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Culture as a Moderator of Overall Life Satisfaction—Life Facet Satisfaction Relationships

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Connecting the Quality of Life Theory to Health, Well-being and Education

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to (a) provide additional competitive tests between three models of relationships between overall and life facet satisfaction [Bottom-Up (BU), Top-Down (TD), and Bidirectional (BD) models], and (b) explore whether culture moderates these relationships. Models were tested using data collected as part of Michalos’ (1991) global study of student well-being from samples of college students in 32 different countries. The BD model received strongest support in 29 of the 32 samples (countries); the TD model was most strongly supported in the remaining 3 samples. Cluster analyses of samples in which the BD model was supported indicated a 7-cluster solution of reasonably homogeneous sets of OLS-LFS relationships. However, clusters were not easily interpretable in terms of evident cultural commonalities. We conclude that (a) a BD model describes OLS-LFS relationships globally, (b) and although culture appears to moderate OLS-LFS relationships, (c) additional research is needed to explain why.

Mallard, A.C.G., Lance, C.E., & Michalos, A.C.: 1997. Culture as a moderator of overall life satisfaction—life facet satisfaction relationships. Social Indicators Research, 40, pp. 259–284. © 1997 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Data were collected before the Bosnian war. The country known as Yugoslavia before 1994 is referred to as Yugoslavia in this study.

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Acknowledgements

This article is based on a doctoral dissertation completed by the first author under the direction of the second author. We thank Bob Gatewood, Karl Kuhnert, Garnett Stokes, and Kecia Thomas for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602-3013, USA

    Alison G. C. Mallard & Charles E. Lance

  2. University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC, Canada

    Alex C. Michalos

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  1. Alison G. C. Mallard
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  2. Charles E. Lance
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  3. Alex C. Michalos
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Correspondence to Charles E. Lance .

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Mallard, A.G.C., Lance, C.E., Michalos, A.C. (2017). Culture as a Moderator of Overall Life Satisfaction—Life Facet Satisfaction Relationships. In: Connecting the Quality of Life Theory to Health, Well-being and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51161-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51161-0_3

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