Trait or State: An Exploration of Self-esteem, Happiness and Quality of Life by Time Series
Date Issued
2011
Date
2011
Author(s)
Yang, Jhih-Jyun
Abstract
Mainstream of psychological researches usually utilizes large samples, cross-sectional studies and aggregate frames to analyze data and interpret them. This kind of viewpoint assumes that there exists consistency among individual responses and inner psychological mechanism. The limitations are that the specific features of individuals are not easy to be revealed and the time effect has been ignored. Instead of traditional viewpoint, this study explores the trait-like and state-like properties of global self-esteem, happiness and the quality of life by using time series data and analysis. The topic of trait-like or state-like distinction has stayed controversy among different studies for a long time. By using time series analysis, a more objective method, this study utilizes individual, longitudinal study and non-aggregate frame to depict the properties of psychological measures. In study 1, author examined the property of time dependency within self-esteem, happiness and quality of life with 10 college students involved. The results generally support the state-like property among psychological measures. And there are different responses among subjects, especially in means and standard deviations. In study 2, by using clustering analysis, author further confirmed that interpersonal differences and intrapersonal consistency might be important information in distinguishing trait and state. Since some literatures suggest that the stability of psychological measures may be more stable as age increasing. Study 3 collected older subjects and examined age effect. Over half of subjects showed time dependency among self-esteem, happiness and quality of life. In conclusion, the results support that self-esteem, happiness and quality of life could contain both trait-like and state-like properties.
Subjects
time series
trait
state
quality of life
happiness
global self-esteem
Type
thesis
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