the international wellbeing study, karina ring
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The International Wellbeing Study: Overview and First Findings
www.wellbeingstudy.com
Karena [email protected]
Aaron JardenPaul Jose
Todd KashdanOrmond Simpson
Kennedy McLachlanAlexander Mackenzie
July 17th -20th, 2010 - The New Zealand Psychological Society Annual Conference
Study Details Looks in depth at peoples’ wellbeing from around the world, particularly
psychological aspects that contribute to wellbeing, and how wellbeing changes over time. 208 questions (18 main scales); average 29 min’s
Five consecutive online assessments; every third month
16 languages (English, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Persian, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Portuguese, German, Hungarian, Slovakian, Czech & Dutch); more coming…
Participants (16+years)
Three participant benefits
- Personalised reports
- Amazon.com vouchers
- Opt-in to interventions
Study Details Three interconnected projects:
1) Assessment study (The International Wellbeing Study)
2) Wellbeing intervention study (savouring, curiosity, general PP interventions)
3) Further assessment study (values, time perspective, personality, stress, anxiety, flourishing, physical health, further demographics, etc)
Study Details
Study Details
Study Details Measures: n =Scales of Psychological Wellbeing 18Temporal Satisfaction with Life Scale 15Strengths Use and Current Knowledge Scale 10Subjective Happiness Scale 4Orientations to Happiness 18Adult Hope Scale 12Happiness Measures 4Gratitude Survey 6Curiosity and Exploration Inventory – II 10Grit scale 17Meaning in Life Questionnaire 10Positive Life Events 5Ways of Savouring Scale 20Savouring Beliefs Scale 5Control Beliefs Scale 4Negative Life Events 5Rumination 6CESD - Depression Scale 20Other Questions 12Demographic Questions 7
Study Details Some unique aspects:
Collaborative nature
Low cost
Use of technology - scalability
Longitudinal design
Controls for +ve & -ve events
Open source data
Evolving/expanding research
Norm new scales
Test new interventions
Development Core researchers (6) who play to their differing strengths:
Positive psychology wiz (Todd Kashdan), longitudinal analysis guru (Paul Jose), funding genius (Kennedy McLachlan), experienced old research head (Ormond Simpson), and a comedian and sceptic (Alex Mackenzie).
Originator of the study (Aaron Jarden).
A little help from their friends…
Dianne Vella-Brodrick (Monash University in Melbourne)
Denise Quinlan (Queenstown)
Many others…
Challenges Languages
Developing a good method via trail and error
Collaborating
Win-win’s via democratic decisions, compromise, & frequent communication
Be clear on ownership of intellectual property, data access, sharing, and authorship.
Challenges Design
Participant engagement (long questionnaire), and reducing drop out
To control for major confounders or modifiers of psychological wellbeing – such as physical health
Moving forward
Gain representative samples (i.e., non self-selecting)
More males
More of various country samples
Feedback Negative Feedback
“I just now started the questionnaire but have given up deciding there are too many better things to do in life, like filling in my tax return, than completing this marathon task”
“Never in the history of social science have so may questions been asked in such a long and such a boring questionnaire; and then to have to it again! “ (- psychology professor)
“The sample of people who complete this questionnaire twice must surely be drawn from a population of people whose mental lives are so impoverished they can find no more stimulating way of occupying their time”
Feedback Positive Feedback
“This is an impressive study: it is a) international, b) longitudinal, c) uses 20 scales of known reliability & validity, and d) invites interesting sub-samples. Giving those who recruit sub-samples the opportunity to analyze their data opens up avenues of discovery no single team of researchers could anticipate. Anyone who would criticize this study simply because it relies a lot on self-report does not appreciate the sophistication of what you are undertaking”
“One of the most ambitious endeavours to understand the trajectories of wellbeing in meaningful contexts around the globe”
Initial findings Mountainous data-set
Intake One (March 2009) had 980 English participants, * 208 questions = 203,840 data points.
65 intake cohorts, * 203,840 = 13,249,600 for the English language data points.
13,249,600 * 12 Languages = 1,589,952,000 (that’s a lot of data)
Getting better at promotion…
The questions themselves may be an intervention?
Initial findings Example findings:
What is the best predictor of wellbeing? (Strengths, meaning in life, hope, gratitude, grit, values, time use, savouring, positive events, purpose, etc…)
Strengths Use, not Strengths Knowledge, correlates positively with wellbeing, and negatively with depressed mood
Dividing the 980 participants into those high in Using Strengths and those low in using strengths, the ‘high users’ show a strong significant correlation with all the variables, excepting age.
Initial findings Example findings:
Of all that we measure, depressed people were mostly dissatisfied with use of time – and not living in alignment with their values – which was stronger than aspects such as how hopeful they were.
Hours of paid work are not related to wellbeing.
Living in alignment with values shows a high correlation with measures of wellbeing .
Thank You & Join Us! www.wellbeingstudy.com
Karena Ring
Aaron JardenPaul Jose
Todd KashdanOrmond Simpson
Kennedy McLachlanAlexander Mackenzie
July 17th -20th, 2010 The New Zealand Psychological Society Annual Conference