Life satisfaction is an evaluation of a person's quality of life. It is assessed in terms of mood, relationship satisfaction, achieved goals, self-concepts, and the self-perceived ability to cope with life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards life—rather than an assessment of current feelings. Life satisfaction has been measured in relation to economic standing, degree of education, experiences, residence, and other factors. Life satisfaction is a key part of subjective well-being. Many factors influence subjective well-being and life satisfaction. Socio-demographic factors include gender, age, marital status, income, and education. Psychosocial factors include health, illness, functional ability, activity level, and social relationships. People tend to gain life satisfaction as they get older.
Factors affecting life satisfaction
Personality Meta-analyses using the Five Factor Model of Personality found that, among its "Big Five" personality traits, low neuroticism was the strongest predictor of life satisfaction, followed by high extraversion and conscientiousness. Other key factors include openness to experiences and socialization. Socially engaged people tend to be more satisfied with life. Apart from the Five Factor model, a person's chronotype correlates with life satisfaction; morning-oriented people ("larks") showed higher life satisfaction than evening-oriented individuals ("owls"). An individual's genes affect their life satisfaction, so life satisfaction is partly heritable. One study found no significant differences between men and women in terms of the heritability of life satisfaction.
Self-esteem Several studies have shown that self-esteem is a strong predictor of life satisfaction. Those with high levels of self-esteem are more likely to take a positive approach to dealing with day-to-day challenges and not be overwhelmed by them. Having higher self-esteem also leads to being more open about life and its opportunities. Those with diminished self-esteem tend to be more fearful, less social and hold a generally negative outlook.
Outlook on life An individual's mood and outlook on life greatly influence their perception of their life satisfaction. Two correlating emotions that may influence how people perceive their lives are hope and optimism. Both of these emotions consist of cognitive processes that are usually oriented towards the perception and reaching of goals. Additionally, optimism is linked to higher life satisfaction, whereas pessimism is related to symptoms of depression. According to Martin Seligman, the happier people are, the less they focus on the negative aspects of their lives. Happier people also have a greater tendency to like other people, which promotes a happier environment. This correlates to a higher level of the person's satisfaction with their life, due to the notion that constructiveness with others can positively influence life satisfaction. However, others have found that life satisfaction is compatible with profoundly negative emotional states like depression. In a study carried out by Juan Pedro Serrano, José Miguel Latorre, Margaret Gatz, and Juan Montanes from the department of psychology at the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, researchers used life-review therapy with 43 older adults. The test they used was designed to measure participants' ability to recall a specific memory in response to a cue word while being timed. Thirty cue words, including five words classified as 'positive' (e.g., funny, lucky, passionate, happy, hopeful), five as 'negative' (unsuccessful, unhappy, sad, abandoned, gloomy), and five as 'neutral' (work, city, home, shoes, family), were presented orally in a fixed, alternating order to each member of a focus group. To ensure that the participants understood the instructions, examples were provided of both 'general' memories (e.g., summers in the city) and 'specific' memories (e.g., the day they got married). For each cue word, participants were asked to share a memory evoked by that word. The memory had to be of an event that should have occurred only once, at a particular time and place, and lasted no longer than a day. If the person could not recall a memory within 30 seconds, then that cue instance was not counted. Two psychologists served as raters and independently scored the responses of each participant. Each memory was tagged either as 'specific'—if the recalled event lasted no more than one day—or, otherwise, as 'general'. The raters were not informed regarding the hypotheses of the study, the experimental (control) group's membership, nor the content of the pretest or post-test. The results of this study showed that with an increased specificity of memories, individuals showed decreased depression and hopelessness, as well as increased life satisfaction.
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