-
We analyse the Life Satisfaction trajectories of respondents in three long-running, national panel surveys: the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Australia Survey (HILDA), the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Previous research has shown that substantial minorities of respondents in all three countries recorded long term changes in LS (Fujita and ...
In:
Social Indicators Research
134 (2017), 1, 359-384
| Bruce Headey, Ruud Muffels
-
In:
Marcel Erlinghagen, Karsten Hank, Michaela Kreyenfeld ,
Innovation und Wissenstransfer in der empirischen Sozial- und Verhaltensforschung (Festschrift für Gert G. Wagner)
Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag
39-57
| Bruce Headey, Ruud Muffels
-
An adequate theory of life satisfaction (LS) needs to take account of both factors that tend to stabilise LS and those that change it. The most widely accepted theory in the recent past—set-point theory—focussed solely on stability (Brickman and Campbell, in: Appley (ed) Adaptation level theory, Academic Press, New York, pp 287–302, 1971; Lykken and Tellegen in Psychol Sci 7:186–189, 1996). That theory ...
In:
Social Indicators Research
140 (2018), 2, 837-866
| Bruce Headey, Ruud Muffels
-
In:
Schmollers Jahrbuch (Proceedings of the "5th International Conference of German Socio-Economic Panel Study Users", ed. by Holst, Elke; Hunt, Jennifer and Schupp, Jürgen)
123 (2003), 1, 27-41
| Bruce Headey, Ruud J. A. Muffels
-
In:
Social Indicators Research
86 (2007), 2, 337-354
| Bruce Headey, Ruud J. A. Muffels
-
Long term panel data enable researchers to construct Life Satisfaction (LS) trajectories for individuals over time. In this paper we analyse the trajectories of respondents in the German Socio-Economic Panel who recorded their LS for 20 consecutive years in 1991-2010. Previous research has shown that at least a quarter of these respondents recorded substantial long term changes in LS (Headey, Muffels ...
Berlin:
DIW Berlin,
2014,
(SOEPpapers 674)
| Bruce Headey, Ruud J. A. Muffels
-
Two-way causation issues are the bete noire of life satisfaction research. As acknowledged in several landmark reviews, many variables routinely reported as causes or determinants of life satisfaction could equally well be consequences, or perhaps both causes and consequences (Diener, 1984; Diener, Suh, Lucas and Smith, 1999; Argyle, 2001; Frey and Stutzer, 2002). These variables include one's ...
Bonn:
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA),
2014,
(IZA DP No. 8665)
| Bruce Headey, Ruud J. A. Muffels
-
Psychologists and economists take contradictory approaches to research on what psychologists call happiness or subjective well-being, and economists call subjective utility. A direct test of the most widely accepted psychological theory, set-point theory, shows it to be flawed. Results are then given, using the economists’ newer “choice approach”—an approach also favored by positive psychologists—which ...
In:
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)
107 (2010), 42, 17922-17926
| Bruce Headey, Ruud J. A. Muffels, Gert G. Wagner
-
Using 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 ...
In:
Social Indicators Research
112 (2013), 3, 725-748
| Bruce Headey, Ruud J. A. Muffels, Gert G. Wagner
-
There are strong two-way links between parent and child happiness (life satisfaction), even for ‘children’ who have grown up, moved to their own home and partnered themselves. German panel evidence shows that transmission of (un)happiness from parents to children is partly due to transmission of values and behaviors known to be associated with happiness (Headey, Wagner and Muffels, 2010, 2012). These ...
In:
Social Indicators Research
116 (2014), 3, 909-933
| Bruce Headey, Ruud J. A. Muffels, Gert G. Wagner