CUP Undergraduate Research
Date of Award
Spring 4-1-2018
Document Type
Thesis
College
College of Arts & Sciences
Department
Psychology
Degree Name
Psychology, BA
First Advisor
Erin Mueller, Ph.D.
Abstract
I explored the relationship between how one perceives the circumstances of their life and how satisfied one is with the life they are living. Researchers have suggested that there is a strong desire for people to be happy (Broyles & King, 1997; Deiner, Shao, Smith, & Suh, 1995; King & Napa, 1998), and that being happy can positively influence various areas of one’s life (Deiner, King, & Lyubomirsky, 2005; Watkins, 2016). Furthermore, circumstances such as gender (Deiner & Pavot, 2013), age (Watkins, 2016), income (Deiner & Biswas-Deiner, 2002), intelligence (Choi & Veenhoven, 2012), and geography (Schkade & Kahneman, 1998) have little to do with one’s level of subjective well-being. I correlated results from the Satisfaction with Life survey (SLWS; Deiner, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), and a life rating measure (Cummins & Nistico, 2002) to illustrate how perception of circumstances relate to how satisfied one is with their life. The results indicate that there was a significant positive correlation (r=0.75, p<.01) between the Life Rating (M=75.90 SD=14.90) and the SWLS (M=23.93 SD=4.82). I found that most of the people that participated in the life rating measure desired similar things for themselves, and were in similar places relative to achieving their own desired goals.