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Life Satisfaction.

Abstract.

The most dominant measurement of life satisfaction has been the Satisfaction With life scale that was invented more than 30 years ago. A new measurement of life satisfaction is ought to be created that measures the indirect indicators of life satisfaction to vast the measurement and add an account for the consent bias. The Riverside Life Satisfaction Scale is used to give an appropriate item measure of life satisfaction as it produced validity and reliability evidence. This measure of scale also maintained test-retest reliability, un-dimensionality of the Satisfaction With Life Scale, and high internal consistency. Furthermore, other wellbeing measures are correlated with the Riverside Life Satisfaction scale. The scale correlates with also values, big personality traits, and demographic information. The efficiency of the Riverside Life Satisfaction Scale is highly effective in measuring life satisfaction because it is believed to increase the construct bandwidth and reducing the bias in the measurement.

Introduction.

In this report, life satisfaction is based on two variables, if the participant involved owns a pet, and if the participant involved engages in weekly exercises, and the intensity of the exercise. Various methods are used to engage participants that cooperated with the research. The first variable, whether the owner of a pet affected the life satisfaction of individuals was asked for research. Using the methods to collect data, the various options to answer this question of pet ownership were either yes or no. The hypothesis question of this scenario was if pet ownership increases the life satisfaction of the participants. The second variable investigated in this report was the involvement in weekly exercise by the participants. The answer to this question of the level of involvement of weekly exercise was either low or high. The hypothesis question in this scenario was if the level of weekly exercise increases the life satisfaction of the participants.

Method.

Participants.

The number of participants recruited from a U.K based service, called Prolific Academy was 460. This Academy is responsible for connecting researchers with online participants. Most participants came from the United States. The participants rendered to be elderly were not put into consideration. 78% of the participants were from the United States. The participants ranged from 15 to 65 years old, and around half of the participants were females (51%). The majority of the participants were Christians (30%) and nonreligious (50%). The median education level of the participants was an undergraduate degree. 55% of the sample used were in a relationship. About 50% of our sample participants were employed on a full-time basis when only 25 percent were employed on a part-time basis.

Procedures.

The title used by the Prolific Academy to describe our study was the life Satisfactory Survey. They issued a note that $3 will be given to any participant that completes the survey. After three weeks, the number of participants recruited was 250. After removing non-respondent, the final number of participants that completed the life satisfaction pool was 214.

Materials.

All measures that occurred during the first assessment got administered. The other extra measures were irrelevant to the survey but still got administered.

Life satisfaction item pool.

23 items were created so that life satisfaction can be captured in two ways. Firstly, we developed nine items that were direct concerning life satisfaction. For example, “I like how my life is progressing” and “I am satisfied with my life in general.” The second way was creating 14 reverse scored and indirect items. These items are responsible for assessing the envious lives of the participants wishing that one had a desire to change their life or make different decisions.

Satisfaction With Life Scale.

The participants had finished their Satisfactory with Life Scale that asks direct questions regarding life satisfaction. For example, “mostly my life is relatively ideal,” or “my life is satisfactory.” These answers got given on a seven-point Likert scale.

Affect.

The negative and positive affect were measured using an improved version of the Affect-Adjacent Scale. In this case, the participants rated the extent to which they felt emotions. I.e., pleased, anxious, worried, over the past weeks on the seven-pointers Likert scale. To make sure that both the low and high arousal emotions are included, three low-arousal items were also included (calm/relaxed, peaceful, bored, dull, and serene.). The affect balance score is calculated by reverse-scoring the negative items in effect then calculating the mean of all items in effect.

Happiness.

The Subjective Happiness Scale got completed by the participants that ask the participants about their level of happiness. In this case, happiness is not defined in the level of happiness. For example, the item can ask, “compared with my peers, I consider myself.” with the anchors of “happier” and “less happy.” This particular measure also uses the seven-point Likert scale.

Psychological well-being.

The 18-item type of the Psychological Well-Being Scale is used, which is considered to measure the aspects of eudemonia (environmental mastery, autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, purpose in life, and positive relations to others). The items are rated on a six-point Likert scale and are subjective, “Maintaining close relationships is difficult for me” and “I like to be influenced by individuals with greater views.

Big Five personality trait.

The Big Five inventory got administered (BFI-2; Soto & John, 2007), which computes every five traits using the three facets and uses a five-point Likert Scale.

Demographic characteristics.

The demographic information of our respondents got provided by the Prolific Academy. The analysis used variables: sex (dichotomous), age (continuous), household income (ordinal, 12 levels), personal income (ordinal, 12 levels), personal income (ordinal, 12 levels), relationship status (dichotomous), and education (ordinal, six-level). The question regarding the relationship status included response options that were made to collapse to create a better interpretable dichotomous variable. The respondents who gave their relationship status as married or being in a relationship got given a score of 1, while the respondents that gave their relationship status as divorced, single, never married, widowed, single or separated, were given the score of 0.

Missing data.

The missing rate of the demographic variable used to analyze features is 20%, and there was zero data input. The other measurements had a missing rate of 0.1% while the data was input by the use of predictive mean matching using five iterations. In every missing cell, the five cases with no missing value for the respective variable were found. One of the cases was selected randomly and the score of the case that has the missing variable was imputed on the missing cell.

Results.

The first parametric assumption in the statistical test was the assumption of normality. In this test, the statistical data are tested if they are normally distributed. The first parameter researched, the satisfaction of life by participants with pet ownership had the following statistics:

Life Satisfaction with no pets:

Mean = 25.715

Standard deviation= 6.82057

Skewness= -0.132

Kurtosis = 0.537

Life Satisfaction with pets.

Mean = 34.5905

Standard deviation = 4.25779

Skewness= -0.364

Kurtosis = -0.828

For the normality assumptions to be true, the skewness should range between + or – 2, while the Kurtosis should range between + or – 7. The data however does not meet these requirements for the assumption of normality to be true. Therefore, the parametric assumption of normality is not true.

Life Satisfaction with lower exercise rate.

Mean= 29.1468

Standard deviation = 7.80767

Skewness= -0.359

Kurtosis = -0.597

Life Satisfaction with high exercise rate.

Mean= 31.0286

Standard deviation = 6.46657

Skewness= -0.828

Kurtosis = 0.208

For the normality assumptions to be true, the skewness should range between + or – 2, while the Kurtosis should range between + or – 7. This data, therefore, does not support the requirements for the assumptions to be true. Therefore the data is of the life satisfaction of individuals engaging in exercises or not are normally distributed.

The second assumption is the assumption of homogeneity of variance. This test is used to determine if the variables in the test users have equal variances. Levene’s test is used to determine whether the test has an equal variance. For the assumptions to be met, the test should not be significant.

Life satisfaction with no pets: Variance = 46.520

Life satisfaction with pets: Variance = 18.129

Life satisfaction with lower exercise rate: Variance = 60.960

Life satisfaction with high exercise rate: Variance = 41.816

Levene’s test above is not significant. Therefore the assumption of homogeneity of variance is met.

The other method of determining if the assumption is met is by checking the histogram for the bell-shaped curve, then divide the skewness statistics by its standard error, and the Kurtosis statistics by its standard error. If the boundaries within the skewness t are within -2.58 and + 2.58 and for -2 and +2 for Kurtosis, then the assumption is met. If the value falls outside the given boundaries, then the assumption is violated.

Satisfaction with life for individuals with and without a pet. (Table 1)

	Skewness	Kurtosis
	Statistic	S/E	Value	Assumption Satisfied Y/N	Statistic	S/E	Value	Assumption Satisfied Y/N
Without Pet	-0.132	0.231	-1.35	Y	-0.537	0.41552	-1.29	Y
With Pet	-0.364	0.236	-1.54	Y	-0.828	0.467	-1.773	Y

In the histogram containing life satisfaction for participants having a pet, the assumptions are met. This is because the values got after dividing the skewness with its standard error have a value that lies between the boundaries of -2.58 and + 2.58, and the value got after dividing the Kurtosis with its standard error, the value got was between the boundary of -2 and +2.

The same result occurs to the histogram containing the life satisfaction for participants with no pets. The assumption is therefore met.

Satisfaction with life for participants who engage in exercise. (Table 2)

	Skewness	Kurtosis
	Statistic	S/E	Value	Assumption Satisfied Y/N	Statistic	S/E	Value	Assumption Satisfied Y/N
Low	-0.359	0.231	-1.55	Y	-0.597	0.459	-1.3	Y
High	-0.828	0.236	-3.51	N	0.208	0.467	0.445	Y

In the histogram containing the Life satisfaction for participants engaging in low exercise, the assumptions are met. This is because the values got (-1.55) after dividing the skewness with its standard error have a value that lies between the boundaries of -2.58 and + 2.58, and the value got (-1.3) after dividing the Kurtosis with its standard error, the value got was between the boundary of -2 and +2.

In the histogram containing the Life Satisfactory for participants engaging in high exercises, the assumptions are violated. This is because the value got (-3.51) after dividing the skewness of the statistic with its standard error, the value got (-3.59) does not lie between the boundaries of -2.58 and + 2.58.

Boxplot for life satisfaction by participants with and without pet ownership. (Figure 1)

(figure 1) above shows the boxplot of the data containing the satisfaction with the life of participants with and without pets.

The boxplot of the participants with No pets shows that it is positively skewed. The boxplot does not have any outliers.

The boxplot for the participants with pets is a normal distribution. This is because the medium lies between the middle of the box plot. There are however no outliers or extreme values in this box pot.

Boxplot for life satisfaction by participants engaging in exercise. (Figure 2)

The boxplot for participants engaging in low exercises is positively skewed. The boxplot however does not have any outlier or extreme values.

The boxplot for participants engaging in high exercise activities is negatively skewed. The boxplot however has an outlier, having a value of 143.

Discussion.

The variables used that were used to determine the Life Satisfaction: pet ownership and the intensity of exercises per week by the participants were used to determine if they increase the Life satisfaction of the participants. According to the boxplot results, the participants with pet ownership had a higher Life Satisfaction rate than the participants with no pet ownership. This data that therefore supports my hypothesis that pet ownership can increase the rate of Life Satisfaction of individuals. According to the boxplot results, the participants who involved themselves in high-intensity exercises have a higher Life Satisfaction than the participants who have low-intensity exercises weekly. This data, therefore, supports my hypothesis that high intensity of exercises by individuals increases the Life Satisfactory. The presence of an outlier in the boxplot however shows that some individuals van be having higher intensity exercises but still experience a lower Life Satisfactory.

Life Satisfaction can be explained psychologically according to our results. In pet ownership, pets are an important part of their owner’s lives. Research shows that pet ownership helps to reduce the stress of life and increase life satisfaction. Pets can also help their owners to have a source of comfort. They help to avoid loneliness by their owner, as the owner usually sees the pets as their friends. Some pets, provide a source of security to their owner, thus their owners feel more secure with their pets in the houses. Researchers from different categories such as medicine, psychology, business management, nursing, counseling, and sociology have focused on the degree to which the relationship between pets and their owners can affect many factors, such as health status, happy life, quality life, and life satisfaction.

Life Satisfaction concerning exercising has been researched by many researchers from different disciplines. According to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies, at the Institute of Education, people who exercise regularly are highly likely to become satisfied with their lives. There are various reasons why exercise can give satisfaction in people’s lives. During physical exercises, the endorphin hormone is released which makes people feel more positive and happy. Physical exercises also have a social benefit. During sports, the individuals involved can create and build social networks and friendships through sports. However, studies have shown that individuals should not be forced or pressured to involve themselves with sports, because when they grow up they might not involve themselves with that sport anymore, or they may lose interest in the sport.

Conclusion.

The ownership of pets is crucial in people’s lives to enhance higher life satisfaction. The presence of a pet in a person’s life can help the person combat depression, loneliness, and stress. They also provide comfort to the owner, while other pets like dogs provide security for the owners. The ownership of a pet, therefore, increases life satisfaction.

Involvement in high-intensity exercise is crucial in people’s lives to enhance their life satisfaction. Engaging in exercises is proven to produce a hormone called endorphin, which makes people feel happier and positive in life. Physical exercise also increases the self-esteem of individuals. The involvement in the high intensity of exercises can therefore increase the Life Satisfactory.

It is therefore recommended that individuals should possess a pet in their life to increase their life satisfaction, as the presence of pets has proven to have various psychological and social benefits.

It is also recommended that people should involve themselves with high-intensity exercises, to improve their life satisfaction. This will be possible as engagement in physical exercise has proven to have both psychological and social benefits.

References.

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Testing of Assumptions – Statistics Solutions. (2021). Retrieved 16 March 2021, from https://www.statisticssolutions.com/testing-of-assumptions/

Allen, K. (2021). Pets and Quality of Life. Retrieved 16 March 2021, from https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-0753-5_2157

Exercise can lead to a more satisfied life, new research finds. (2021). Retrieved 16 March 2021, from https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2017/jul/exercise-can-lead-more-satisfied-life-new-research-finds#:~:text=People%20who%20exercise%20regularly%20are,Institute%20of%20Education%20(IOE).&text=Exercising%20at%20least%20once%20a,men’s%20life%20satisfaction%20than%20women’s.