Way of Measuring Psychological Well-being

Such a concept as psychological well-being includes a great number of elements, it is vital to select those measurement tools which can capture each of these elements. Among the most widespread techniques, we can single out Psychological Well-being Scale proposed by Carol Ryff and Corey Keyes (Ryff & Keyes, 1995). The psychological well-being scale consists of 6 dimensions which include autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life, and self-acceptance (Ryff & Keyes, 1995, p 719). Each of the respondents will be asked to answer 54 questions because the shortened form can diminish the internal consistency of the test and subsequently invalidate the results.

The second tool which is often used to assess psychological well-being is the quality of life inventory, developed by Michael Frisch. It assesses an individual’s quality of life through self-report based on the importance they place on each of 16 life domains along with their current satisfaction with each domain. This scale focuses on aspects of life such as the ability to attain one’s goals, self-esteem, helping other people, relations with friends, relatives and co-workers, etc (Frisch, 2006, p 59). The key advantage of this tool is that it has a very high internal consistency rate, ranging from 79 to 89. The main rationale for the use of this scale is that it may explain how generosity impacts a person’s relations with other people, both at home and at work.

While measuring a person’s overall satisfaction with the quality of his/her life we will rely on the so-called Satisfaction with Life Scale, designed by Ed Diener et al (1985). The measurement tool is based on the premise that while evaluating happiness or satisfaction with life, scholars need to take the so-called holistic approach instead of focusing on some separate aspects like self-esteem or autonomy (Diener et al, 1985, p 71). The thing is that health, creativity, or relationship with others are important for every person, but people can place different values on each of these aspects (Diener et al, 1985, p 71). It should be noted that the average internal consistency of this scale is 72, and this degree of reliability is quite suitable for this research.

When speaking about holistic approaches to measuring well-being, we should also mention the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) developed by Sonja Lyubomirsky. It consists of 4 items arranged in a 7-point format (Lyubomirsky, as cited in Lehman & Simmons, 2008, p 256). This scale also has a high consistency rate and helps to assess a person’s perception of his/her happiness.

Furthermore, it is necessary to apply The State-Trait-Cheerfulness-Inventory which is aimed at measuring such concepts as seriousness, cheerfulness, or some traits of the character. This tool consists of 30 items that prompt the respondent to answer 4-point Likert scale questions (Ruch, Kohler, & Thriel, 1998). On the whole, this tool focused on a person’s ability to retain a sense of humor and cheerfulness.