4,926 research outputs found
Photograph - Headey, Dr Bruce, Political Science.
No full textThis record was harvested from a previous catalogue system and will be withdrawn in 2025. Information in this record may be superseded or incomplete. Visit this record in UMA's new catalogue at: https://archives.library.unimelb.edu.au/nodes/view/283686Headey, Dr Bruce, Political Science. 2 Apr 1984286556
Item: [2003.0003.00664] "Photograph - Headey, Dr Bruce, Political Science.
Choices Which Change Life Satisfaction: Similar Results for Australia, Britain and Germany
No full textUsing data from national socio-economic panel surveys in Australia, Britain and Germany, this paper analyzes the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that, in all three countries, preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner's personality, hours of work, social participation and healthy lifestyle have substantial and similar effects on life satisfaction. The results have negative implications for a widely accepted theory of SWB, set-point theory. This theory holds that adult SWB is stable in the medium and long term, although temporary fluctuations occur due to life events. Set-point theory has come under increasing criticism in recent years, primarily due to unmistakable evidence in the German Socio-Economic Panel that, during the last 25 years, over a third of the population has recorded substantial and apparently permanent changes in life satisfaction (Fujita and Diener, 2005; Headey, 2008a; Headey, Muffels and Wagner, 2010). It is becoming clear that the main challenge now for SWB researchers is to develop new explanations which can account for medium and long term change, and not merely stability in SWB. Set-point theory is limited precisely because it is purely a theory of stability. The paper is based on specially constructed panel survey files in which data are divided into multi-year periods in order to facilitate analysis of medium and long term change.set-point theory, life goals/values, individual choice, panel regression analysis, BHPS, HILDA, SOEP
L-R: Katie Lee; Leo Walters; Bruce Berger sitting on a boat on the Colorado River.
No full textPhoto of Photo of Arizona folk singer and author Katie Lee (far left), Leo Walters (center), and writer Bruce Berger (far right), sitting on a raft on the Colorado River, Glen Canyon, Uta
Increasing Childlessness in Germany
No full textSchmitt C. Increasing Childlessness in Germany. In: Headey B, Holst E, eds. A Quarter Century of Social and Economic Change: Results from the German Panel Survey (SOEP). Berlin: DIW; 2008: 23-28
ANZAC Day with Bruce Scates
No full textThis ANZAC Day will be unlike any other in living memory. But wherever we are, we can still come together and reflect. Come together this ANZAC Day for a special online event with Professor Bruce Scates, ANU historian, author and producer of the series ‘Australian Journey’. In this interactive broadcast, Bruce will present a vivid look at how our nation remembers war, and tell the stories of men and women touched by it
The Set-Point Theory of Well-Being Needs Replacing: On the Brink of a Scientific Revolution?
No full textSet-point theory has dominated the field of subjective well-being (SWB). It has served as a classic Kuhn research paradigm, being extended and refined for thirty years totake in new results. The central plank of the theory is that adult set-points do not change, except just temporarily in the face of major life events. There was always some "discordant data", including evidence that some events are so tragic (e.g. the death of one's child) that people never recover back to their set-point. It was possible to dismiss these events as "exceptions" and maintain the theory. However, several new findings are now emerging, which it is increasingly difficult to dismiss as "exceptions" and which appear to require substantial revisions or replacement of set-point theory. Many of these findings are based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP, 1984 - ) which provides clear evidence of large, long term changes in the set-points of substantial minorities of the population. This paper reviews recent findings and highlights lines of theory development which, at minimum, represent substantial revisions to set-point theory and which may perhaps lead to replacement of the paradigm. There is evidence to suggest that individuals with certain personality traits are more likely to record long term change in SWB than others. Also, SWB appears to depend partly on choice/prioritisation of some life goals rather than others. Pursuit of non-zero sum goals (family and altruistic goals) leads to higher SWB than pursuit of zero sum goals (career advancement and material gains). Both these new lines of theory appear promising and the second, in particular, cannot sensibly be reconciled with set-point theory.
German Reunification: Welfare Gains and Losses East and West
No full textA framework of welfare accounts (Juster and Stafford, 1985; Headey, 1993; see also Goodin et al., 1999) is used to assess gains and losses to East and West Germans in the post-reunification period, 1990-97. The welfare accounts have three segments: a capital/stocks account, an income/flows account and a subjective welfare/psychic income account. This framework differs from conventional welfare economic accounts in explicitly defining and measuring welfare in psychological terms ... as perceived utility/satisfaction. It has recently been argued that this approach is required, if one accepts that individual utilities are not exogenous but are affected by changing comparisons with others (Duesenberry, 1949; Easterlin, 1974, 1995; Hollaender, 2001). Our hypotheses are that in the post-reunification period West German welfare was sacrificed - in all three segments of the accounts - in order to permit resources to flow to East Germans and to boost their stocks, flows and utilities. The hypotheses are supported in the case of West Germans, but results are mixed for East Germans. Our data source is the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) which began in 1984 in West Germany and has involved reinterviewing a very large representative national sample every year since. The panel was extended to East Germany in June 1990, before formal reunification occurred, and so provides a picture of stocks, flows and utilities before the effects of integration into the Federal Republic were felt
The Lewis & Clark sketchbook: based on 1804-1806 journey of Lewis & Clark
No full textThis sketchbook follows the footsteps of two American explorers, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, as they explored and mapped the Missouri and Columbia Rivers from 1804-1806, and made contact with the Indigenous peoples along the way. The author has also included travel suggestions and a travel itinerary for those interested in following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. The last part of the sketchbook contains the sketches of schoolchildren as they sketched their interpretations of selected diary entries of the Lewis and Clark 1804-1806 journey of exploration.monograp
Victorian Quality of Life Panel Study, 1987
No full textThis is the fourth wave of a study designed to monitor and explain change in people's levels of subjective well-being and ill-being. The measures of well-being used relate to life satisfaction, happiness, self-fulfillment and positive affect. The measures of ill-being used relate to negative affect, somatic complaints and anxiety. Correlates of well-being and ill-being in the survey include the personality traits of extroversion, neuroticism, personal competence and optimism. Also included are social network measures (Henderson et al. 1981), social background measures, and measures of satisfaction with particular aspects of life. Time budget data was also collected. This wave of the panel study includes a life events inventory and measures of coping strategies. Background variables include age, country of birth, marital status, income, education, occupation, number of people 18 years and over living in household, sex, breadwinner's usual occupation, religion and regularity of attendance, and eligibility to vote at federal elections
Victorian Quality of Life Panel Study, 1983
No full textThis is the second wave of a study designed to monitor and explain change in people's levels of subjective well-being and ill-being. The measures of well-being used relate to life satisfaction, happiness, self-fulfillment and positive affect. The measures of ill-being used relate to negative affect, somatic complaints and anxiety. Correlates of well-being and ill-being in the survey include the personality traits of extroversion, neuroticism, personal competence and optimism. Also included are social network measures (Henderson et al. 1981); social background measures, and measures of satisfaction with particular aspects of life. Time budget data was also collected. This wave of the panel study includes a life events inventory and measures of coping strategies. Background variables include age, country of birth, marital status, income, education, occupation, number of people 18 years and over living in household, sex, breadwinner's usual occupation, religion and regularity of attendance, and eligibility to vote at federal elections
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