The structure of psychological well-being: A sociohistorical analysis.

Abstract

This study used confirmatory factor analysis to explore dimensions of self-evaluations with data collected from two nationwide representative-sample, crosssectional surveys of U.S. adults—one conducted in 1957, the other in 1976. Eighteen indexes of well-being were constructed from items common to both surveys, which assessed feelings of well-being, self-perceptions, symptoms of distress, and various aspects of adjustment in marriage, parenthood, and work. Confirming an expected tripartite model, the same three dominant factors, involving unhappiness, strain, and personal inadequacy, emerged for both men and women in both 1957 and 1976. The emergence of this structure supports two prevailing notions about self-evaluations. First, positive evaluation (i.e., the positively anchored Unhappiness items) and negative evaluation (i.e., the negatively anchored Strain items) are related, but clearly separate, dimensions; and second, perceived competence in handling one's life is a dimension related to, but distinctly separate from, positive and negative evaluations. Comparative analyses revealed that (a) year differences are stronger than sex differences in the structuring of psychological well-being; (b) historical change in the structure of well-being has been greater for men than for'women; and (c) structural sex differences have diminished in 1976 relative to 1957. Evidently, men and women are becoming more similar in the ways they define well-being, with this historical convergence due mostly to shifts for men. These results are discussed in terms of historical changes in sex roles, through which men have begun to base their self-evaluations less on work-related issues and more on family life, whereas women have shown a lesser opposite trend. The present data thus suggest that historically bounded role expectations shape the evaluative schemata people use to judge their own well-being.

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