Development Of Quality Of Life Theory And Its Instruments

The focus of this volume is on the further development of the Quality of Life Theory and the means to measure the concept. The volume summarizes Michalos’ fundamental assumptions about the nature of quality of life or human well-being and explains in detail the two variable theory of the quality of life. It gives an update of the journal Social Indicators Research after forty years, an explanation of the role of community indicators in connecting communities, and a critical review of the much publicized Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi report. It deals with the multiple discrepancies theory (MDT), the empirical theory designed to provide the foundation of the pragmatic theory of value. Other concepts discussed in this volume are the stability, sensitivity, and other different features of measures of domain and life satisfaction and happiness, measures of arts-related activities and beliefs, measures of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour concerning sustainable development, and the role of quality of life in sustainable development research. The volume concludes with discussions on connections between social indicators and communities, aspects of community quality of life in Prince George, British Columbia and Jasper, Alberta, and British Columbians’ expectations and attitudes going into the third millennium.

This volume connects aspects of personal health, overall well-being, and education to quality of life. It includes discussions of Galen’s and Harvey’s views of the movement of blood in human bodies, and differences in the research traditions of social indicators research and health-related quality of life research. It examines determinants of health and quality of life in a variety of populations, including the residents of the Bella Coola Valley of British Columbia, aboriginal residential school survivors in Canada, and diabetics versus non-diabetics. It describes relations between health survey and patients’ medical chart reviews, the health and quality of life of older people, and the difference between good health and a good life. Other topics explored are student quality of life, comparisons of the quality of life of students, aboriginal and unemployed people, the impact of education on happiness and well-being, and liberal education. In addition, the volume presents Einstein’s views of ethics and science, and unacknowledged authorship in scholarly publications. The final chapter gives a historical review of quality of life research in Canada over the past fifty years.

Learn how to select the right positive psychology (PP) assessment tool for the right situation Written by internationally renowned authors Looks at well-being, traits, states, and behavior Presents the relevant psychometric properties Considers assessment challenges Recommends selection in different settings Explores new directions in PP A comprehensive guide to selecting positive psychology assessment tools This volume gives a state-of-the-art overview of assessment in the field of positive psychology, including a comprehensive survey of current theories, approaches, issues, and assessment instruments. In four sections, leading experts look at different conceptualizations of well-being and discuss specific traits, states, and behaviors. New directions in positive psychology are also explored, including measuring primal world beliefs, imagination, self-transcendent experiences, and nostalgia. Each chapter provides an introductory background to the positive psychology topic reviews the most relevant assessment instruments, and discusses the specific assessment-related challenges. Recommendations for selecting assessment tools are included for specific settings, such as school, relationships, health and clinical settings, leisure, and interventions. This book is a must for positive psychology researchers, instructors, students, and practitioners wanting to select the right positive psychology instrument for the right situation.

This book provides new and original research on the purpose and functions of universities from the perspective of corporate social responsibility. It addresses professional ethics questions that relate to universities as corporate citizens. Divided into two sections, the book starts out with an examination of the concept of universities. It explores the differences between historic and contemporary universities, the history and nature of university governance, the role of higher education, and the problem of domination and subjugation in a management context. The second section looks at the faculty, the students, and the role of spirituality in the university and research. It examines such themes as the nature of faculty and professors, faculty as change agents, diversity, inclusivity and incivility, academic integrity, citizenship of students, and ethical responsibility of researchers. The book calls on the expertise from both the fields of business and professional ethics and university management and leadership. It approaches the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective.

This volume provides bridges from the social sciences to business ethics and from the latter to the quality of life, by connecting the research themes of quality of life, social sciences, including public policy-making, and business ethics or corporate responsibility. It builds on the premise that public policy making is essentially a species of good decision making, as explained in the first volume. It shows that, because most developed countries function as market economies whose governments depend on taxation to pay for their services and because a large proportion of government revenue comes from well-regulated, responsible corporations, the quality of people’s lives is highly dependent upon good public policies, taxation and business ethics. The volume presents and examines ethical/moral problems arising in market economies since the first century BCE, including the first appearance of the business case for business ethics, fourteen arguments concerning the neglect of business ethics, business ethics issues for the 1990s and beyond, the loyal agent’s argument, advertising, the importance of trust, public opinion polling, public program evaluation, and a critique of the relatively new monster of super-capitalism. In addition, it deals with connections among the concepts of efficiency, morality, and rationality related to decision making in general and public policy making in particular. Finally, it explains relationships between outcomes measurement and performance indicators in general and performance-based management in public administration, the taxation of net wealth and financial transactions.

This first volume has as its main focus the philosophical foundations of Michalos’ work and describes it in the broad context of the study of logic, the philosophy of social sciences, and a general theory of value. After distinguishing things that have value from the value that things might have, it describes the foundations of a pragmatic theory of value. This theory plays a key role in the author’s research on the quality of life and connects his empirical research to the philosophical tradition of the American pragmatists William James, Ralph Barton Perry, John Dewey and Clarence Irving Lewis. The volume addresses various aspects and issues concerning decision making, including decision procedures used in committees, used for assessing the acceptability of scientific theories and new technologies, procedures for a science court, ethical issues involved in the formation of beliefs, some limitations of classical economists’ alleged postulates of rational preference, and the importance of analytic guides to decision making. Finally, it describes the organization of the Social Sciences Federation of Canada and a formal accounting system for scientific research.

This collection offers a new understanding of the epistemology of measurement. The interdisciplinary volume explores how measurements are produced, for example, in astronomy and seismology, in studies of human sexuality and ecology, in brain imaging and intelligence testing. It considers photography as a measurement technology and Henry David Thoreau's poetic measures as closing the gap between mind and world. By focusing on measurements as the hard-won results of conceptual as well as technical operations, the authors of the book no longer presuppose that measurement is always and exclusively a means of representing some feature of a target object or entity. Measurement also provides knowledge about the degree to which things have been standardized or harmonized – it is an indicator of how closely human practices are attuned to each other and the world.

On October 16 and 17, 2000, we hosted an international workshop entitled "Statistical Design, Measurement, and Analysis of Health Related Quality of Life." The workshop was held in the beautiful city of Arradon, South Brittany, France with the main goal of fostering an interdisciplinary forum for discussion of theoretical and applied statistical issues arising in studies of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Included were biostatisticians, psychometricians and public health professionals (e.g., physicians, sociologists, psychologists) active in the study ofHRQoL. In assembling this volume, we invited each conference participant to contribute a paper based on his or her presentation and the ensuing and very interesting discussions that took place in Arradon. All papers were peer-reviewed, by anonymous reviewers, and revised before final editing and acceptance. Although this process was quite time consuming, we believe that it greatly improved the volume as a whole, making this book a valuable contribution to the field ofHRQoL research. The volume presents a broad spectrum of papers presented at the Workshop, and thus illustrates the range of current research related to the theory, methods and applications of HRQoL, as well as the interdisciplinary nature ofthis work. Following an introduction written by Sir David Cox, it includes 27 articles organized into the following chapters.