What is Wellbeing?

Question 1

What are the three approaches to health?

Answer 1

Complete state model - health as the presence of a positive state of functioning and human capacity and absence of disease or infirmity

Pathogenic approach - health as the absence of disease

Salutogenic approach - health as the presence of positive states of functioning and capacities (thinking, feeling and behaviour)

Question 2

What did WHO believe about health?

Answer 2

It is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not just the absence of disease

Question 3

What has there been a developmental shift on?

Answer 3

Children’s rights - focus on factors which provide opportunities and help children reach aspirations, focus on quality of lives now and in future

Shift from a developmental focus on well-being, to a children’s rights

Question 4

What does rights of the child mean?

Answer 4

The right of a child to education focussed on ‘the development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical ability to their fullest potential

Question 5

What is well-being?

Answer 5

Flourishing in feeling and functioning
Engagement 
Sense of accomplishment
Meaningful relationships 
Positive emotions

Question 6

What are the ways of defining wellbeing?

Answer 6

Objective - measurable social and economic indicators that contribute to WB (income, health, poverty, education)

Subjective - children’s own evaluations of their lives as a whole (surveys, interviews)

Hedonic - positive emotions towards lives, pleasure and happiness, feeling good

Eudaimonic - functioning well, pos psych and social functioning in life, capturing how well someone is functioning - realising our potential

Question 7

What did Ryan and Deci believe about WB?

Answer 7

Believe we have basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness), if not satisfied have lower levels of WB

Question 8

What does flourishing require? Keyes

Answer 8

High eudaimonic and high hedonic well being

Question 9

What did Keyes find about flourishing?

Answer 9

Analysis of his 2005 data showed that 48.5% of the national sample had high hedonic WB but only 18% had high eudaimonic WB

The 30.5% with high hedonic WB but only moderate eudaimonic WB had 2x rate of mental illness compared to flourishing individuals

Question 10

What did the good report 2016 show about flourishing in childhood?

Answer 10

Biggest measure of child WB in the UK - used a large cohort of 12 year olds
Measures of life satisfaction (hedonic WB) and psychological WB

82% were flourishing
10% were languishing (low on both types)

Question 11

What are the components of self-report WB?

Answer 11

Concepts of WB broken down into hedonic (positive/negative affect) and cognitive (life satisfaction, domain satisfaction) and eudaimonic (broken down into 6 domains)

Question 12

Why is it hard to measure child WB?

Answer 12

Because it is defined in many ways - lots of domains
there is a lack of an agreed definitions which means there can’t be consistent measurement and meaningful comparisons across studies
Implications to how it is defined bc what you focus on, is what will be measured
Different definitions lead to different policies

Question 13

What should WB focus on?

Answer 13

Children’s immediate and future lives - not just a static thing you either have or don’t have

Should incorporate subjective as well as objective measures: gradual shift from focus on measuring basic needs to measuring life beyond survival

but many studies still do refer to WB even when positive measures haven’t been used

Question 14

What is there a growing consensus about?

Answer 14

That WB is multidimensional. should include physical, emotional and social dimensions

Question 15

What are the ways to measure child WB?

Answer 15

Warwick Edinburgh Mental WB Scale - age 13+, 14 items focus more on eudaimonic rather than hedonic and shrt term frame

Life satisfaction scales - ratings of life satisfaction in domains

The good childhood index - age 8-15, focus on subjective WB, cognitive and emotional assessments of WB, happiness with life as a whole and WB in 10 life domains

UNICEF report - combination of objective and subjective measures

Question 16

What did the UNICEF 2007 report show?

Answer 16

Compared data related to child WB from 21 rich countries across 6 dimensions (education, health n safety, material WB, family and peers, behaviour, SWB)
UK was bottom of the league tables - children in UK were among the unhappiest, poorest and least well educated in the developed world

Question 17

What did the UNICEF 2013 report show?

Answer 17

UK ranked 16th overal out of world richest 29 countries, but ranked 24th on educational WB
proportion of young people enrolled in education is over 80% in other countries, only 74% in Uk
but, 84% do report high life satisfaction

Question 18

What is the one of the biggest cause of low WB?

Answer 18

Child deprivations - money for school trips, access to leisure activities, having 2 pairs of shoes)

Question 19

What is the UK one of only four countries to see?

Answer 19

One of only 4 countries to see a drop in % overweight children in first decade of 2000 and to have more than halved number of children who smoke

Question 20

What are the issues with the UNICEFF reports?

Answer 20

Bias towards information on older children
Data doesn’t look at child characteristics - gender, age, ethnicity
No weighting of different aspects of a child’s WB
Assumption of causal relationship between factors and WB

Question 21

What are the good childhood reports?

Answer 21

Produced annually since 2005 by the children’s society in partnership with Uni of York - look at trends in child WB over time, variations in WB between children with different characteristics, local and national variations in UK, children self-reported subjective WB rather than objective measures, child voice at the centre

Question 22

What did the good childhood report show in terms of WB?

Answer 22

A significant decrease in happiness with life as a whole - however this is only a small drop from 8.17 to 7.89
Proportion of children with low WB was 4.8% in 2016/17 or about 219,000

Question 23

What did the good childhood report show in terms of domain changes?

Answer 23

A significant decrease in happiness with friends – friendships and peers are important for WB

A significant decrease in happiness with school – may not reflect long term trend

BUT no decreases in happiness with schoolwork, appearance or family

Question 24

What did the good childhood report in terms of gender differences?

Answer 24

Life as a whole: boys were sig happier than girls in 2013-14 and 2014-15 but no other years

Schoolwork: girls sig happier than boys in all years

Family, friends and school: no consistent gender differences or trends

Appearance: boys’ sig happier than girls in all years, but gap narrowing - not because girls are happier, but because boys are declining in their happiness

Question 25

What is the five ways to WB model?

Answer 25

Consists of 5 things which promote good functioning, has a feedforward feedback loop, impacts your mental capital (resilience, self-esteem, cog capacity) and WB

Good functioning - be active, take notice (mindfulness), keep learning, give, connect

Question 26

What is the WB see-saw? Dodge 2012

Answer 26

See’s WB as a state of equilibrium between resources (psychological, social and physical) and challenges - can intervene by giving support

If you boost a child resources, can help support WB

Question 27

What are ecological models?

Answer 27

Focus on an individual within multiple and interacting domains which all influence WB
Some are close to the child - family and pears and (proximal) and some are more distant (distal) factors such as wider community, neighbourhood factors, government policy
collishaw 2015 - lots of things influencing mental health

Question 28

What is the ecological systems theory?

Answer 28

Bronfenbrenner - systems around a child which are having an impact

Microsystem - network of interactions in anyone setting (school family) where child interacts directly with people and activities

Mesosystem - interrelations between two or Microsystems (family and school)

Ecosystem - contains settings that the child doesn’t interact with, but which influence a setting where the child is involved (parents workplace, social and health services)

Macrosystem - broader context: social and cultural values

Chronosystem - changes over time, the influence of change and constancy in the child environments

Question 29

Factors associated with well-being - adult studies

Answer 29

Diener and Seligman screened for very happy people - his on subjective WB from a group of 200 college students
This group experienced inter and intra personal variables:
spent less time alone
spent most time with family and friends
highest self report and peer reported ratings of good interpersonal relationships
personalities - extraversion and agreeableness
no differences on objective life events, substance use or religious activities

Question 30

Factors associated with well-being - adolescent studies

Answer 30

Suldo and Heubner - similar study as adult with adolscenct sample (11-19) which they tested cognitive (self-efficacy) and intrapersonal (temperament) and interpersonal variables (social support)
Aassociated with high life satisfaction:
highest level of social support from all sources
less psychopathology and lower neuroticism
higher levels of emotional, social and academic self efficacy

Question 31

Factor 1 associated with wellbeing - childhood studies

Answer 31

Family functioning more important than structure
happiest when they got on with siblings, had fun together with family, non aggressive parents
fam structure or parental disability did not predict WB
family structure explained 2% of variation in children life satisfaction, but if their family got along well together it explained 20%

Question 32

Factor 2 associated with wellbeing - childhood studies

Answer 32

Material deprivation (children asked to define 10 things which enable you to live a good life) – indicator developed with children, predicted 10% of variation in SWB whereas household income only explains less than 3%. Material factors important but from the perspective of the child (Main & Pople, 2012)

Question 33

Factor 3 associated with wellbeing - childhood studies

Answer 33

Peer and school context
Friendships and primary school
experiences of being bullied, friendship conflict
neighbourhood factors - more worried and unhappy if in a deprived area (controlling for other factors)
feeling safe in the local area

Question 34

What did the factors associated with WB show overall?

Answer 34

Objective social indicators like income, fam structure, inequality, youth unemployment do not predict children WB in the way they do adults - subjective factors matter more for children

Question 35

What did Fattore, Mason and Watson find in terms of 3 major themes?

Answer 35

Positive sense of the self
Agency
Security and safety

Question 36

What did Fattore, Mason and Watson find in terms of 6 minor themes?

Answer 36

Activities - freedom, fun
Adversity - dealing with hard times
Material and economic resources
Physical environments
Physical health - eat and active
Social responsibility and moral agency

Question 37

What is age strongly related too?

Answer 37

WB - between age 11 and 15, the proportion of young people with low SWB almost doubles but disappears when controlling for social and environmental factors - shows it is not inevitable decline, driven by other factors

Question 38

What do most UK primary school children report?

Answer 38

Positive well being and more than 1/3 report increases in wellbeing from aged 8 to 10

Question 39

When does life satisfaction peak?

Answer 39

Children aged around 12-13 and then declines and is lowest at age 16

Question 40

What did Gutman show in 2010?

Answer 40

Significant but small decreases in emotional, behavioural and social well being, but a marked decline in subjective school WB from mid childhood to early adolescence - big decline in school domain

Question 41

What did the ways to wellbeing report show in terms of age?

Answer 41

Significant decreases in wellbeing from age 11-15 - could be due to social, environment, hormonal factors - average wellbeing scores dropped from 14.6 out of 20 to 13

Question 42

What did the children society 2014 show about activities?

Answer 42

Looked at differences in number of 5 ways activities ‘never or hardly done’ by age
10 year olds participate in markedly more activities than 15 year olds
Average number of activities they do not do is 3.7 while for 15 year olds is 5.1 (out of 17)
but only cross-sectional, need longitudinal

Question 43

What did Gutman et al find in the longitudinal data set?

Answer 43

Factors predicting greater than average decreases in later wellbeing in adolescents:

SEN, esp emotional and behaviour difficulties
Maternal depression - changes in emotional WB for boys, social WB for girls
Stressful life events

Factors predicting greater than average increases:
higher attainment at KS!
Children’s friendships -changes in social wellbeing for boys and school WB for girls

Question 44

What happens for high risk children?

Answer 44

IF they have 3 out of 5 risk factors (stressful event, low income, maternal depression, maternal alcohol problem and SEN) - parents positive feelings are protective - predict greater later positive changes in WB

Question 45

Guttman - wellbeing at one age predicting change at another age

Answer 45

Better WB in one domain at an earlier age can predict greater than average positive changes in another domain at a later age for high risk children

for low risk children, early school WB doesn’t have an impact, but for high risk children, high school (enjoy school) WB predicts better social and behavioural WB in childhood

Question 46

What are the limitations when understanding change in WB?

Answer 46

Narrow definitions of WB - child society reports only focus on life satisfaction

confounding of pos WB with absence of behavioural or emotional problems - could be measuring mental health problems (emotional WB = anxiety, fears, obsessions, behavioural WB = attention problems)

measures are more measures of MH

Question 47

Are positive WB and mental illness two ends of the same spectrum?

Answer 47

Conflation or the two concepts affects research - hard to define both
lack of research into whether predictors of both are similar or different
Measurement challenges - focus on measuring MH, predictors included in studies differ or different measures have been used where there is overlap

Question 48

What does Keyes believe about the distinction between MH and WB?

Answer 48

Believe they are different - study of 3000 adults. measured positive affect, life satis, psychological WB and social WB
split up into languishing, MH and flourishing
28% of the languishing met criteria for major depression, but remaining 72% of the languishing group, meaning number of 9 depressive symptoms endorsed by them was less than one

Suldo - low rates of psychopathology in adolescents with only moderate life satisfaction

Question 49

What is a two continua model of mental health and illness?

Answer 49

Not opposite ends of the same continuum
absence of mental illness is to the same as the presence of mental health
mental health = flourishing
absence of MH = languishing

Question 50

What did the good childhood report show about MH?

Answer 50

More than Half of children with low life satisfaction did not have depressive symptoms
less than one in 5 with low life satisfaction had high emotional and behaviour difficulties scores

Question 51

Chanfrea - happiness and worrying

Answer 51

Children who reported feeling happy all the time were more likely to report not worrying at all (37%) BUT association not that strong

Children who felt happy less often or never were only somewhat less likely to report a lack of worry (29%)

Absence of negative affect (lack of worry) and presence of positive affect (feeling happy) are capturing different dimensions of SWB

Question 52

What are the consequences of low WB?

Answer 52

Children who argue with their parents have lower MH but not as much impact on WB

Whereas school engagement, has a bigger impact on WB compared to MH

Low subjective wellbeing predicts later mental health problems

High SWB – less likely to have MH problems - better SWB is protective
Low SWB – more likely to have MH problems

Question 53

What have life course models shown?

Answer 53

Using British Cohort Study data:
the most powerful predictor of adult life-satisfaction is the child’s emotional health, followed by the child’s conduct. Least powerful predictor was child’s intellectual development

emotional wellbeing* during childhood an especially important predictor for outcomes related to mental health and wellbeing later in life

Question 54

Wellbeing and educational outcomes - Gutman and Vorhaus, 2012

Answer 54

Children with higher levels of emotional, behavioural, social, and school wellbeing, on average, have higher levels of academic achievement and are more engaged in school, both concurrently and in later years

Children with better emotional wellbeing make more progress in primary school and are more engaged in secondary school

Children with better attention skills experience greater progress across the four key stages of schooling in England. Those who are engaged in less troublesome behaviour also make more progress and are more engaged in secondary school

Children who are bullied are less engaged in primary school, whereas those with positive friendships are more engaged in secondary school

Question 55

What did Patalay and Fitzsimons look at?

Answer 55

Correlates of mental illness and wellbeing in children

Research has only looked at MH and WB differently, with other predictors and where overlap does not exist - thats why not much research on it

Data used - millennium cohort study

Question 56

How was MH and WB measured in Patalay and Fitzsimons study and what are the problems of this?

Answer 56

MH - emotional symptoms and conduct problems subscale of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire – parent or care giver responded about how true statements about the child are

WB - youth survey of the British Household Panel Study – consists of indicators of 6 different aspects of WB in different domains. Children responded by indicating their level of happiness with each aspect of their lives on a 7-point scale ranging from not happy at all to extremely happy

Limitations include discrepancy between MH being reported by parents but WB by the children themselves

Question 57

What predictors were used in Patalay and Fitzsimons study?

Answer 57

Child sociodemographic factors
Human capital factors
Family factors
Social and environmental factors

Question 58

What was found in Patalay and Fitzsimons study?

Answer 58

Predictors explained 47% of variance of symptoms of MH (cog factors, home environment, parent health, social relationships)

Predictors explained 26% of variance in WB (wider environment and social relationships)

Income predicted less symptoms for MH, but opposite was found for WB

Overall, found that they are different constructs - weak correlation of 0.2 which indicates limited overlap and direct association

Age 11 children important because it is the earliest age at which children can provide accounts of their mental states using similar measurements as used by adults