Belief in Values and their Perceived Realization as Determinants of Quality of Life

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that ”belief in personal values” — kibbutz unique social and collectivistic values — and the “perceived level of realization of these values in one’s community (kibbutz),” strongly determine the level of subjective quality of life among kibbutz members. Their effect is over and above what is determined by members’ satisfaction with their major domains of life (“fulfiilments of aspirations and fiit with abilities”, “feeling of belonging”, “work,” “material standard of living”, and “social relations”). The subjective Qol indicators are four: “satisfaction with life in general”, “satisfaction with one’s kibbutz life”, “psychological commitment to one’s kibbutz life”, and a “global” indicator composed of all three. The analyses were multiple regressions which demonstrated that the “values” variables contributed about a third of the mean explained variance across the four indicators (ranging from 5 % to 31 % of the variance), while the “domains satisfaction” contributed about two thirds (with a range of 18 % to 46 %). Demographic variables (gender, age, education, and social position) played an insignificant role in explaining variance in the indicators of subjective quality of life. However, age and gender showed a conditioning position affecting the relative importance of “values” for different subgroups: “Values” were more important for males, and for some age groups, in particular the 71–80 and 51–60 age groups. “Satisfaction with one’s kibbutz life” and “psychological commitment to one’s kibbutz life” were also shown to serve as intervening variables between the independent variables of “values” and “domains satisfaction” and the outcome of ‘satisfaction with life in general”. Further analyses reported in the “summary” section show that the same conclusions hold for individuals who are low in their belief in values and therefore it is suggested that the findings should be generalized into other populations.