Book Review QQL

8/3/2019 Book Review QQL

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Book review

The Psychology of Quality of Life

By M.J. Sirgy, Social Indicators Research Series, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The

Netherlands, 2002, 296 pp, ISBN: 1-4020-0800-7, price D120/$132/£83 (hardback)

What are happiness, well-being, and quality of life,

and how are they created and maintained? Ironi-

cally, psychology has been later than other social

sciences to take up these questions, perhaps

because our naissance as a field was so stimulatedby the darker side of human experience: by

shell-shock, psychopathology, and the drive to

understand the secret workings of the unconscious

mind. And also because of the influence of radical

behaviorism, for which anything subjective and

not objectively observable was suspect as unsci-

entific. In spite of the fact that the question of

happiness has not been central to our field, there is

considerable literature on the subject. Dr. Sirgy’s

book, The Psychology of Quality of Life (2002),

tries to provide a well-digested synthesis of this

massive literature, building on Wilson’s (1968)

theory of avowed happiness [1]. This theory pos-

tulates, in Dr. Sirgy’s paraphrasing, ‘‘the fulfill-

ment of needs causes happiness, whereas the

persistence of unfulfilled needs causes unhappi-

ness. The degree of need fulfillment required to

produce satisfaction depends on the adaptation

level of the needs, which is influenced by past

experience, comparisons with others, personal

values, among others.’’ (Preface, p. xi.)

Dr. Sirgy has a lot to say, and he has obviously

devoted a great deal of effort to saying it. This

book is a compendium of the psychological

mechanisms that create and sustain well-being. Itbelongs much more squarely in the field of social

indicators research and cognitive psychology than

to personality theory. You won’t find reference to

mastering unconscious drives, or dealing with

neurotic misery. Neither is there much discussion

about health-related quality of life, although there

is much that psychotherapists can learn here about

helping their clients to improve the quality of their

lives. Those who research quality of life as it

relates to health, as most of the readers of this

journal do, will find much that is unfamiliar and

therefore potentially useful to them in this book,

particularly around those mechanisms that con-

tribute to global health perceptions.

The book is organized into four sections,including the Introduction, with sections on inter-

domain strategies (bottom-up spillover, top-down

spillover, horizontal spillover, compensation),

intra-domain strategies (re-evaluation based on

personal history, re-evaluation based on self-

concept, re-evaluation based on social compari-

son, goal selection, goal implementation and

attainment, and re-appraisal) and inter- and intra-

domain strategies (balance). In addition, there is a

very useful appendix that simply lists all the

strategies described in the book and their defini-

tions.

For those to whom this terminology is unfa-

miliar, Dr. Sirgy does take the time to define these

terms. For example, inter-domain strategies are

‘‘personal growth strategies that focus on manip-

ulating psychological aspects dealing with the

inter-relationships among life domains.’’ Using a

conceptualization of life domains that arranges life

domains in a hierarchy from more specific to more

global, bottom-up spillover, for example, refers to

the process by which affect travels up the hierarchy

of life domains. This is done in a compensatory

manner such that negative affect in one domain is

offset by positive affect in another. What thismeans is that overall subjective well-being is

influenced by various, more narrow aspects of life

such as self-esteem, satisfaction with work life,

satisfaction with health, income, etc. Of course, the

salience of each domain will determine the influ-

ence of the affect elicited by experiences in that

domain on overall life satisfaction. (In wealthy

countries, income level contributes less to positive

well-being in general than it does in poor coun-

tries, because material deprivation is more salient

Quality of Life Research (2005) 14: 1439–1441DOI 10.1007/s11136-005-2383-0



in poor countries. Health matters more to those

who don’t have it than to those who do.)The book is strongest when Dr. Sirgy is focusing

on review – his reference list is a great resource for

those interested in learning more about happiness

and well-being. The introductory chapters on

definitions of happiness in its various forms (e.g.,

Haybron’s conceptualization of psychological,

prudential, and perfectionist happiness [2]), and

the distinctions between happiness, life satisfac-

tion, and quality of life are quite useful. For

example, life satisfaction is a cognitive conceptu-

alization, an appraisal, of happiness. Happiness is

an affective construct while life satisfaction is acognitive one. Subjective well-being is an umbrella

concept that includes both happiness and life

satisfaction, and is actually made up of three

components: (a) ‘‘subjective well-being is an

enduring. . .affective state that is made of . . .three

components: actual experience of happiness. . .in

salient life domains, (b) actual experience of

. . .cumulative negative affect. . .in salient life

domains, and (c) evaluations of one’s overall

life. . ..’’ This kind of clarity well serves our field,

which is so often plagued with definitional problems.

The Psychology of Quality of Life describes a

number of psychological processes elucidating

how well-being is created and maintained. There

are many interesting observations, such as about

why Blacks have been shown to have slightly

higher self-esteem than Whites, or why married

women are happier than married men, or a dis-

cussion about sensitization vs. adaptation to

hedonic stimuli. Why does one adapt to hedonic

stimuli such that certain both positive and negative

experiences become less keenly felt over time (for

example, getting behind the wheel of a new car or

listening to a new song)? Why does one become

sensitized to other stimuli so that repeated expo-sures and familiarity result in increased enjoyment

(e.g., appreciation of moldy cheese, appreciation

for fine wines, enthusiasm for opera, suddenly

hearing an old song on the radio that one wasn’t

particularly fond of when it came out 20 years

ago)? The discussion of these questions is a good

example of the nuggets of insight one can find in

this book. ‘‘The sensitisation principle reiterates

what most parents believe about children and

cultural events. They feel justified to drag their

children to symphony, the opera, or any other

cultural event. Even though their children are not

likely to enjoy the event, in time they will grow todevelop a taste for it. . .this is what most parents

hope will happen. Well, the sensitisation principle

tells us in [sic] that it depends. It depends on the

person’s mood at the time the child initially

experiences the event.’’ (p. 115)

A full understanding of the concepts and

mechanisms discussed in this book requires a cer-

tain background familiarity with the literature.

However, even with such a background, the

material can be slow going. Some of the well-being

mechanisms he elucidates seem hardly distin-

guishable from each other. For example, the dis-tinctions between bottom-up and top-down

spillover are blurry. Top-down spillover refers to

the process by which a sense of overall positive

well-being ‘‘spills over’’ into subordinate life

domains. Of course, this would not have a direct

influence on quality of life – it is the affect gener-

ated in each domain that then flows back up to

influence overall quality of life. Isn’t this bottom-up

spillover? Furthermore, he takes common sense

and lays a cloak of jargon over it – some of the

strategies seem obvious once understood. For

example: ‘‘Balance between life domains serves to

enhance subjective well being. Balance involves

increasing the salience of negative and positive life

domains. Increasing the salience of a negative

domains serves to heighten motivation to take

future action to increase satisfaction in that

domain. In contrast, increasing the salience of

positive life domains serves to generate more

positive affect to compensate for the increased

negative affect – resulting from the increased sal-

ience of the negative life domain.’’ (The Principle

of Balance Between Life Domains, p. 205) This

means simply, don’t invest yourself too heavily in

one life domain at the expense of others. Wouldn’this point have been communicated more clearly

with the use of simpler language?

Although beyond the scope of this book, it

would have been interesting for Dr. Sirgy to

explore the implications of the mechanisms he

elucidates for various aspects of health. For

example, he talks about the purpose of psycho-

therapy as teaching the client to avoid top-down

spillover of negative affect through the use of

cognitive, affective, and behavioral strategies (p. 75).

But psychotherapy also addresses a number of other

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strategies mentioned in this book: certainly enhancing

bottom-up spillover through problem-solvingin various subordinate life domains, goal selection,

and so on. In fact, it would be useful for a psy-

chotherapist to read this book in order to consider

new approaches to the creation of well-being.

This tome wants to be two things: a scholarly

book about the scientific basis for happiness and

well-being, and a set of practical suggestions about

how to use these mechanisms to change one’s life

and feel better. On the one hand, the book uses

professional lingo that makes comprehension elu-

sive for the lay reader. On the other hand, the

practical recommendations seem overly simplisticfor the professional reader. Who is the audience

for a passage like this: ‘‘The principle of the pre-

dicted self urges self-evaluations when and if the

probability of reaching the predicted self is high.

In most cases, people tend to have a good sense of

what outcomes they predict in their lives. If these

predictions are used as a self-referent in evaluating

the events and outcomes in their lives, then they

are likely to feel good about themselves. . .this

could happen only if the person perceives that he

or she is making progress towards the predicted self.

Thus, this principle, just like the minimum-needs

principle, promises that it can deliver quality of life if

and when it is used often. So go ahead and use it

often. You may feel better about your life doing it.’’

(p. 131) It was my feeling that the book would have

read better if the passages in second person

addressed specifically to the reader had (a) either

been omitted entirely, or (b) been expanded upon

into fuller sections. As they stand, the sudden

changes in tone at the end of each section were

continually slightly disconcerting.

As a final criticism, the quality of the ideas and

concepts expressed in this book is underserved by

the editing: the text is literally littered with gram-

matical and typographical errors to the point of distraction. One would think that more care would

have been taken with this step of the process for a

book that is this costly.

In conclusion, there is a lot of material here that

is not easily digested. One has to work to absorb it.

There is no summary or useful set of conclusions,

no overarching synthesis: the book simply ends

when Dr. Sirgy has come to the end of his list of

strategies. Well-organized, comprehensive, written

in a challenging and dense style, poorly edited: The

Psychology of Quality of Life is like the wonderful

artichoke metaphor he opens with. There aremany layers and you have to work hard to get

down to the best part, but in my view, making the

effort and reaching the heart is worth it.

Disclaimer

The views presented in this book review reflect the personal

opinions of Dr. Lenderking and should in no way be construed

as representative of the opinions of Pfizer Inc.

References

1. Wilson J. Happiness. Analysis 1968; 29: 13–21.

2. Haybron DM. Two philosophical problems in the study of

happiness. Journal of Happiness Studies 2000; 1, 207–225.

William R. Lenderking,

Worldwide Outcomes Research

Pfizer Inc.

Eastern Point Road,

Groton CT 06340

USA

E-mail: [email protected]

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Book Review QQL