J.A.M. Heesink

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS): appraisal with 1700 healthy young adults in The Netherlands

Abstract The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) was developed in the U.S.A. to represent a multi-item scale for the overall assessment of life satisfaction as a cognitive-judgemental process, rather than for the measurement of specific satisfaction domains (e.g. health, material wealth). The present study was a further attempt to extend the applicability of the SWLS in a different cultural context (The Netherlands) using a large sample of healthy young adults. In line with previous American and Dutch findings, figures on the internal structure of the SWLS were quite favourable. SWLS scores were also shown to be predictably associated with marital status, indices of general health, self-esteem, euphoria, dysphoria (−) and neuroticism (−). A high number of visits to the GP correlated significantly negatively with SWLS in males only. As anticipated, associations of the SWLS with biological sex, impulsivity, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility were negligibly low. The frequently reported substantial positive correlation with sociability was not confirmed. Instead, significant but small correlations were observed, the yield of which was discussed in the context of findings showing that there are other aspects of extraversion that are more strongly related to satisfaction with life than sociability. These other aspects include assertiveness in males and positive emotion in females.

The Evaluation of Unemployment and Job-Searching Behavior: A Longitudinal Study

Behavior of unemployed persons was studied in the framework of the general value-expectancy model (Feather, 1982), which states that finding a job is affected by job-searching behavior, which is, in turn, influenced by the intention to look for a job. This intention is then affected by satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the current state of unemployment. The satisfaction or dissatisfaction with being unemployed is hypothesized to be affected by the subjective gains of employment, as well as by the presence of particular features of the specific situation, such as variation and the amount of money one can spend. The model was tested and cross-validated by LISREL and logit analysis with a longitudinal sample of 232 young, Dutch, unemployed persons. The results largely confirm the hypotheses concerning the determinants of motivation for looking for a job and job-seeking behavior. However, there was no link between the variables in the model and actually finding a job.