Literature Review

Abstract

In this chapter I review some of the past twenty years of research related to social indicators and the measurement of aspects of the quality of life. As indicated below, there have been several good reviews, including some of my own. So, here I am mainly interested in providing a current analysis that has special reference to my own theory and the global survey that was undertaken in order to explore this theory’s strengths and weaknesses. I begin with a general account of the significance of this sort of study and a formulation of the basic question (Section 1.2). This is followed by a general review of problems related to broad based survey research and other research that involves interviewing people (1.3). It seemed to be a good idea to include such an overview in order to alert nonspecialists to some of the issues that are familiar to most specialists, and to assure all readers that I am aware of the limitations of the methods employed here. The following two sections increasingly narrow the focus of Section 1.3. In Section 1.4, I review research on relatively transient moods and mood changes, and relatively stable features of well-being. This leads naturally to a closer examination of a variety of measuring instruments or scales used to get the interesting results described here (1.5). Then I review some explanatory theories, mainly of two broad types.