TOP-DOWN VERSUS BOTTOM-UP THEORIES OF SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING.pdfVIP

TOP-DOWN VERSUS BOTTOM-UP THEORIES OF SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING* Bruce Heady, Ruut Veenhoven Alex Wearing Publiced in: Social Indicators Research, 1991, vol. 24. pp. 81-100 ABSTRACT . This paper addresses issues of causal direction in research on subjective well being (SWB). Previous re searchers have generally assumed that such variables as domain satisfactions, social support, life events, and levels of exp ectation and asp iration are causes of SWB. Critics have pointed out that they could just as well be consequences (Costa and McCrae, 1980, Veenhoven, 1988). In some contexts this has been referred to as the top-down versus bottom-up controversy (Diener, 1984). The main purpose is to propose a general statistical model which holds promise of resolving this controversy. The model can be used when three or more waves of panel data are a vailable. It is used here to assess causal direction between six domain satisf actions (marriage, work, leisure, standard of living, friendship and health) and S WB. Data are drawn from four waves of an Australian Quality of Life panel survey (1981-1987) with an initial sample size of 942. 1. INTRODUCTION One of the most fundamental problems in research on subjective well-being (SWB) is uncertainty about which variables cause SWB and which are consequences. Almost all previous research has been about the causes of SWB. However most of the variables described as causes have only been shown to be correlates of SWB, and might conceivably be consequences, or perhaps both causes and consequences. Diener (1984) has distinguished between bottom-up and top-down theories of SWB. Bottom-up causation is where particular variables cause SWB and top-down causation is where SWB produces certain