Top

Social Indicators Research

Published in:

01-02-2013

The Subjective Wellbeing of Indigenous Australian Adolescents: Validating the Personal Wellbeing Index-School Children

Authors: Adrian J. Tomyn, Jacolyn M. Norrish, Robert A. Cummins

Published in: Social Indicators Research | Issue 3/2013

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

By almost all measures of objective life quality, Indigenous Australians are disadvantaged relative to the general population. However, no measures of their Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) have been published. This paper presents the first such data, norm-referenced to the general Australian population. A total of 519 Indigenous adolescents, aged between 12 and 19 years, were administered the Personal Wellbeing Index-School Children, which measures SWB. This scale is a parallel form of the Personal Wellbeing-Adult. The PWI-SC exhibited adequate psychometric properties. Moreover, consistent with SWB Homeostasis theory, participants’ mean SWB was within the Australian adult normative range. However, female SWB was lower than males. These results suggest that Indigenous adolescents are resilient.

previous article An Exploratory Study of Religion and Trust in Ghana

next article Did the Decline in Social Connections Depress Americans’ Happiness?

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Available only for authorised users

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008). The health and welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Services.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011a). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wellbeing: A focus on children and youth. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government Publishing Services.

Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011a). A population overview: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth. Retrieved August 10, 2011 from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4725.0Chapter100Apr%202011.

Australian Bureau of Statistics & Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2008). The health and welfare of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 2008. Canberra, Australia: AIHW.

Best, C. J., Cummins, R. A., & Lo, S. K. (2000). The quality of rural and metropolitan life. Australian Journal of Psychology, 52(2), 69–74.CrossRef

Blore, J. D., Stokes, M. A., Mellor, D., Firth, L., & Cummins, R. A. (2011). Comparing multiple discrepancies theory to affective models of subjective wellbeing. Social Indicators Research, 100, 1–16.CrossRef

Burns, J., Maling, C. M., & Thomson, N. (2010). Summary of Indigenous women’s health. Retrieved November 25th, 2011 from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworks/6148/.

Campbell, A., Converse, P. E., & Rodgers, W. L. (1976). The quality of American life: Perceptions, evaluations and satisfactions. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Casas, F., et al. (2011). Testing the Personal Wellbeing Index on 12–16 year old adolescents in 3 different countries with 2 new items. Social Indicators Research. doi:10.1007/s11205-011-9781-1.

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioural sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Craven, R. G., & Bodkin-Andrews, G. (2006). New solutions for addressing Indigenous mental health: A call to counsellors to introduce the new positive psychology of success. Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 16, 41–54.CrossRef

Cronbach, L. J. (1946). Response sets and test validity. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 6(4), 475–493.

Cummins, R. A. (1995). On the trail of the gold standard for subjective wellbeing. Social Indicators Research, 35, 179–200.CrossRef

Cummins, R. A. (1998). The second approximation to an international standard for life satisfaction. Social Indicators Research, 43, 307–334.CrossRef

Cummins, R. A. (2000). Objective and subjective quality of life: An interactive model. Social Indicators Research, 52, 55–72.CrossRef

Cummins, R. A. (2003). Normative life satisfaction: Measurement issues and a homeostatic model. Social Indicators Research, 64, 225–256.CrossRef

Cummins, R. A. (2010). Subjective wellbeing, homeostatically protected mood and depression: A synthesis. Journal of Happiness Studies, 11, 1–17.CrossRef

Cummins, R. A., Woerner, J., Hartley-Clark, L., Perera, C., Gibson-Prosser, A., Collard, J., & Horfiniak, K. (2011). Australian Unity Wellbeing Index Survey 25.0. Part A: The report. The Wellbeing of Australians—Relationships and the Internet. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University. Retrieved August 15, 2011 from http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/auwbi/survey-reports/survey-025-report-part-a.pdf.

Cummins, R. A., & Lau, A. L. D. (2005). Personal Wellbeing Index-School Children (PWI-SC) (3rd ed.). Melbourne: Deakin University. Retrieved July 12, 2011 from http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/instruments/wellbeing_index.htm.

Cummins, R. A., Lau, A. L. D., & Stokes, M. (2004). HRQOL and subjective well-being: Noncomplementary forms of outcome measurement. Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research, 4, 413–420.CrossRef

Cummins, R. A., & Nistico, H. (2002). Maintaining life satisfaction: The role of positive bias. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3, 37–69.CrossRef

Cummins, R. A., Woerner, J., Weinberg, M., Perera, C., Gibson-Prosser, A., Collard, J., & Horfiniak, K. (2010) Australian Unity Wellbeing Index Survey 24.0. Part A: The report. The Wellbeing of Australians—Trust, Life Better/Worse and Climate Change. Melbourne: Australian Centre on Quality of Life, School of Psychology, Deakin University. Retrieved July 12, 2011 from http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/auwbi/survey-reports/survey-024-report-part-a.pdf .

Curran, P. J., West, G. W., & Finch, J. F. (1996). The robustness of test statistics to nonnormality and specification error in confirmatory factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 1, 16–29.CrossRef

Davern, M., Cummins, R. A., & Stokes, M. (2007). Subjective wellbeing as an affective-cognitive construct. Journal of Happiness Studies, 8, 429–449.CrossRef

Diener, E., & Diener, M. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7(3), 181–185.CrossRef

Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 403–425.CrossRef

Dingwall, K. M., & Cairney, S. (2010). Psychological and cognitive assessment of Indigenous Australians. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 44, 20–30.CrossRef

Dockery, A. M. (2010). Culture and wellbeing: The case of Indigenous Australians. Social Indicators Research, 99, 315–332.CrossRef

Ganglmair-Wooliscroft, A. G. W., & Lawson, R. (2008). Applying the International Wellbeing Index to investigate subjective wellbeing of New Zealanders with European and with Maori heritage. Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, 3, 57–72.CrossRef

Goodman, R. (2001). Psychometric properties of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, 1337–1345.CrossRef

Haswell-Elkins, M., Sebasio, T., Hunter, E., & Mar, M. (2007). Challenges of measuring the mental health of Indigenous Australians: Honouring ethical expectations and driving greater accuracy. Australasian Psychiatry, 15, S29–S33.CrossRef

Headey, B., Holmstrom, E., & Wearing, A. (1984a). The impact of life events and changes in domain satisfactions on well-being. Social Indicators Research, 15(3), 203–227.CrossRef

Headey, B., Holmstrom, E., & Wearing, A. J. (1984b). Well-being and ill-being: Different dimensions? Social Indicators Research, 14, 115–139.CrossRef

Headey, B., & Wearing, A. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 731–739.CrossRef

Headey, B., & Wearing, A. (1992). Understanding happiness: A theory of subjective wellbeing. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

Helson, H. (1965). Adaptation Level Theory: An experimental and systematic approach to behaviour. New York: Harper & Row.

Hunter, E. (2007). Disadvantage and discontent: A review of issues relevant to the mental health of rural and remote Indigenous Australians. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 15, 88–93.CrossRef

International Wellbeing Group (2006). Personal Wellbeing Index. Retrieved June 27, 2011 from http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/acqol/instruments/wellbeing_index.htm.

Kelley, A. E., Schochet, T., & Landry, C. F. (2004). Risk taking and novelty seeking in adolescence. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1021, 27–32.CrossRef

Kuhn, D. (2009). Adolescent thinking. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (3rd ed., pp. 152–186). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Lau, A. L. D., Cummins, R. A., & McPherson, W. (2005). An investigation into the cross-cultural equivalence of the personal wellbeing index. Social Indicators Research, 72, 403–430.CrossRef

Lykken, D. T., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7(3), 186–189.CrossRef

Ng, Y. K. (1997). A case for happiness, cardinalsim, and interpersonal comparability. The Economic Journal, 107, 1848–1858.CrossRef

Pallant, J. (2001). SPSS survival manual. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Prout, S. (2011). Indigenous wellbeing frameworks in Australia and the quest for quantification. Social Indicators Research, doi:10.1007/s11205-011-9905-7.

Renn, D., et al. (2009). International Wellbeing Index: The Austrian version. Social Indicators Research, 90, 243–256.CrossRef

SCRGSP (2009). Overcoming indigenous disadvantage: Key indicators 2009. Canberra: Productivity Commission.

SPSS for Windows: Release 18.0. (2009). Chicago: SPSS Inc.

Steel, P., & Ones, D. S. (2002). Personality and happiness: A national level analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(3), 767–781.CrossRef

Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2007). Using multivariate statistics (5th ed.). MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Taylor, J. (2008). Indigenous peoples and indicators of well-being: Australian perspectives on United Nations Global Frameworks. Social Indicators Research, 87, 111–126.CrossRef

Thomas, A., Cairney, S., Gunthorpe, W., Paradies, Y., & Sayers, S. (2010). Strong Souls: development and validation of a culturally appropriate tool for assessment of social and emotional well-being in Indigenous youth. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 44, 40–48.CrossRef

Thompson, S. J., Gifford, S. M., & Thorpe, L. (2000). The social and cultural context of risk and prevention: Food and physical activity in an urban Aboriginal community. Health Education and Behavior, 27, 725–743.CrossRef

Tiliouine, H., Cummins, R. A., & Davern, M. (2006). Measuring wellbeing in developing countries: The case of Algeria. Social Indicators Research, 75, 1–30.CrossRef

Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2011a). Subjective wellbeing and homeostatically protected mood: Theory validation with adolescents. Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(5), 897–914. doi:10.1007/s10902-010-9235-5.CrossRef

Tomyn, A. J., & Cummins, R. A. (2011b). The subjective wellbeing of high-school students: Validating the Personal Wellbeing Index-School Children. Social Indicators Research, 101, 405–418.CrossRef

Westerman, T. (2002). WASC-Y training manual. Perth, Western Australia: Indigenous Psychological Services.

Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey. (2005). The social and emotional wellbeing of Indigenous children and young people. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government.

Ypinazar, V. A., Margolis, S. A., Haswell-Elkins, M., & Tsey, K. (2007). Indigenous Australians’ understandings regarding mental health and disorders. Australasian Psychiatry, 41, 467–478.

Zubrick, S. R., et al. (2004). The Western Australian Aboriginal child health survey: The health of Aboriginal children and young people. Perth, Australia: Telethon Institute for Child Health Research.

Title: The Subjective Wellbeing of Indigenous Australian Adolescents: Validating the Personal Wellbeing Index-School Children
Authors: Adrian J. Tomyn
Jacolyn M. Norrish
Robert A. Cummins
Publication date: 01-02-2013
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Social Indicators Research / Issue 3/2013
Print ISSN: 0303-8300
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0921
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-011-9970-y

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 3/2013

Development and Application of Environmental Quality of Life Scale Among People Residing Near Three Types of Industrial Areas, Southern Thailand

Quality of Parent–Child Relationship, Family Conflict, Peer Pressure, and Drinking Behaviors of Adolescents in an Asian Context: The Case of Singapore

Did the Decline in Social Connections Depress Americans’ Happiness?

Farewell to Lawrence Schlemmer: Initiator of Quality-of-Life Studies in South Africa

Erratum to: Flourishing Across Europe: Application of a New Conceptual Framework for Defining Well-Being

Relationships Among Adolescents’ Leisure Motivation, Leisure Involvement, and Leisure Satisfaction: A Structural Equation Model

Premium Partner