1. Signs and Sources of Community Well-Being
Isaac Prilleltensky
University of Miami

2. 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

3. 3

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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)”

8. 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

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

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

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

12. 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 - -

13. 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%”

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

15. Russia’s happiness and satisfaction plunges15

16. 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”

17. 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)”

18. 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?

19. Place Matters 19

20. Income Matters for Well-Being20

21. Education Matters 21

22. How the World Has Changed www.gapminder.org
Watch Hans Rosling on global changes at link below
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

23. Income is not everything though23

24. Wealth matters for life expectancy24

25. Relative deprivation matters in Sweden25

26. Relative deprivation matters in UK26

29. 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

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

31. Risk Factors
Personal
Familial
Societal
Protective factors
Resilience

32. 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.)

33. 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

34. 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

35. 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

36. “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)

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

38. “…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).

39. 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).

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

41. 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).