INTRODUCTION

Subjective well-being research (SWB) focuses on how people evaluate their immediate and ongoing life circumstances (Diener, 2000). Studies investigating SWB among youth have increased over the past decade, due to calls to expand the definition of positive mental health to include more than simply the absence of psychopathology (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Given its focus on indicators that facilitate psychological health and wellness, SWB research can thus provide a valuable complement to psychology’s traditional focus on illness and distress (Greenspoon and Saklofske, 2001).

The components of SWB are debated. Some researchers conceptualize SWB as comprised of three related, but distinguishable components: positive affect, negative affect, and global life satisfaction (Lucas and Diener, 2000). Positive and negative affect refer to the long-term frequencies of position emotions (e.g., joy, pride) and negative emotions (e.g., anger, sadness) experienced by individuals. Global life satisfaction refers to a cognitive appraisal of the overall quality of a person’s life, based on self-selected standards (Diener et al., 1999). Life satisfaction is viewed as a key component considering that it (a) transcends momentary emotional fluctuations (Diener and Diener, 1996), (b) can influence changes in behaviors (Lewinsohn et al., 1991), and (c) is relatively free of social desirability bias (Diener, 1994). Life satisfaction has also been viewed as construct worthy of specific attention because it provides a global index of well-being that is based on criteria determined by individuals rather than researchers (Diener, 2000). Frisch (1999) argues that life satisfaction measures should be integrated with symptom-oriented measures on a routine basis in clinical and health psychology in order to provide more comprehensive, universal outcome evaluations.

Research has found that positive global life satisfaction is normative among adults (Diener and Diener, 1996) and adolescents (Huebner, 2004). Incorporating Lazarus’ (1991) theory of coping as a conceptual framework, maintaining a positive outlook on life (i.e., a positive “set point”) may serve as a signal against the backdrop of ongoing cognitive appraisals, affective states, and environmental circumstances. This set point may function as a comparison standard against which potential negative emotional and behavioral reactions are made (Headey and Wearing, 1992).

Although studies have shown that departures from positive SWB levels correlate with a number of maladaptive outcomes (e.g., Dear et al., 2002; Furr and Funder, 1998), much less is known of potential psychological, psychoeducational, and psychosocial benefits related to maintaining significantly high levels of well-being. In one of the few studies to directly investigate variables related to differing SWB levels, Diener and Seligman (2002) found that “very happy” adults (i.e., highest 10% of several SWB measures) reported significantly less psychological distress, more positive social relations, and were more extraverted than adults whose SWB scores were in the extreme low end of the continuum. Similar findings have also been reported in Friedman et al. (2002).

Child and youth life satisfaction research has focused on the study of life satisfaction as an outcome variable, that is, most studies have investigated assumed determinants of individual differences in life satisfaction. Such studies have revealed a wide ranging network of associated variables (see Gilman and Huebner, 2003 for a review). These variables include family, peer, neighborhood, and self-related (e.g., personality, cognitive attributions), and activity (e.g., participation in structure extra curricular activities) variables. Demographic variables (e.g., gender, socioecomic status) appear to play a very modest role at best in child or youth global life satisfaction reports (Huebner et al., 2000). Adolescent life satisfaction reports have been correlated with a variety of risk behaviors (e.g., risky sex behavior, alcohol and drug use) as well, although the directionality of the relationships has not been determined. Importantly, preliminary studies have suggested that youth life satisfaction reports mediate the relationship between stressful life events and internalizing behaviors (McKnight et al., 2002) and moderate the relationship between stressful life events and externalizing behaviors (Suldo and Huebner, 2004). Thus, adolescent life satisfaction judgments may not only be important in and of themselves; they may also reflect or determine important adaptive outcomes.

However, very little research has specifically investigated adolescents who report high levels of global life satisfaction. Relative to the study of antecedents and/or determinants of individual differences in adolescent life satisfaction, there is a paucity of research focusing on variables presumed to be correlates or consequences of life satisfaction, including high levels of life satisfaction. Such studies are necessary to determine how youth reporting a high global satisfaction set point fundamentally differ from individuals reporting more normative levels of global satisfaction and the implications of such differences. Information obtained from such studies may help illuminate factors that should be tested in longitudinal studies as correlates or benefits associated with individual differences in adolescents’ life satisfaction. Further, although it is clear that positive life satisfaction judgments confer some benefits for adults in general (Diener and Seligman, 2002), most individuals report moderate or “average” levels of life satisfaction (Cummins, 1998). In this manner, moderate levels of life satisfaction may represent the optimal level necessary for adaptation. If such is the case, youth who report high life satisfaction would garner no greater psychological, psychosocial, and psychoeducational benefits than youth who report average satisfaction levels. If this possibility was empirically supported, the findings would challenge calls to encourage the promotion of global life satisfaction to optimal levels for all individuals (Diener, 2000).

The purpose of this study was thus to examine the characteristics of adolescents reporting high levels of global life satisfaction. The characteristics investigated included a wide range of school-related (e.g., perceived school experiences, grade-point average, structured extracurricular activity participation), interpersonal (e.g., relations with parents, social stress), and intrapersonal (e.g., hope, depression, and anxiety) variables, all of which have been related to life satisfaction in previous studies (see Gilman and Huebner, 2003).

Study Hypotheses

  1. 1.

    Similar to Diener and Seligman’s (2002) study with adults, it was expected that high life satisfaction would be beneficial for adolescents. Youth reporting such satisfaction levels would report significantly higher levels of positive functioning on the academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal measures compared to youth reporting low levels of global life satisfaction.

  2. 2.

    Adolescents reporting high levels of life satisfaction would also report more positive academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal functioning than youth reporting average levels of life satis-faction.

METHOD

Sample

Four hundred ninety students in two schools from two separate districts in two Southeastern states participated in the study. Both schools contained grades 6 through 12. There were 83 sixth-graders, 72 seventh-graders, 68 eighth-graders, 75 ninth-graders, 68 tenth-graders, 66 eleventh-graders, and 57 twelfth-graders. Fifty-four percent of the sample was male, and the sample was comprised of 87% Caucasian (versus 2% Asian-American, 2% African-American, 3% Hispanic-American, and 6% “Other”) students. The mean age of the sample was 14.45 (SD=2.12). Approximately 4% of the sample was considered to represent the lower socio-economic status, as measured by free/reduced lunch eligibility. Because this research was aimed at individual differences in satisfaction among a general (i.e., non-clinical) sample of youth, students known to be diagnosed with learning and/or emotional disorders were excluded from the study.

Procedure

Approval to collect data was secured from the university institutional review board, both school districts and from each school’s principal. Only those students who returned a completed parent consent form and provided written assent were eligible to participate in the study. Criterion for admission to one public school was participation in university research projects, and thus all students participated in the study (N=341). The other public school (N=320) did not have this admission criterion. One hundred and forty-nine students from this school returned both permission forms, yielding a 47% consent rate. Preliminary analyses found no statistically significant mean score differences on any of the variables across school setting. Thus, the data were combined as one group.

The eligible students from each school gathered in their cafeteria and completed the instruments. All students were instructed to sit at least two seats apart from their peers, and the instruments were administered in counterbalanced order. Further, at least one teacher/administrator and research assistant was assigned to a specific testing location in order to monitor the students’ behavior and to help answer questions. These strategies were designed to reduce potential order and/or social desirability effects. Finally, the first author was available to answer any student questions.

Measures

Global Life Satisfaction

The Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale (SSLS: Huebner, 1991) is a 7-item self report measure designed to assess global life satisfaction for youth in grades 3 through 12. Students rated their agreement to the items on a 6-point Likert scale (1: strongly disagree, 2: disagree, 3: slightly disagree, 4: slightly agree, 5: agree, 6: strongly agree). Scoring of the SLSS involves reverse-keying negatively worded items, adding all item responses, and dividing by the total number of items. Higher scores denote higher global satisfaction. Previous studies using the SLSS have demonstrated adequate psychometric properties, including coefficient alphas in the 0.80 range, evidence of convergent and discriminant validity, and support of the underlying factor structure via exploratory and confirmatory analysis (see Gilman and Huebner, 2000). In this study, the internal consistency of the SLSS was 0.88. The mean score was 4.78 (SD=1.05), consistent with what has been reported in previous research (McKnight et al., 2002).

The Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC: Reynolds and Kamphaus, 1992) was used to assess a wide range of academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal dimensions. The BASC is a 186-item self-report instrument that contains four adaptive subscales (which measure positive adjustment) and ten clinical subscales (which measure maladjustment). Items comprising each subscale are dichotomously score (yes/no) and are then summed to yield a standardized T-score. All BASC protocols were computer scored in this study, which yields standardized T-scores for each subscale but does not compute reliability estimates. Nevertheless, the mean scores of all BASC subscales were similar to what is reported in the BASC manual. In addition, the BASC also contains three validity indices to detect careless and specious responding. While the vast majority (99%) reported T-scores that were within the acceptable range, protocols for five youth had one or more of the validity indices in the Extreme Caution.

In addition to select BASC variables (described below), other variables in the study were as follows:

Academic Variables

Grade Point Average (GPA)

Cumulative GPA was obtained by asking students to report their GPA since their entry into either middle school or high school. Mean GPA across all grades was computed because it was believed to be more reliable than GPAs obtained from one or two selective courses. Self-reported GPAs ranged from 1.20 to 4.0 (M=3.36, SD=0.58). Analyses of the distribution of scores revealed a slight negative skew, although the skew and kurtosis of the distribution did not significantly depart from normal. Although district policy precluded gathering actual GPA, self-reported GPA was almost identical to each school’s grade-point distribution.

Structured Extracurricular Activities (SEAs)

Students were asked to list the specific extracurricular activities that they have participated in since their enrollment in either middle school or high school. Based upon previous SEA definitions (Mahoney, 2000), only those activities that contained some semblance of structure and active participation were included in the analyses. Passive activities such as television viewing were excluded. All extracurricular activities were coded as simple frequency counts and analyzed independently. The total number (678), and the median number of SEAs (3.00, SD=2.33) was consistent with previous research (Gilman, 2001).

Negative Perceived School Experiences

The BASC Attitudes to School subscale (12 items) and the Attitudes to Teachers subscale (13 items) were administered to assess youths’ general opinion of their school experiences and quality of teachers and/or school administrators. Both subscales measure school maladjustment, and thus higher T-scores denote greater negative experiences with the schooling process and/or school personnel. The BASC manual reports internal consistency estimates ranging from 0.79 to 0.82 for adolescents. The mean score for the Attitudes to School subscale in this study was 51.72 (SD=9.88) and 49.87 (SD=9.68) for the Attitudes to Teachers subscale.

Interpersonal Mental Health Indicators

The Parent Relations and the Interpersonal Relations subscales of the BASC (12 and 18 items, respectively) were used to assess the perceived quality of interactions with respect to parents, peers, and adults, while the Social Stress subscale (18 items) was used to assess the degree of chronic stress that the youth experiences when interacting with others. Both the Interpersonal Relations and Parent Relations are adaptive subscales, with higher T-scores denoting greater satisfaction in their relationships with others. The Social Stress subscale is a clinical indicator, with higher T-scores indicating greater levels of tension in relating to others. Coefficient alphas are adequate, with internal consistencies ranging from 0.77 (Parent Relations) to 0.88 (Social Stress) for adolescents (Reynolds and Kamphaus, 1992). The mean score for the Parent Relations subscale was 49.37 (SD=10.36) and 51.45 (SD=9.06) for the Interpersonal Relations subscale. The mean score for the Social Stress subscale was 48.58 (SD=9.14).

Table I. Intercorrelations of all Variables in the Study
Full size table

Intrapersonal Mental Health Indicators

Hope

The Children’s Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1997) was used to assess youths’ capacity to (a) develop specific strategies to reach personal goals (pathways) and (b) initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (agency). Although the majority of hope research has utilized adult samples, recent findings have demonstrated the unique contribution of hope to positive mental health among youth, including its theoretical relationship with life satisfaction (Snyder et al., 2003). The scale consists of six items based on a 7-point Likert scale, with three items each comprising the Pathways and Agency subscales. Scores range from 6 to 42 for each item. All items are summed to yield a mean Total score. Because the pathways and agency components are necessary to sustain successful goal pursuit (Irving et al., 1998), only the Total hope score was analyzed in this study. Previous studies with the Children’s Hope Scale revealed adequate psychometric properties, including good internal consistencies ranging between 0.72 and 0.86 for the subscale and Total scale, and evidence of convergent and discriminant validity (see Snyder et al., 2003 for a review). In this study, the coefficient alpha for the Total hope score was 0.88, and the mean score was 26.29 (SD=5.59).

Self-Esteem, Locus of Control, Depression and Anxiety were all measured via select BASC subscales. The Self-Esteem subscale (8 items) assesses both physical and global characteristics of self-esteem. The Locus of Control subscale (16 items) assesses the degree to which youth believe that events are controlled by external events or others. Both the Depression (19 items) and Anxiety (20 items) subscales are designed to measure chronic levels of each construct. The Self-Esteem subscale is an indicator of positive adjustment, while the other three subscales are clinical subscales. The BASC manual reports that the alpha coefficients range from 0.81 (Locus of Control) to 0.89 (Depression) among adolescent youth (Reynolds and Kamphaus, 1992). The mean scores for the four subscales were: Self-Esteem (M=49.19, SD=8.91), Locus of Control (M=50.13, SD=9.88), Depression (M=49.24, SD=7.77), and Anxiety (M=48.31, SD=9.74).

Designation of Life Satisfaction Groups

Examination of the scoring distribution of all measures was conducted prior to group placement to assess for outliers and to test for multivariate normality. All scores were first transformed to standardized z-scores. Based on recommendations by Stevens (1996), z-scores greater than ±4.00 were excluded from the data. Five youth had scores that exceeded this criterion. These youth were the same youth who had one or more BASC validity indices in the Extreme Caution range and thus these youth were excluded from further analyses. There was no significant departure from normality on any of the variables in the study, with the skewness and kurtosis all within acceptable limits (i.e., less than 2.0; Lomax, 2001). Pearson bivariate correlations and descriptive statistics were then computed for all measures. As shown in Table I, the intercorrelations were significant but also moderate, with global satisfaction significantly and positively related to all BASC adaptive subscales (i.e., Interpersonal Relations, Parent Relations, Self-Esteem) as well as hope, SEA participation and GPA. Global satisfaction was also a significant negative but moderate correlate with various forms of psychological and interpersonal distress. Such findings indicate that the variables in the study, although sharing some degree of variance, nevertheless assess separable constructs (see Stevens, 1996).

Similar to previous studies that have coded unidimensional SWB ratings into discrete categories (Irving et al., 1998), the highest and lowest 20% of the SLSS global mean score distribution was selected to reflect the “high” and “low” end of the satisfaction continuum. In comparison with these groups, youth from the middle 50th percentile of the satisfaction distribution were selected as reporting “average” global satisfaction. Eighty-eight youth (46 males, 42 females) were placed in the low satisfaction group, 252 youth (140 males, 112 females) were placed in the average satisfaction group, and 98 youth (52 males, 46 females) were placed in the high satisfaction group. The mean (and standard deviation) of the global satisfaction score for each category was: Low (M=2.85, SD=0.69), Average (M=4.61, SD=0.40), and High (M=5.72, SD=0.21). No significant gender placement difference was found across the satisfaction groups, Kruskal–Wallis = 0.36, p > 0.05. It should be noted that not every participant fully completed the BASC, which resulted in a listwise deletion of some items and rendering an incomplete score on the corresponding subtests. The BASC data were analyzed independently to account for the lower sample size, as the number of students in the low satisfaction group was reduced to 72 students in the low satisfaction group (37 males, 35 females), 225 youth in the average satisfaction group (129 males, 96 females), and 87 youth in the high satisfaction group (44 males, 43 females).

A 2 (gender) × 3 (satisfaction groups) multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine response differences across all dependent variables with respect to gender. There was no significant gender effect, Pillai’s Trace = 0.08, F(12, 346) = 0.28, p > 0.05, nor was there a significant gender-by-satisfaction group interaction, Pillai’s Trace = 0.02, F(12, 346) = 0.30, p > 0.05, indicating that males and females reported equivalent levels of each dependent variable within each satisfaction group. A separate 8 (grade)×3 (satisfaction groups) MANOVA found a significant grade effect, Pillai’s Trace = 0.55, F(12, 333) = 2.41, p < 0.05, although the multivariate effect size (ή 2) was considered small (0.08). With the significance level Bonferroni-corrected to .004 (0.05/12) to control for Type I errors, follow-up univariate tests revealed that SEA participation was the only significant finding, F(7, 361)=3.16, p < 0.004, with youth in the highest grades (i.e., grades 11 and 12) reporting that they participated in more SEAs than the youth in the earliest grades represented in the study (i.e., grades 6 and 7) (M=4.63, SD=0.41, and M=2.51, SD=0.38, respectively). Although there was a statistically significant grade-by-satisfaction group interaction, Pillai’s Trace = 0.88, F(14, 338)=1.91, p < 0.05, ή 2=0.07, no significant univariate F-test was found after again correcting the alpha to .004. In general, considering that (a) there were no gender differences, (b) the multivariate effect sizes for the significant grade and grade-by-satisfaction group results were quite small, and (c) there were no grade differences across the vast majority of variables, the data were analyzed collectively.

RESULTS

Intercorrelations calculated separately for each satisfaction group found that with the exception of two non-significant correlations specific to the high satisfaction group (Parent Relations, r = −0.11 and Self-Esteem, r = −0.09), all correlations with global satisfaction were in the expected direction and were moderate at best. The highest degree of shared variance was found on the Total hope score for all three satisfaction groups, with these correlations significant (at the 0.05 level) and ranging from 0.35 (average satisfaction group) to 0.47 (for both the low and high satisfaction groups). In addition to the hope construct, correlations among the low satisfaction group ranged from 0.13 (Interpersonal Relations) to −0.45 (Depression). Among the average satisfaction group, correlations ranged from −0.02 (Anxiety) to −0.25 (Social Stress), and the correlations for the high satisfaction group ranged from .01 (GPA) to −0.23 (Attitude to School). These findings suggest that although there was some degree of overlap, the associations were not of a magnitude to warrant concern that the dependent variables were assessing the same construct. Further, the finding that the correlations were in the expected directions across all three satisfaction groups provides support for the sensitivity of global satisfaction to assess various dimensions at different levels.

Two separate MANOVAs were conducted to account for the different numbers of youth who completed the instruments. In the first analysis, the three life satisfaction groups served as the independent variables and the BASC subscales served as the dependent variables. A separate MANOVA was conducted, with the global satisfaction groups again serving as the independent variable and hope, GPA and SEAs serving as the dependent variables. For the BASC variables, a significant main effect was found, Pillai’s Trace=0.48, F(9, 374)=13.43, p < 0.001, η 2=0.24. A significant main effect was also found for the remaining variables in the study, Pillai’s Trace=0.37, F(3, 407)=30.87, p < 0.001, η 2=0.19.

All variables were then categorized and labeled as school, interpersonal, or intrapersonal variables to facilitate ease of interpretation, and analysis of each univariate F-test was Bonferroni corrected to 0.003 to correct for Type I errors. Table II reports the means and standard deviations. On every measure in the study, youth reporting high global satisfaction reported significantly higher scores than youth reporting low global satisfaction. The strongest magnitude of difference was found on depression and hope. In addition, relative to youth reporting average global life satisfaction, youth in the high satisfaction group reported significantly higher scores on measures of hope, self-esteem, and (internal) locus of control as well as lower scores on measures of social stress, anxiety, depression, and (negative) attitudes toward teachers. Students reporting average global satisfaction were similar to youth in the high satisfaction group on measures of general attitudes towards school, GPA, SEA involvement, parent relations, and interpersonal relations. Finally, the scores of youth with average global life satisfaction were significantly different from those for the youth in the low satisfaction group on all measures, with scores reported by the low satisfaction group reflecting more maladaptive functioning.

Table II. Means (and Standard Deviations) of the Three Global Satisfaction Groups on School, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal Variables
Full size table

Although mean scores reported in the above analyses revealed significant differences across global satisfaction groups, they may conceal the number of youth in the high or average satisfaction groups who may have reported elevated T-scores that would be considered “clinically” significant. Analysis of the number of youth reporting clinically significant T-scores may provide another perspective with which to investigate the psychological and behavioral ramifications of having high (versus low and average) levels of global satisfaction. For this analysis, the BASC Social Stress, Depression and Anxiety subscales (referred to as the SAD triad) were used considering that elevated T-scores (65 or higher) on all three subscales indicate “severe emotional disturbance characterized by depression with great tension and severe, acute distress” (Reynolds and Kamphaus, 1992, p. 64). Sixteen youth (7%) in the average satisfaction group and 30 youth (42%) in the low satisfaction group scored in the clinically significant range on the SAD triad. In comparison, no youth from the high satisfaction group reported clinically significant T-scores on the triad.

DISCUSSION

As expected, the results of this study demonstrated that youth reporting high global life satisfaction also reported significantly higher scores on all measures of academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal functioning than youth reporting low life satisfaction. Youth reporting high global satisfaction reported more positive relationships with others (including peers and parents), less intrapersonal distress (such as anxiety and depression), higher levels of hope, and a greater sense of personal control than youth reporting low global satisfaction. Such findings suggest that high levels of life satisfaction and various indices of positive behavioral and psychological adjustment are interrelated. The present findings also parallel previous studies investigating global satisfaction levels among adults (Dear et al., 2002; Diener and Seligman, 2002), suggesting that this interrelationship begins as early as adolescence. Further, and with respect to school variables, students with high life satisfaction reported more positive school experiences, a greater frequency of SEA participation, and higher GPAs than students with low satisfaction. These findings reveal that high life satisfaction is associated with positive academic experiences and also suggest important conceptual connections between life satisfaction and school context factors, not suggested by other studies (e.g., Huebner, 1991). Thus, future researchers may wish to expand the range of school-related variables that are investigated in studies of life satisfaction in youth (e.g., teacher attitudes, children’s school identification, academic engagement) (see Baker et al., 2003).

Results of this study also support the importance of assessing the full range of life satisfaction judgments, including distinctions between average and higher levels of life satisfaction. As hypothesized, youth who reported high satisfaction also reported significantly less social stress and intrapersonal distress, and significantly more positive perceptions of teachers than youth who reported average satisfaction levels. These findings suggest that there may be “critical cutoffs” related to global life satisfaction that are associated with particular psychological and behavioral benefits that are not found among youth reporting average or normative levels of global satisfaction. Further support was provided by the differential frequencies of students who self-reported “clinically significant” levels of behavior problems.

Although the study yielded a number of important results, limitations are to be noted. First, the study was cross-sectional, which precluded determining the direction of the relationship between life satisfaction and the dependent measures in this study. It may be that life satisfaction influences interpersonal, intrapersonal, and/or academic behaviors. Nevertheless, it may also be the case that interpersonal, intrapersonal, and/or academic behaviors influence the levels of life satisfaction of these youth. Studies of an experimental and/or longitudinal nature are necessary to determine the direction of causality. Second, the data were based on self-reports, which may yield method variance concerns. Third, some youth may have been less than honest in their responses. Although the study attempted to control for the latter concern by including only BASC protocols with acceptable validity indices, it could not account for some youth who may have maintained a “defensive denial of distress” (Friedman et al., 2002, p. 357). Using multiple raters (e.g., parents, peers) and methods (e.g., physiological data) is the necessary next step in this line of research. Finally, self-reported GPA was collected, which again may introduce the possibility of response bias. Although (a) the procedure used to obtain the data was quite controlled, (b) the skew and kurtosis of self-reported GPA were within the normal range of score distributions, (c) self-reported GPA has been shown to be a reliable and valid measure in other studies (Anderman and Johnston, 1998), and (d) the data obtained were identical to the actual GPA distribution from each school, obtaining permanent products (e.g., actual GPA) is necessary to corroborate these findings. Finally, the results of this study were based on a sample that was primarily composed of Caucasian students from the USA. Additional studies with students from different racial and cultural backgrounds are necessary to determine the generalizability of the findings.

This study reflected key strengths as well. Most notable was the significant response differences across various school, interpersonal and intrapersonal variables by students reporting different levels of global satisfaction. Consistent with previous findings (Gilman and Huebner, 2003), youth reporting low life satisfaction reported higher levels of interpersonal and intrapersonal distress, and less positive academic experiences than youth reporting higher levels of life satisfaction. In addition, a unique finding of this study was that high global life satisfaction was associated with greater adaptation across various facets of academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal functioning than comparatively lower satisfaction levels, including even average satisfaction. This finding is consistent with studies that have investigated various levels of other SWB constructs, including hope (Snyder, 2002), positive affect (Friedman et al., 2002), and happiness (Diener and Seligman, 2002) and their relationship with mental health indicators. Taken together, these findings suggest further support for the notion that relatively high levels of global life satisfaction may serve as a key psychological strength towards optimal human functioning.