Signs and Sources of Community Well-Being Isaac Prilleltensky University of Miami isaacp@miami.edu http://www.education.miami.edu/isaac

Signs of community well-being: objective and subjective Colombia: Happy but Dead Highest rate of murders per capita in the world Highest number of kidnappings in the world Colombia 5181 in 7 years Mexico 1269 Brazil 515 Venezuela 109 Severe under reporting Colombians report highest level of satisfaction 8.31 (out of 10) in the world in the 90s

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Mountain of Risk Poor temperament Poor health Birth weight Teen parenting Family size Stressors Poor parenting Addictions Poor mental health Child Parental & Family No child care Poor housing Lack of cohesion Crime Community Poverty Injustice Violence Discrimination Societal

Cake of Well-being Easy temperament Physical health Adequate birth weight Good parenting Mutual Support Good mental health Child Parental & Family Child care Adequate housing Cohesion Access to health care Community Employment Justice Safety nets Quality education Societal

New definition of well-being Well-being is a positive state of affairs in individuals, relationships, organizations, communities, and the natural environment, brought about by the simultaneous and balanced satisfaction of material and psychological needs; and by the promotion of justice in each one of these ecological domains.

According to Stokols “Efforts to promote human well-being should be based on an understanding of the dynamic interplay among diverse environmental and personal factors rather than on analyses that focus exclusively on environmental, biological, or behavioral factors. (Stokols, 2000, p. 27)”

Ecological, Material, Psychological, Moral Model of Well-Being Sites of Well-Being Individual Relational Organizational Communal Environmental Objective signs health networks resources social capital low emissions Subjective signs efficacy voice support belonging safety Values autonomy caring participation diversity protection of resources Justice My due/our due Your due/our due Its due/our due Their due/our due Nature’s due/our due

The relationship between objective and subjective measures of well-being + + objective objective - - Conditions Well-being + + subjective subjective - -

The Case of Colombia: explaining the paradox + + objective objective crime - - subjective measures inconsistent with objective measures Conditions Well-being + + hope subjective subjective - -

The relationship between objective and subjective measures of well-being + + objective objective - - Conditions Well-being + + subjective subjective - -

The Case of Relative Deprivation in Sweden and UK: How the worst off fare + + Higher morbidity objective objective - - Unfairness Conditions Well-being Low control / high demand + + High effort / low reward subjective subjective - -

Is happiness a genetic phenomenon Is happiness a genetic phenomenon? Lykken and Tellegen (1996, Psychological Science). In the Minnesota twins study, authors report, “Neither socioeconomic status, educational attainment, family income, marital status, not an indicant of religious commitment could account for more than about 3% of the variance in WB” (in monozygotic twins) “We estimate that the heritability of the stable component of subjective well-being approaches 80%”

Change in life satisfaction over the years (Inglehart, 2004) 14

Russia’s happiness and satisfaction plunges 15

Seligman’s Authentic Happiness (2002, pp. 61) “If you want to lastingly raise your level of happiness by changing the external circumstances of your life, you should do the following: Live in wealthy democracy, not in an impoverished dictatorship Get married Avoid negative events and negative emotion Acquire a rich social network Get religion”

Seligman’s Authentic Happiness (2002, pp. 61) “As far as happiness and life satisfaction are concerned, however, you needn’t bother to do the following Make more money Stay healthy Get as much education as possible (no effect) Change your race or move to a sunnier climate (no effect)”

Seligman concludes…. “Even if you could alter all of these external circumstances, it would not do much for you, since together they probably account for no more than between 8 and 15 percent of the variance in happiness” (Authentic Happiness, 2002, p. 61). Really?

Place Matters 19

Income Matters for Well-Being 20

Education Matters 21

How the World Has Changed www.gapminder.org Watch Hans Rosling on global changes at link below http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html Answer the following question When families in countries have fewer children, life expectancy increases A. True B. False 4/21/2017 copyright (c) 2009 Prilleltensky Do not reproduce without permission

Income is not everything though 23

Wealth matters for life expectancy 24

Relative deprivation matters in Sweden 25

Relative deprivation matters in UK 26

Clicker question: Where would you rather live? A. A country with large inequality but more opportunities to make lots of money B. A country with more equality but fewer opportunities to become very rich

Sources of Community Well-Being: Childhood Poverty (Evans, 2004) Low-income children are disproportionately exposed to: sub-optimal physical conditions Sub-optimal social conditions

Risk Factors Personal Familial Societal Protective factors Resilience

The Physical Environment of Childhood Poverty Exposure to toxins (lead, pesticide, air and noise pollution, etc.) Unhealthy living conditions (crowding, structural defects, rodent infestation, etc.) Home Injuries (scalding water, fewer smoke-detectors & fire extinguishers, etc.) Hazardous neighborhoods (crime, poor infrastructure, abandoned lots, traffic accidents, etc.) School conditions (overcrowded, leaky roofs, inadequate plumbing, etc.)

The Psychosocial Environment of Childhood Poverty: Family More family violence, disruption, and separation More likely to experience parental divorce More punitive, unresponsive, and harsher parenting Less parental monitoring Less cognitive stimulation and enrichment Quality, quantity, and function of parental speech Reading by parents, literary activities, other scaffolding experiences

The Psychosocial Environment of Childhood Poverty: Beyond the Family More contact with aggressive peers Greater instability in peer relationships Greater dependence on peers versus parents for social support Less warmth, responsiveness and sensitivity in day-care centers Staff (in child-care centers) speak in more authoritarian, less cognitively-complex ways

The Psychosocial Environment of Childhood Poverty: Neighborhood and Community Families experience less social support Less interpersonal trust and norms of reciprocity in neighborhoods Less parental involvement in school activities Less of a sense of belonging to school Less likely to have well-qualified teachers

“Although each of these singular psychosocial and physical risk-factors has adverse developmental consequences, exposure to cumulative risks accompanying poverty may be a key, unique aspect of the environment of poverty” (Evans, 2004, p. 88)

Resilience Individual capabilities, behaviours and protective processes associated with health outcomes despite exposure to a significant number of risks (Unger, 2005, xvi).

“…daily exposure to an unhealthy and oppressive work environment will likely spill over to the home front, just as a board decision to close down an unprofitable plant could lead to dire consequences for particular individuals and families. Factors such as these, however, are rarely taken into consideration when Johnny’s parents are summoned to a school conference to discuss his problem behavior or when a previously happily married couple experiences a high level of marital discord” (Prilleltensky, Prilleltensky & Voorhees, 2007).

Sayings such as “love conquers all” are based on romantic beliefs that “close, committed, and loving relationships are impermeable and unsinkable vessels that can sail through any environmental storm with impunity” (Berscheid, 2004, p.31).

Why do we neglect environmental factors? Foreground versus background The fundamental attribution error Just world phenomenon Rugged individualism (based on Wright and Lopez, 2002)

Context Minimization Error “Tendency to ignore the impact of enduring neighborhood and community contexts on human behavior. The error has adverse consequences for understanding psychological processes and efforts at social change” (Shinn and Toohey, 2003, p. 428).