. Based on findings in psychology and behavioral economics, we argue that economic worries undermine the motivation and cognitive resources to acquire knowledge. The argument is tested in a representative online survey and an experiment during the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak in Germany. The results of the survey are in line with the theoretical expectations. Subjective crisis exposure, particularly when it comes with anxiety and ruminating thoughts, is associated with lower “surveillance” knowledge about politics. A follow-up experiment designed to randomly activate worries about the economic consequences of the COVID-19 crisis could not establish a causal relationship.
| S-EPMC8500127 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Background: A high level of well-being is associated with personal, community and national income, as well as personal, social and political trust. How these measures relate to each other within and between countries and within and across structural levels of society is largely unknown. To study this, we propose a three-layer nested socio-structural model. Each layer (individual, community, country) contains a measure of income, trust and satisfaction. Method: With this model, we analyzed data from two waves of the European Social Survey (ESS, 2006, 2012) in 19 countries (N = 72,461; weighted N = 73,307) with multilevel techniques. Indicators were personal, community, and national income; personal, social and political trust; and personal life satisfaction, social and political satisfaction. Results: Personal life satisfaction was associated with all income and trust variables. Greatest effect on personal life satisfaction, came from the national level, including political trust and income. However, 2/3 of the variance in personal life satisfaction came from income, that is personal, community and national. Within each socio-structural level, satisfaction was associated with income, but significantly modified by trust. When income and trust at all three levels were included, there was a significant association of the national layer on the social layer, and of the social layer on the individual layer as to the income-personal life satisfaction relationship. Consistent with the "the buffer hypothesis," all three forms of trust acted as a buffer against the effect of personal income on life satisfaction. Low-trust countries had strong income-personal life satisfaction associations and the moderating role of trust was also stronger. High- and medium-trust countries had no such associations. Likewise, direct associations between political and personal trust were much stronger in the low-trust countries. Conclusion: The model presented in this study provides authorities with a framework for policies that will improve the general well-being of their population. Trust and income strongly influence personal life satisfaction. Money is the most important. However, trust forcefully dampens the effect of income. Politicians who want to enhance their population's personal life satisfaction, should raise the levels of trust in their electorate.
| S-EPMC8005631 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Previous research finds that Republicans report being happier or more satisfied with their lives than Democrats. Using representative American samples from 2002, 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2010, we tested a Person × Situation interactionist account in which political affiliation (Democrat, Republican) and political climate (favorable when the president in office is of the same party) are proposed to affect past, present, and anticipated future life satisfaction. Meta-analyses of related tests of key hypotheses confirmed that (a) life satisfaction was greater when the political climate was favorable rather than unfavorable and (b) Republicans were more sensitive to political climate than Democrats. As predicted, Republicans also were more politically polarized than Democrats. Taken together, the findings indicate that, compared to Democrats, Republicans are more apt to self-identify in political terms, and core aspects of their subjective well-being are more easily affected by the outcome of political events.
| S-EPMC4047066 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionWell-being of young adults is known to be compromised in times of significant changes, such as economic and political turmoil. This study focuses on university students in Lebanon during one of the most prominent social unrests of its modern history to determine potential understudied protective factors that would predict the youth capacity to strive.MethodsA sample of 489 university students were asked to fill an online survey including standardized questionnaires of wellbeing (WEMWBS), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (HAM-A), intolerance of uncertainty (IUS-12), coping (Brief COPE) in addition to demographics and questions about their attitudes and future perspectives.ResultsWe found increased rates of mental distress, predominantly in women, with around 80% of the sample being highly intolerant to the uncertainty climate. Results unsurprisingly show that well-being negatively correlated with anxiety, depression and intolerance of uncertainty. Overall, mental distress was found to mediate the relation between uncertainty and wellbeing, and the relation between maladaptive coping and wellbeing. Students who were intolerant of uncertainty and who used maladaptive coping strategies were more likely develop anxiety and depression and subsequently report poorer wellbeing. Conversely, having adaptive strategies was directly linked to higher well-being.DiscussionIn spite of increased distress, some university students managed to preserve their well-being within a climate of severe socio-political uprise. These findings suggest that modifying subjective experience of events and using soft skillset could alleviate young adults' emotional distress in unstable societies.
| S-EPMC10839968 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundPolitical participation is an important component of civil rights. Several studies have shown that citizens' political participation not only influences the allocation of public resources, but also has a positive correlation with participants' life satisfaction. Recently, political participation has become increasingly frequent in China; however, the research on Chinese citizens' political participation and life satisfaction is insufficient. Therefore, this study examined the relationship between political participation and life satisfaction in the Chinese cultural context, and how this relationship varied under different conditions.MethodsBased on 8,475 respondents from the 2015 Chinese Social Survey, ordinary least squares modeling was used to investigate the relationship of Chinese citizens' political participation and their life satisfaction, and the differences that might exist in this relationship.ResultsPolitical participation was closely related to life satisfaction. Compared with non-political participants, the life satisfaction of political participants was 0.133 units higher, which was significant at the 1% level. Regarding the types of political participation, citizens engaged in institutionalized political participation had higher life satisfaction, whereas citizens engaged in non-institutionalized political participation had lower life satisfaction. Furthermore, two social capitals, namely social tolerance and social trust, were the mediating variables linking political participation to citizens' life satisfaction.ConclusionsIn China, citizens engaged in political participation had higher life satisfaction, in contrast, citizens engaged in non-institutionalized political participation had lower life satisfaction.
| S-EPMC9803185 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND:Medical education is widely known to be a demanding process that may cause various mental health problems, such as burnout, which can lead to lowered levels of life satisfaction among medical students. Research shows that empathy is negatively correlated with burnout, but there are few studies on the relationship among empathy, burnout and life satisfaction in medical students. The objective of the present study is to explore the correlations of empathy and burnout with life satisfaction and the associated socio-demographic factors among Chinese undergraduate medical students. METHODS:In this cross-sectional study, 1271 undergraduate medical students (age 19.42 ± 1.34 years, 36% male) from 1st to 4th grades completed questionnaires including the Interpersonal Reactivity Index Chinese version (IRI-C), the Maslach Burnout Inventory Modified Chinese version (MBI-MC), the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) and socio-demographic characteristics. Statistical analyses included Student's t-test, one-way ANOVA, post hoc Bonferroni tests, hierarchical linear regression analysis and general linear model-univariate full factorial model. RESULTS:Over four academic years, medical students' empathy levels declined, but their burnout levels almost plateaued and their life satisfaction levels witnessed an initial fall before a rebound. Empathy was correlated with students' age and grade, and burnout was associated with students' maternal education. Significant differences in life satisfaction were detected with regard to medical students' age, academic year, the number of children in the family, place of residence and parents' educational levels. CONCLUSIONS:Empathy explained 0.6% of the variance in life satisfaction in contrast to 13.7% of the variance explained by burnout in life satisfaction. Although empathy did not have a main effect on life satisfaction, there was an interaction effect of empathy and burnout on life satisfaction among students of high and low empathy and burnout levels. Students with high levels of empathy and low levels of burnout were most satisfied with life. Medical institutions and related authorities need to find effective measures to enhance students' empathy levels and reduce burnout to improve their life satisfaction.
| S-EPMC6729024 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Within committed relationships, a wide range of factors may challenge or facilitate sexual satisfaction. The aim of this study was to clarify which individual, partner-, and partnership-related aspects of a sexual relationship are crucial for the prediction of sexual satisfaction. The study included data of a representative sample of 964 couples from the general population. The actor-partner interdependence model was used to estimate actor and partner effects. Overall, predictors explained 57% of outcome variance. Actor effects were found for sexual function, sexual distress, frequency of sexual activity, desire discrepancy, sexual initiative, sexual communication, sociosexual orientation, masturbation, and life satisfaction. Gender-specific partner effects were found for sexual function and sexual distress. Neither age, nor relationship duration were significant predictors. To deepen our understanding of sexual satisfaction, it is necessary to take quantitative and qualitative aspects of sexual relationships into account and to consider actor-, partner-, and relationship-related predictors.
| S-EPMC5322929 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Quantification of historical sociological processes have recently gained attention among theoreticians in the effort of providing a solid theoretical understanding of the behaviors and regularities present in socio-political dynamics. Here we present a reliability theory of polity processes with emphases on individual political dynamics of African countries. We found that the structural properties of polity failure rates successfully capture the risk of political vulnerability and instabilities in which , , , and of the countries with monotonically increasing, unimodal, U-shaped and monotonically decreasing polity failure rates, respectively, have high level of state fragility indices. The quasi-U-shape relationship between average polity duration and regime types corroborates historical precedents and explains the stability of the autocracies and democracies.
| S-EPMC3012063 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundPredicted shortages in the supply of neurologists may limit patients' access to and quality of care for neurological disorders. Retaining neurologists already in practice provides one opportunity to support the overall supply of practicing neurologists. Understanding factors associated with professional life satisfaction (and dissatisfaction) and implementing policies to enhance satisfaction may encourage neurologists to remain in clinical practice. In this paper, we present results from the first study examining factors associated with professional life satisfaction among a large sample of U.S, neurologists.MethodsWe collaborated with the AAN to survey a sample of U.S. neurologists about their professional life satisfaction. Analyses examined the association of physician and practice characteristics with aspects of professional life satisfaction, including satisfaction with their career in medicine, medical specialty, current position, relationship with colleagues, relationship with patients, work/life balance, and pay.ResultsThe study population consisted of 625 neurologists. In multivariate regression analyses, no single group or population stratum indicated high (or low) responses to all aspects of satisfaction. Older neurologists reported higher satisfaction with career, specialty, and relationship with patients than younger neurologists. Female neurologists had significantly lower satisfaction with pay than male neurologists. Neurologists who spent more time in research and teaching had greater satisfaction with specialty, relationship with colleagues, and relationship with patients than those spending no time in research. Neurologists who practiced in small cities/rural areas reported lower satisfaction across multiple dimensions than those practicing in large urban areas. Neurologists in solo practice had greater satisfaction with the relationship with their patients, but lower satisfaction with pay.ConclusionsSatisfaction is a multidimensional construct that is associated with physician and practice characteristics. Enhancing professional life satisfaction among neurologists requires multiple strategies, such as promoting comparable wages for men and women, providing collaboration and research opportunities, and providing resources for small and rural practices.
| S-EPMC5477134 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Studies have shown that political participation does not only affect the flow of public resources but also creates positive feedback on participants’ subjective perceptions. However, research on the relationship between political participation and the life satisfaction of Chinese urban residents is relatively scarce. Thus, this study investigates whether political participation helps improve the life satisfaction of Chinese urban residents. Based on 2577 samples of the 2015 Chinese Social Survey this study used the Ordinary least squares model, instrumental variable model, and propensity score matching model to explore the relationship between political participation and the life satisfaction of Chinese urban residents. The empirical results show that political participation can significantly improve the life satisfaction of urban residents. Compared with urban residents without political participation, the life satisfaction of the political participants was 0.145 units higher at a 0.05 level of significance. In addition, this improved effect varied in degree among different groups of urban residents and was more significant for females, members of the Communist Party of China, highly educated, and employed urban residents. In China, there is a significant relationship between political participation and the life satisfaction of urban residents, with the life satisfaction of urban residents improving significantly through political participation. There are differences in the level of this improved effect among different urban residents, and it is more significant for females, highly educated, members of the Communist Party, and employed urban residents. To improve the life satisfaction of Chinese urban residents, it is necessary to further broaden their political participation channels.
| S-EPMC9536587 | biostudies-literature