BULLETIN 2018-APR-J… · Web viewWebmaster A systematic check of the three Personal Wellbeing...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/26: 280618Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any intended group correspondence to the editor only.

Paper for private studyThe attached paper, on the topic of life quality, is sent to you for your personal private study and discussion within ACQol. You are prohibited from further distributing this paper to any

other person.

Background: Thanks to Melissa Raven [[email protected]] for recommending this article. As a follow-on from last week’s discussion of dispiriting statistics on unemployment, a related concern is the high level of psychopathology within this group. Melissa writes “I have real concern that unemployment/underemployment is being framed as a mental health issue – not in the sense that it causes mental health problems, but in the sense that it is caused by mental disorders (which of course it is, to some extent, but not to the extent that is being claimed). This is happening in the workplace mental arena, but more problematically in the youth mental health arena.” Reference: Scott, E. M., Hermens, D. F., Glozier, N., Naismith, S. L., Guastella, A. J., & Hickie, I. B. (2012). Targeted primary care-based mental health services for young Australians. Med J Aust, 196(2), 136-140.https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2012/196/2/targeted-primary-care-based-mental-health-services-young-australians

Author’s summary: This study details the psychiatric classification of 1,260 young people recruited from two areas of Sydney with especially high rates of youth unemployment. 41.5% were not currently engaged in any form of education, and less than 10% were in full-time employment. Two-thirds were rated as being at the early stage of an illness, and almost half were diagnosed with anxiety or depressive syndromes. Many of these young people report established patterns of psychosocial and vocational impairment. It is concluded that targeted youth-specific mental health services, based in primary care settings, are able to engage young Australians, particularly young men, in treatment.

Comment on Scott (2012)Robert A. CumminsReporting that the people who consulted a psychiatric clinic had high levels of psychopathology seems marginally news-worthy. More interesting is the authors’ conclusion that “Any future reduction in the health and social burden resulting from mental disorders will depend on our capacity to engage and treat effectively those with emerging disorders” (p.138). This is a classic case of blaming the victim. Cause and effect are confused to make the fact of unemployment a consequence of the victims’ psychopathology. Official agencies are very fond of this form of thinking, which shifts the blame, from the failure of society to provide meaningful employment, to the young people concerned. It amounts to the professional stigmatization of a vulnerable group.

Further discussion of this paper, for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.acqol.com.au/

Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 03 July Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.

ACQol members are invited to send papers, on the topic of life quality, for distribution to other members under these same conditions.

-------------------------------Volunteering

Please welcome Nemanja Djordjevic <[email protected]>, who is our new Executive Volunteer – Instruments

I completed a Graduate Diploma of Psychology at Deakin in 2017 and am keenly interested in continuing my professional and academic development, though I also just enjoy learning new things in general. Some of my main interests include music, film and literature, as well as any psychology-related content or media. I also enjoy the outdoors and taking my two collies Charlie and Belle on walks. I hope to one day realise my childhood dream of becoming a social scientist and use knowledge and skills I've obtained to make positive changes in the lives of others.

News of the Personal Wellbeing [email protected] Oregon State Hospital (OSH) is currently considering using the PWI to meet a licensure requirement from The Joint Commission related to assessment of care, treatment, or service outcomes (see attached). I have been asked to review the recommendation.

OSH is a secure forensic psychiatric hospital serving individuals from three commitment types (i.e., guilty except for insanity, competency restoration, and civil). People are confined to OSH anywhere from months to years. Can you tell me if the PWI has ever been used in a similar setting?

I have two hesitations with using the PWI at OSH:

1. The applicability of the instrument to people who are involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. Has the PWI been normed to this population?

2. Relatedly, will the PWI validly assess care, treatment, or service outcomes as determinative factors impacting change over time in respondents’ results?

Malcolm M. Aquinas, MAT CPSSPeer Trainer & Mentor CoordinatorOregon State [email protected] (Desk)



503.602.3368 (Cell)

Cummins replied:

1. The applicability of the PWI is totally dependent on the capacity of the respondent to validly respond to the items. Since each item is semi-abstract, this is a non-trivial constraint. It eliminates children under the age of 12y, and people with dementia or a severe intellectual disability. In a case of psychosis, its validity would need to be judged on a case-by-case basis. This is also required for people with an intellectual disability and the pre-testing protocol for testing such capacity is described in the PWI-ID manualhttp://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures

2. I have no knowledge of the norms that have been developed for the PWI, other than those in relation to the general Australian population – which, I imagine, would be very similar to North American norms. However, I have never searched the literature for this, and the PWI has received over 19,000 citations.

3. The scale provides a measure of subjective wellbeing and performs well in this role. However, all measures of SWB are subjected to the limitations for change impose by the processes of SWB homeostasis. Essentially, if the level at first measurement is below the respondent’s set-point range, then a successful intervention will be demonstrated by a rise in the level of SWB back into the normal range. However, if the level of SWB at first measurement is within normal-range, then the possibility for a chronic rise in SWB due to an intervention is severely limited by the homeostatic processes.

Media newsNicole Villanueva [[email protected]]

Executive Volunteer MediaTitle: Changes in stress after meditationAuthor: U.S. Army Research Laboratoryhttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621111955.htm

The U.S. Army partnered with the University of Texas in order to further understand the relationship between stress, meditation and the body. Together they developed a new data processing technique called dynamic subordination technique (DST) that uses heart rate variability (HRV) as a sensor to monitor brain activity. Stress modulates the autonomic nervous system signals, which in turn alter HRV. Thus, the DST has quantified the level of stress reduction produced by meditation and offers the potential to quantify such things as the inability to concentrate and sustain focus, impatience, impulsiveness and other dysfunctional properties that severely limit a soldier's ability to do his job. DST assigns a number to the level of heart rate variability during and after meditation. This number indicates how much stress is alleviated by controlling the heart and the brain through meditation. The researchers found that yoga, when compared to chi mediation, is best at reducing stress. Long term meditation was also found to create meditation-induced physiologic changes that lead to stronger executive control. Executive control is related with goal-oriented behavior, using complex mental processes and cognitive abilities. The army's goal is to use these findings to develop new interventions for improving warrior readiness and resilience, as well as reducing symptoms of PTSD.

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/25: 210618 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of Life

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180621111955.htm

http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures

Editor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.


other person.

Background: The collection of demographic statistics is de rigueur for survey research concerning SWB. Gender, age, income, relationship status and employment are used as though the classifications they depict have some special status to influence SWB levels. In fact, these classifications are normally of minor usefulness. Such objective indicators normally share <5% of their variance with SWB, so their influence on SWB is vastly overshadowed by the presence of subjective indicators. Additionally, such objective indicators are often unreliable, most particularly in the reporting of income. But these are self-reported objective indicators. Surely the official national objective indicators are reliable and valid, at least from economically developed countries? Well…no.

Reference: Carney, T., & Stanford, J. (2018). The Dimensions of Insecure Work: A Factbook. Canberra: Australia Institute: Centre for Future Work. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/theausinstitute/pages/2807/attachments/original/1527557769/Insecure_Work_Factbook.pdf?1527557769.

Author’s summary: Today, for the first time in recorded statistics, less than half of employed Australians work in a permanent full-time paid job with leave entitlements. Key ways in which work is becoming less secure in Australia include:- Part-time work has grown, and many part-time workers are underemployed - Casual employment has also grown, especially quickly for men.- Marginal self-employment is growing- Earnings for workers in insecure jobs are low, and have declined in real terms.- Fewer workers are protected by enterprise agreements- Temporary foreign migrants make up a larger share of the total potential labour force, and face especially insecure and exploitive conditions.- Young workers experience labour market insecurity most directly and forcefully.

Comment on Carney & Stanford (2018)Robert A. CumminsAll of these statistics are of crucial importance to national wellbeing. Achieving something important to the individual, and having the assurance of enough money, are two of the three ‘Golden domains’ which, together with relationship satisfaction, predict the lions-share of subjective wellbeing. However, this is not the reason I am featuring this publication. On page 3 the authors serve a stark reminder that the official statistics on ‘unemployment’ seriously misrepresent the construct as it is commonly understood. At face value, people who are ‘employed’ (around 95% of the Australian workforce) are earning the minimum wage (currently $720/wk) of around $15/hr. The reality is very different. The official unemployment rate is a politically manipulated statistic which hides pools of unutilised and underutilised labour. This includes underemployment (workers employed for a few hours per


week, but who want and need more hours), discouraged workers (who have given up looking, and hence disappear from official unemployment statistics), and a large group of close to one million workers which the Australian Bureau of Statistics calls ‘marginally attached’ (people who say they would work if jobs were available). If these pools of ‘hidden unemployment’ are included, the true underutilisation of Australia’s labour market exceeds 15%, or three times the official unemployment rate. Couple this with the fact that many employers exploit the casual workforce by paying workers a ‘cash’ wage, which is far less than the minimum wage, and it is clear that researchers should not cite such official statistics as representing reality.


Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 26 June Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.


Welcome to new members Liz Senn <[email protected]>

Membership Registrar

Professor Vicki White ([email protected]), School of Psychology(Psycho-Oncology), Deakin University

Amanda Tero ([email protected]), Occupational therapy/Assessment Care Planning

D Prasad Arvind Thakurdesai ([email protected]), Indus Biotech Private Limited, Pune, India, Chief Scientific Officer, Pharmacology, Toxicology, HRQoL, Patient-reported outcome, validation, cultural adaptation, chronic disorders, patient education and counselling

Ms Katharine Woods ([email protected]), Deakin University, Editor, School of Psychology Noticeboard

Dr Christine Baxter ([email protected]), Disability, Sociology, Author: Baxter, C. (June, 2018) Capacity Building for Inclusion: The APCO Disability Support and Training Guide. Publisher: Christine Baxter, Fitzroy, June, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-6483613-0-5

Mr Kieran Thorpe ([email protected]), Deakin casual lecturer, quality of life, subjective wellbeing, autism and ADHD

Brief reportReference: ACER. (2018). PISA Australia in Focus. Number 1. Sense of belonging at school. Melbourne: ACER Web-address: https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=ozpisaThis reports that 15y Australian students’ sense of belonging at school has significantly decreased since the previous survey in 2003. The sense of belonging was higher for males, non-indigenous, metropolitan, first generation and foreign-born, and high SES students.

https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=ozpisa





Executive Volunteer Media

Title: How Gratitude Changes You and Your BrainAuthors: Joel Wong & Joshua Brownhttps://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain

A study conducted at Berkley University found that making a conscious effort to voice gratefulness benefits psychological wellbeing. 300 college students, who were seeking counselling for anxiety and depression, were divided into 3 different writing exercise groups: the one letter of gratitude a week, the writing about negative experiences and the no writing. Compared with the participants who wrote about negative experiences or only received counseling, those who wrote gratitude letters reported significantly better mental health 4 weeks and 12 weeks after their writing exercise ended. After analyzing the contrasting words used by the treatments, they found that the lack of negative words, not the abundance of positive words, lead to the improvement in mood. The researchers suggested that this may signify that gratitude aids the brain in shifting its attention to the positive, making it harder to ruminate on negative emotions. In a second component of the study, fMRI scans of the gratitude group were compared to the negative emotion group during a "pay it forward" scenario. It was found that the gratefulness group was more likely to donate higher sums of money. They also had heightened activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with learning and decision making. The researchers report that it's a striking effect due to being reflected 3 months after the treatment began. This suggests that practicing gratitude may help train the brain to be more sensitive to the experience of gratitude down the line, thus contributing to an improvement in mental health.

Potential collaborationDavid Corcoran [[email protected]] Personal Development Trainer+43660 629 1836Skype - david.jp.corcoranwww.resonantpd.com

I am an Alumni from the School of Psychology at Deakin University, from 2001 when I completed my Graduate Diploma of Psychology.

I am based in Vienna and with a couple of colleagues in Personal Development, am creating an App we will call 'Better'. It is based around achieving personal development goals like higher productivity, training in mindfulness, awareness and developing good daily routines and habits. It will involve Users taking part in specific challenges designed around these areas that intend to give people insight into their lives and behaviors. It is not a replacement for Coaching and other forms of intervention, but is designed to work in conjunction with the latest research and ideas from industry, institutes and thought leaders.

I am reaching out to the ACQoL to see if any members would be interested in contributing to some of the science behind our programs. We are wanting to collaborate with Research Institutes, Universities, leading bodies and thought leaders in the area of Psychology and Personal Development to provide our Users with current, higher quality thinking.

Please contact me [David] before the end of June if you are interested.

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/24: 140618 Housekeeping Edition

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_gratitude_changes_you_and_your_brain

Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.

Special Housekeeping EditionSome four months ago we received a small in-house (School of Psychology SEED Centre) grant to appoint our new Membership Registrar Liz Senn [email protected] on a (very) part-time basis. Her first task was to create a coherent membership register for ACQol. In order to facilitate this task she inherited a blank Excel file and a membership list of some 600 names which had accumulated in the old ACQol site over a decade or more. Not only had these people received little if any contact from the site as a consequence of their membership, but also the list had not been systematically updated.

Our first task was to attempt to contact each of these people and offer them membership in the revitalized site. To my pleasant surprise, about 100 people responded positively. Thank you Liz, and thank you members for returning.

In addition, we have a new set of people who have joined the ACQol over the past year of operations. So, we now total about 170 members, all listed in the attached file.

Membership listingThere are features of this listing that deserve comment as follows:

1. In the spirit of Open Access, this list of names, email addresses, postal addresses, describing affiliation, position, discipline, and interest areas will appear on the ACQol site, sometime before the end of this year. The development of the site is on-going, but slow, and jobs-to-be-done are being carefully prioritized through Iestyn Polley [[email protected]], our Executive Web Developer.

2. The codes in the file are explained thus:ACQol: – everyone on the list is a member.School: - designates members of the School of Psychology at Deakin who are not members

of the Steering Committee.VOL: - A volunteer working to develop the ACQol site in some way.Steering: - members of the ACQol Steering Committee.IWbG: - members of the International Wellbeing Group. Members join this group because of

their interest in using and developing the Personal Wellbeing Index.

3. Many of the listings are incomplete. If you would like to edit your entry, please feel free to do so. However, please:

(a) Ensure you send this to Liz Senn [email protected] NOT TO SENDER

(b) Ensure that you highlight your changes in the file.

(c) Either return the whole file or the complete line of the file that corresponds to your details.




(d) Be patient regarding any requested changes being activated. Liz is going on a four week holiday, so these edited files will accumulate for her return.

Kind regards, Bob

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/23: 070618 NOT SENT Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.


other person.

Background: The issue of how quickly, and to what extent, new migrants experience a change in their subjective wellbeing (SWB) as a consequence of their new environment is poorly understood. So this substantial report is of great interest, based on the data from six waves of the European Social Survey, collected from 18 European countries between 2002 and 2012. All participants immigrated to Western Europe, at age 16 and above, starting from the year 1980. The authors describe these people as those who ‘took an independent decision to migrate to another country’. Presumably this excludes refugees.

Reference: Kogan, I., Shen, J., & Siegert, M. (2018). What Makes a Satisfied Immigrant? Host-Country Characteristics and Immigrants' Life Satisfaction in Eighteen European Countries. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1-27 doi:10.1007/s10902-017-9896-4

Author’s summary: Using multi-level analysis, it is found that immigrants have a higher Global Life Satisfaction (GLS) in countries that offer more welcoming social settings, as measured by attitudes of the native born towards immigrants. Immigrants have lower GLS in host countries with higher levels of economic inequality. However, highly educated immigrants are much less influenced by such inequality.

Comment on Kogan et al (2018)Robert A. CumminsThese results are predictable. But what caught my attention in this paper is the authors’ Figure 1. This is intriguing is showing consistent matching between the GLS of natives and immigrants. The authors regard this figure as ‘remarkable’ in showing that the maximum difference in the GLS of migrants is between Greece (59.5 points on a 0-100 percentage-point scale) and Denmark (79.8 points), a difference of 20.3 points. Much more remarkable is the extent to which each country’s migrants reflect the GLS of the natives. The maximum within-country difference is 7.07 points for The Netherlands, which is about a third of the maximum GLS difference between countries. In other words, the immigrants have closely adopted the GLS levels of the natives. How does this work? This matching seems independent of country-level economic indices, so is it the result of cultural adoption? An interesting study waiting to happen.



Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 12th June Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.


Welcome to new member Liz Senn <[email protected]>


Professor Markus Schafers ([email protected]), Fulda University of Applied Sciences in Germany, disability and subjective wellbeing, social monitoring, evaluation of

service providers

Brief reportMuir, S., & Hand, K. (2018). Beyond 18: The Longitudinal Study on Leaving Care Wave 1 Research Report: Transition planning and preparation. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies. http://apo.org.au/system/files/174816/apo-nid174816-789396.pdf

This report describes the first of a three-wave study involving an annual data collection from young people who have spent time in statutory care in Victoria. Data are collected via online surveys and follow-up qualitative telephone interviews. The first wave of the survey involved 202 young people aged 16–19 years old. For most carers and caseworkers in the study, formal transition planning, for which there is legislated formal guidelines, was a relatively low priority in comparison to care leavers’ urgent need for appropriate post-care housing. Young people have a high risk of becoming homeless after leaving care—and appropriate housing is often difficult to find. However, the emphasis on urgent needs can come at the expense of young people’s need for help with their physical and mental wellbeing, social and emotional development and systematic transition planning. This omission can have long-term consequences for young people’s wellbeing.


Executive Volunteer MediaTitle: Public Art as Public HealthAuthor: Maggie Thomashttps://www.publichealthpost.org/research/public-art-as-public-health/

Public art is often regarded as unnecessary and a waste of money. Public art goes beyond being just a painted wall or a huge sculpture that someone may not understand. Studies have shown that art installations in hospitals, community involvement in art creation and installations, which are rooted in the community, improve wellbeing. In medical settings, art installations have been related with lower levels of anxiety, lower levels of pain and faster healing. In community-engaged art, the project may serve is an encouragement and an opportunity to create of sense of belonging while connecting with others. This reduces

https://www.publichealthpost.org/research/public-art-as-public-health/


isolation and favors teamwork. Public art programs may also be designed for a target population, for example individuals with behavioral health problems. A study conducted post installation found increased neighborhood safety and decreased stigma around mental health. Cameron and colleagues note that public art's ability to decrease stress, elicit awe, develop shared identity, reinforce self-efficacy and promote positive health behaviors are clear public health impacts. Public art has the potential to create a incredible ripple effect of wellbeing between individuals and communities, if invested in. Next time you find yourself walking to grab a coffee at your favorite café and pass a mural, stop and take a moment to appreciate it. Maybe even research it after. You may be surprised.

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/22: 310518Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.


other person.

Background: Thanks to Mathew Ling [[email protected]] for recommending this article. Advances in computing have led to both benefits and dangers. The latter are of interest to University Ethics Committees, commonly in relation to the gathering and dissemination of personal data. Surveys will normally collect various forms of demographic data, used by the researchers to characterise their samples. But can such demographic data be used to identify individual people? The answer is a conditional ‘yes’.

Reference: Sweeney, L. (2000). Simple Demographics Often Identify People Uniquely. Data Privacy Working Paper 3. Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University https://dataprivacylab.org/projects/identifiability/paper1.pdf.

Author’s summary: It was found that combinations of a few [demographic] characteristics often combine in population samples to uniquely or nearly uniquely identify some individuals. Clearly, data released containing such information should not be considered anonymous. It was found that 87% (216 million of 248 million) of the population in the United States had reported characteristics that likely made them unique based on only three variables: their 5-digit ZIP, gender, date of birth. About half of the U.S. population (132 million of 248 million or 53%) are likely to be uniquely identified by the combination of place, gender, date of birth, where place is the city, town, or municipality in which the person resides.

Comment on Sweeney (2000)Robert A. CumminsThese results are enough to give an Ethics Committee apoplexy. But there is a trick. Both of the above examples contain ‘date of birth’ and, without this, the probability of demographic characteristics as a unique identifier plummet. The demographic of ‘age’ is a far weaker identifier. Because the stated age can lie on either side of the date of survey completion, the 730 possibilities greatly dilute the probability of unique identification. However,

https://dataprivacylab.org/projects/identifiability/paper1.pdf



demographics at the margins of the allowable ranges also enhance the probability of individual identification. An age of 117 years would identify Chiyo Miyako of Japan, born 2nd May 1901.


Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 5th June Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.



Membership RegistrarNew members 27.05.2018

Sarah Walsh ([email protected]), what creates context for thriving

Majid Turmusani ([email protected]), Canadian Disability Studies Association, Life Habits Assessment Tools, Access to Justice, Disability and Social Exclusion, Inclusion Practices

Arthur Sears([email protected]), Universal Basis Income

Svetlana Yaremtchuk ([email protected]), Amur State University of Humanities and Pedagogy, subjective well-being, life satisfaction, self-regulation, self-development

Georgina Spilsbury ([email protected]), Screening, pre- & post-assessment, CALD, disability, forensic

Öie Umb Carlsson ([email protected]), Uppsala University the user´s perspective, living conditions, attitude, model, adults

Kathrine Takac ([email protected]), Deakin University, clinical end of life decision making, health policy, legal and ethical issues concerning quality of life and self determination

Samantha Wilson ([email protected])

Soo Jian Tan ([email protected]), National University of Singapore, Subjective wellbeing, happiness

Claudio Vásquez Wiedeman ([email protected]), Universidad Católica del Maule, Quality of life at work, individualisation theory, subjective well-being, QOL in developing countries, decent work

Website additions and changesTanja Capic <[email protected]>

Webmaster


A systematic check of the three Personal Wellbeing Index manuals revealed a number of errors, most especially involving links to non-functional web addresses. These have now been corrected.

News of Mother[One data file, 25 longitudinal and 33 cross-sectional surveys, 5,500 variables and over 8 million responses]

Sarah Khor [[email protected]]Executive Data Analyst

Under the guidance of supervisors Alessio Bonti [[email protected] ] and Jingyu Hou [[email protected]], six students in the final year of their Master’s degree in Information Technology have completed their project to initiate the interfacing of Mother with the ACQol site.They achieved the following:

1. Demonstrated proof of concept, of a simple data extraction interface that links to the data-file and the dictionary using an SQL database. This has been programmed using node.JS. Other considerations noted from the project for the next phase include: 1. Having to create dynamic coding for the data dictionary so that uploading of new surveys can be conducted without extensive recoding work. Currently, the data extraction process is coded in static format. 2. Staging release of data to focus on the main variable of interest, the Personal Wellbeing Index data, to allow demonstration that data can be extracted longitudinally. The project will be transferred to a new group of students in the second trimester (June).

Media news

Title: Positive thinking about ageing may lower dementia risk, study findsAuthor: Olivia Willishttp://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2018-02-08/dementia-positive-thinking-may-lower-risk/9405588

Older adults with a positive attitude towards ageing may be less likely to develop dementia, even if they are genetically predisposed to it, a study from the United States has found.Researchers at Yale University studied a group of more than 4,000 adults aged 60 and above and found those who held positive beliefs about ageing had a 44 per cent lower risk of developing dementia than those who held negative beliefs.The risk was even lower — almost halved — among people with a genetic predisposition to dementia."We found that those who had more positive age beliefs were less likely to develop dementia, even if they were at a higher risk," lead author Becca Levy said.Professor Levy said the study, published in PLOS ONE, suggests that positive age beliefs may act as a "protective factor" against dementia, supporting the case for a public health campaign against ageism.

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/21: 240518 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cummins

http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2018-02-08/dementia-positive-thinking-may-lower-risk/9405588

http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2018-02-08/dementia-positive-thinking-may-lower-risk/9405588


http://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.


other person.

Background: Associate Professors Siok Tambyah and Soo Tan, from the National University of Singapore, have just published their book describing the data gathered by four nationally-representative surveys. It is uncommon to find such Singaporean data being published, so they have special interest, most especially in comparison to Hong Kong. The two regions appear similar in many ways. Both are former British colonies, small in area (HK 2,755 km2; SG 720 km2), densely populated (HK 6,777/km2; SG 7,796/km2), predominantly Chinese (HK 92%; SG 74%), global commercial, finance and transport hubs. So it might be expected that their levels of population subjective wellbeing would be similar. In Hong Kong numerous studies have established this level at around 65 percentage points (on the standard 0-100 percentage point scale).

Reference: Tambyah, S. K., & Tan, S. J. (2018). Happiness, Wellbeing and Society: What Matters for Singaporeans. London: Routledge.

Author’s summary: The authors’ results, converted to the standard scale 0-100, are shown on the right side of the table below. They show a maximum 2.2 percentage point difference over the 20 year period and, most remarkable, showing the same level and range as Australia.

Tambyah (2018) Singapore Gen population1996200120112016

1 very dissatisfied) – 6 (very satisfied)‘Satisfaction with overall quality of life’

N=about 1,500

(1-6) (0-100)4.77 [75.40]4.81 [76.20]4.83 [76.60]4.72 [74.40]

Comment on Tambyah (2018)Robert A. CumminsThe normal range for Global Life Satisfaction in Australia is 76.2 to 79.0 points. So the results for Singapore approximate the base of this range, yet are about 10 percentage points higher than Hong Kong. Why? Both countries have a strong Confucian ethical tradition, so differential cultural training is unlikely to be the cause. Maybe the reason can be traced to the level of support each country provides to their most vulnerable citizens. For example, the Gini Index is higher in HK (53.9) than SG (46.4) showing greater income disparity and a higher proportion of people in poverty. In terms of social security, the HK basic Old-age allowance is US$130 a month (disparagingly referred to locally as ‘fruit money’) whereas, in contrast, SG tops the 2017 Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index for Asia and is ranked 7th

in the world. However, none of this explains why, against the idea of a Confucian Cultural Response Bias held to depress reported levels of SWB, SG reports levels roughly equivalent to Australia. A mystery waiting to to be solved.

Further discussion of this/these paper(s), for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: [email protected]



Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday xx October Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.




New members for the 18.05.2018Peter Smith ([email protected]) Centre for Disability Employment Research and Practice, QOL as result of outcomes from a Social Quality Theory perspective.

Geeta Pradeep ([email protected]), University of New England, impact of chronic disease on QoL

Mohammad Taghi Sheykhi ([email protected]), Professor of Sociology, Aging, Health, Budget, Nursing Homes, Care-takers

Melissa Raven ([email protected]), Flinders University, mental health, psychological distress, social determinants

Mandy Robbins ([email protected]), Wrexham Glyndwr University, The relationship between belief and wellbeing

Tim Silk ([email protected]), Deakin University, Cognitive neuroscience

David Ritchie ([email protected]), retired, Death and dying, grief and loss, disability specifically ASDs

Michael Ringland ([email protected]), Forward Directions Coaching, Maximising individual's wellbeing and happiness

Siok Kuan Tambyah ([email protected]), National University of Singapore, Marketing

News of MotherElla Garth <[email protected]>Executive Volunteer – Data Management

“I am creating a comprehensive list of all participants who's gender does not match across the different waves of longitudinal studies (either because it was not disclosed in one or more studies, or because the reported gender changed in later studies). Part of the list will later be available on the ACQOL website and is intended to aid researchers in making decisions when analysing longitudinal data based on gender.“











Title: TED talk "How to take control of your free time"Author: Laura Vanderkamhttps://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time/discussion

How often do you say "I wish I had more time for that." Do you actually not have enough time? Laura Vanderkam, time management experts, describes that the issue is not time, but whether the action/activity is a priority. Vanderkam created a time diary project and had busy women track their daily lives for 1,001 days. She provides the example of a woman whose water heater broke, flooding her house. This was a pressing issue and the busy woman was able to get it fixed... after dedicating 8 hours to it.The broken water heater was a priority and priorities are choices. Thus, we have the power to fill our lives with what we find significant. In order to identify priorities, Vanderkam asks viewers to write themselves a "next year's success review". What did you do "that year" that made you feel successful in the career, self and relationships? The answers are your priorities. Next stage is to break these down into smaller steps and then incorporate them ahead of time into your schedule. Even if working 60 hours and sleeping 8 hours daily, you have 52 hours to spare. Even if an hour cannot be fuly spared, make best of small moments in between activities. Instead of sorting emails or surfing social media, use that time for reading, writing, excercising or being with loved ones. "Your priorities are to be treated like a broken water heater", she advises.

Potential collaborationEloisa Evangelista [[email protected]]

I am currently working as an Analyst within the Work and Student Health portfolio at Bupa Australia & New Zealand, and have been tasked with evaluating a program aimed at supporting International Students at the University of Wollongong.

We are using the Personal Wellbeing Index to measure the program’s impact.

Eloisa Evangelista, Analyst, Work & Student Health, Corporate and InternationalBupa, 33 Exhibition St, Melbourne VIC 3000

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/20-1: 190518 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.

Welcome to new School member

Associate Professor Tim Silk [[email protected]]Room (BC5.106)

Tim is a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in paediatric neurodevelopmental imaging in order to understand the brain-behaviour interface; when and where that goes awry. He is focused on identifying neuroimaging markers that can be used to distinguish children with neurodevelopmental disorders, monitor progression, and predict likely outcome or treatment response. Tim leads The


https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time/discussion

https://www.ted.com/talks/laura_vanderkam_how_to_gain_control_of_your_free_time/discussion

Neuroimaging of the Children’s Attention Project (NICAP) collecting longitudinal multimodal neuroimaging data in order to understand how brain structure and function change across late childhood to early adolescence for children with and without ADHD, and how those changes reflect ADHD symptom severity and functional outcomes.

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/20: 170518 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.


other person.

Background: Thanks to Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz <[email protected]> for recommending this article. An Achilles' heel in psychology is the relationship between each latent construct [comprising variables that are not directly observed] and the representation of each construct by a scale of measurement. The match is never perfect, so the degree of concordance is statistically estimated. In general terms, good measurement scales do a reasonable job of representation, to the point that validity is strong enough to be useful. Sometimes, however, even commonly used scales for major latent constructs do a very poor job of representation indeed.

Reference: Fried, E. I., & Nesse, R. M. (2015). Depression is not a consistent syndrome: an investigation of unique symptom patterns in the STAR* D study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 172, 96-102.

Author’s summary: The authors investigated the number of unique symptom profiles reported by 3703 people diagnosed as currently having Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) at the beginning of a treatment program. The authors identified 1030 unique symptom profiles. Of these 864 profiles (83.9%) were endorsed by five or fewer subjects, and 501 profiles (48.6%) were endorsed by only one individual. They conclude that “substantial symptom variation among individuals who all qualify for one diagnosis calls into question the status of MDD as a specific consistent syndrome and offers a potential explanation for the difficulty in documenting treatment efficacy.

Comment on Fried & Ness (2015)Robert A. CumminsThese results are pretty disturbing for researchers and practitioners alike. Such a weak representation of the depression latent construct has the inevitable consequence that frequent misdiagnosis of MDD is a certainty. This unsettling conclusion is supported by a wealth of empirical evidence showing, for example, that depression scales often share less than 40 percent of their variance with one another, and also with the ‘gold-standard’ diagnostic process involving a clinical interview. These authors’ results go a long way to explaining why this is so. Given that depression is such a major psychopathology, this diagnostic uncertainty is clearly unacceptable.


Further discussion of this paper for circulation to members, is invited. Send to: [email protected]

Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 22 May Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.


Website additions and changesIestyn Polley

Executive Web Developer

All 49 Australian Unity reports, from 2001 to 2018, are now available from our new web-site. Each report is accompanied by the corresponding data file and data dictionary.

http://www.acqol.com.au/projects#reports

Brief reportReference: Mavromaras, K., Moskos, M., Mahuteau, S., & Isherwood, L. (2018). Evaluation of the NDIS: Final report. Adelaide: National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University.http://apo.org.au/system/files/143516/apo-nid143516-732911.pdf

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is one of the most important social reforms in recent Australian history. It creates a uniform system of disability services across Australia based on individual aspiration and choice. It is funded by an additional 0.5% income tax, introduced in 2014. This report is the first full evaluation, undertaken on two occasions, from 2013 to 2015, and 2015 to 2017. Results from the Personal Wellbeing Index show a small increase in subjective wellbeing between surveys of some 3 percentage points. However, the overall level of SWB for both the people with a disability (64 points) and their carers (70 points) remain well below the normal range for Australia.



Title: A New Theory Linking Sleep and Creativity Author: Ed Yong https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/sleep-creativity-theory/560399/

Before taking an important decision, many advise to "Sleep on it." Research has proved this to be true. Sleep promotes creative problem solving that leads to better decisions. The reason for this relationship remains unclear. Penny Lewis and here colleagues at Cardiff University created a theory detailing the roles of REM and non-REM sleep that may explain the phenomenon. As you enter non-REM sleep, the brain replays, consolidates and integrates memories. The reruns also help the brain create a general idea of a memory, eliminating details. Lewis argues that during non-REM sleep, the activity between the hippocampus and the neocortex is strengthened, leading to easier extraction of general memories, During the

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/sleep-creativity-theory/560399/

http://apo.org.au/system/files/143516/apo-nid143516-732911.pdf

http://www.acqol.com.au/projects#reports


deep sleep REM phase, acetylcholine floods the brain and places the hippocampus and the neocortex into a flexible state that promotes the activity of neurons. All of these factors allow the neocortex to unconsciously search for similarities between seemingly unrelated concepts. Essentially, non-REM sleep extracts concepts and the REM sleep connects them. Over the course of a night, both areas of the brain go through cycles of connection and disconnection that could lead to a novel solution to a problem. Next time you are confronted with a complicated problem, sleep and a creative solution may come your way.

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/19-1: 120518 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.

Welcome to new School member

Associate Professor Hua Yong [[email protected]]Room (BC4.112)

My current research focuses on using population-based survey data to examine use of vaporised nicotine products (e.g., e-cigarettes) by smokers, beliefs about their harmfulness relative to conventional cigarettes, motivations for using and the potential role of these products in smoking cessation; I also work on a project to identify markers of smoker subgroups with high versus low probability of smoking cessation. I’ve done some work in the past to understand how smokers’ perceived quality of life change over time post quitting and the extent to which they predict smoking relapse.



other person.

Background: When most researchers conduct longitudinal studies they, at best, establish the appropriate factorial performance of measurement scales at the time of first measurement. They then assume that the factor loadings and intercepts remains invariant during the course of their study, thereby concluding that change in their measured variables represents change in the latent constructs each scale represents. The alternative explanation, that changing conditions during the study have altered the factorial character of the scales is not considered. It should be.



Reference: Lommen, M. J. J., Van De Schoot, R., & Engelhard, I. M. (2014). The experience of traumatic events disrupts the measurement invariance of a posttraumatic stress scale. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 1304-1313.

Author’s summary: we examined measurement invariance of posttraumatic stress symptoms in two samples of Dutch soldiers before and after they went on deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. Results showed that the underlying measurement model before deployment was different from the measurement model after deployment due to invariant item thresholds. Since the lack of measurement invariance was due to instability of the majority of the items, it seems reasonable to conclude that the underlying construct being measured is unstable over time. The scores over time cannot be compared when there is a lack of measurement invariance. Thus, researchers working with posttraumatic stress questionnaires in longitudinal studies should … use pre- and post-symptom scores as different constructs for each time point in the analysis.

Comment on Lommen et al (2014)Robert A. CumminsThe matter these authors raise is a serious concern for the interpretation of changes in self-report data over time. It raises the spectre that such change does not represent change in the latent construct (alpha change), as commonly assumed. Rather, change in the data has been caused by non-invariance of the measurement scale. That is, over time, people have effectively responded to two different scales, such that the measured differences actually represent change in the measured construct itself (gamma change) or change in the measurement proportions of the indicators (beta change). While the authors’ example involves an extreme comparison, involving soldiers before and after exposure to combat, changed life circumstances in civilian life may also be traumatic, such as the experience of divorce or retrenchment. Moreover, many interventions within clinical psychology have the expressed aim of creating major change in the self-perceptions of the people being treated. While the number of participants in clinical trials is usually too small for invariance testing, the possibility of non-invariance should at least be acknowledged in the interpretation of results.




New Instrument Description[see attached]

We are aiming to create a formal statement of the psychometric information available for key scales used in QOL research. The purpose is to give researchers and students a ready means

of evaluating whether a scale is suitable for their own project.

The attached description of the Personal Wellbeing Index has been created by Executive Volunteer Editor Nova Hartanty [email protected].



Reference: Hartanty, N. (2018). Personal Wellbeing Index-Adult: A psychometric description. In R. A. Cummins (Ed.), Australian Centre on Quality of Life: Directory of Instruments. Deakin University: Geelong. http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures [NOTE: This is the web-address that will include this document once the transfer of the new ACQol web-page, to take the place of the old page, has been effected. This will happen shortly]


Executive Volunteer MediaWhy is Finland so happy?Tim Lomashttps://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-light-in-the-darkness/201803/why-is-finland-so-happy

The World Happiness Report just ranked Finland #1 on subjective wellbeing. The top 10 includes: Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden and Australia. What exactly makes these countries so conductive to subjective wellbeing? Experts suggest an important factor is equality. In democratic countries like the UK and the US where inequality is high, subjective well being is often low. Equality is related to social capital, which is reflected in the extent to which people trust and feel connected to those around; the quality and quantity of their friendships; the strength of their support networks, both personal and structural (such as the welfare state); and community cohesion more broadly. According to Abraham Maslow’s famous ‘hierarchy of needs, human beings have a core set of needs that must be satisfied if we are to be happy and well. Once people’s basic needs are covered, the most important factor in a society's wellbeing is its level of equality – since this impacts upon people’s higher level needs. The countries that rank high on subjective wellbeing often have more equal wages and egalitarian social policies which promote equality and a sort of connectedness. People's basic needs, like shelter, food and healthcare at met, allowing them to focus on the higher level needs that lead to happiness. It's not all about the money, but at the same time it is.



other person.

Background: Thanks to Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz <[email protected]> for recommending this article. It is a critique of Maul (2017), which was discussed in ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/14: 050418. The critiquing authors make two


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-light-in-the-darkness/201803/why-is-finland-so-happy

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-light-in-the-darkness/201803/why-is-finland-so-happy

http://www.acqol.com.au/instruments#measures

points. First, it is not clear that the ‘gavagai questionnaire’ measures nothing, and hence, it is not obvious that the premise underlying Maul’s argumentation is fulfilled. Second, most psychometric practices are based on the antecedent assumption that researchers are able to target a given attribute with a set of items. As such, these practices are not designed to expose the falsity of that assumption. NOTE: If you did not receive ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/14 and would like a copy, please email the editor.

Reference: Rhemtulla, M., Borsboom, D., & van Bork, R. (2017). How to Measure Nothing. Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives, 15(2), 95-97. doi:10.1080/15366367.2017.1369785

Author’s summary: If Maul’s results show one thing, it is that self-reports can form a hermeneutical system in which virtually tautological item formulations can generate consistent item response behavior, even if no two individuals understand the items in the same way. As such, we agree with Maul’s conclusion that self-report measures may be particularly difficult to validate and with his recommendation that researchers work to explicitly uncover the processes that lead to variation in item responses.

Comment on Rhemtulla et al (2017)Robert A. CumminsThere is an explanation for Maul’s results that has not been considered by these critiquing authors. They almost get the solution, but not quite. They state “it may also be the case that, unbeknownst to Maul, the items tapped meaningful response processes that result in relatively homogeneous response behavior across items. For instance, if every person fills in the concept gavagai with a personality attribute of their own choice…”. I agree with the general proposition of a ‘response process’, but rather than involving personality in some vague way, I propose that the responses were contaminated with Homeostatically Protected Mood. As an individual difference determined by each person’s set-point, HPMood perfused all of Maul’s abstract/personal items at a constant level for each person. This within-person ‘response process’ would then cause the items to inter-correlate, thereby forming factors even in the absence of a coherent latent construct.




Welcome to new and re-joining membersLiz Senn <[email protected]>


22nd April 2018Professor Ivan Brown ([email protected]), Brock University, Family QoL Yufi Adriani ([email protected]), Deakin University, HappinessKerstin Beise ([email protected]), Disabilities





Ass. Professor Emily Callander ([email protected]), James Cook University, Health EconomicsDr. Nihat Ayceman ([email protected]), Akdeniz University, Sport healthProfessor Hisham Abu-Rayya ([email protected]), La Trobe University, Psychological adaptationMelissa Branagh ([email protected]), wellness and health Dr Benito Arias ([email protected]), Intellectual disability

29th April 2018 Dr Lufanna Lai ([email protected]), Gratia Christian College, Hong Kong, China, Well-beingAyanna Frederick ([email protected]), University of Trinidad and Tobago, entrepreneurshipJennifer Hunter ([email protected]), University of Sydney, Health serviceKeith McVilly ([email protected]), University of Melbourne, Disability studiesJodie McNair ([email protected]) Thomas Hammond ([email protected]), Deakin University, Clinical PsychologyAlana Jones ([email protected]), Deakin University, PsychologyIvana Crnković ([email protected]), University of Applied Health Sciences ZagreNatalia Guminska ([email protected]), Trevor Mazzucchelli ([email protected]), Curtain University, PsychologyNarayan Gopalkrishnan ([email protected]), James Cook University, Cultural diversity Dr Siobhain O'Riordan ([email protected]), Psychology

Media newsTitle: Massive meta-study confirms moderate coffee consumption is good for you

Author: Rich Haridyhttps://newatlas.com/coffee-umbrella-study-safe/52332/

A massive umbrella study published in the British Medical Journal has concluded that moderate coffee intake is generally safe for most of the population. The review examined over 200 meta-studies on the health effects of coffee consumption and concluded that three to five cups a day looks to be the safest maximum volume one should consume. Across almost all health outcomes reviewed, coffee consumption was found to either not increase risk or actually decrease risk to negative health outcomes. From diabetes and cirrhosis, to most cancers and cardiovascular disease, coffee consumption was seen to be generally safe with occasional mild benefits.

Potential collaborationShu-Ching Chiu [[email protected]]

I am a senior instructor from department of nursing, Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Right now, I am writing a proposal about intervention study. Topic is " Influence of sit muscle strength training and game on elderly". From literature review, I find the scale "Personal Wellbeing Index" had a good validity and reliability.


https://newatlas.com/coffee-umbrella-study-safe/52332/

















Shu-Ching Chiu | Instructor, PhD, RN Department of Nursing, Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology 666, Buzih Road, Beitun District, Taichung City 40601, Taiwan (R.O.C.) t: +886 4 22391647 | f: +886 4 22398540 | e: [email protected]



other person.

Background: The issue of employment has direct relevance to subjective wellbeing through its impact on the Golden Domain of ‘Achieving in life’ (see Personal Wellbeing Index). While a sense of life purpose can be gained through virtually any activity considered to be personally important to the individual, paid employment is the most common primary source of this satisfaction. And robotics is clearly placing this source of population wellbeing under threat, most especially for the most at-risk groups.

Reference: Cassells, R., Duncan, A., Mavisakalyan, A., Phillimore, J., Seymour, R., & Tarverdi, Y. (2018). Future of Work in Australia: Preparing for tomorrow's world. Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre, Focus on the States Series, Issue #6. Perth: Curtin University http://bcec.edu.au/assets/BCEC-Future-of-Work-in-Australia-Report.pdf.

Author’s summary: “The ratio of robots to employees in Australia has tripled in the last 20 years, but still lags substantially behind the US and Europe. This suggests that Australian businesses have the capacity for a significant expansion of automation to take on tasks currently delivered by people. [However], estimates suggesting that up to 4 in 10 jobs arelikely to be ‘eliminated’ or replaced by automation are overstated… In moving towards the labour market of the future, there will inevitably be a transformation in the nature of work, and the workplace. We can expect ‘traditional’ jobs and workplace orthodoxies to give way to new ways of working, and modes of employment. People are likely to change jobs more regularly in the future, to work fewer hours, or to hold more than a single job at any point in their working career.”

Comment on Cassells et al (2018)Robert A. CumminsWhile the authors have done a great job in assembling the results pertaining to current and future employment, their analysis is clearly made from the perspective of economics. When the impact of robotics is considered in terms of population subjective wellbeing, the future looks distinctly grim. This dismal conclusion arises from the following considerations. While the over-all ‘labor force participation’ rate is gradually increasing, full-time participation rates are decreasing, replaced by part-time and casual, referred to as ‘precarious employment’. This shift into precarious employment has increased most rapidly for males, young people, and low-skill workers, commonly within the food-service, personal-service,


hospitality, and labouring sectors. Precarious employment is associated with feelings of lower job security and job satisfaction. Moreover, these trends are set to continue. As of 2015, the number of robots per thousand employees in Australia was just over 0.6 compared to 1.6 in the US and Europe. Over half of robots in Australia are employed in the lowest skilled jobs.




Website additions and changesSteering Committee: Welcome to Iestyn Polley as our new Executive Web Developer. Iestyn is employed by eSolutions, the university IT support division.

Farewell to Professor Line Ricciardelli who, most sadly, lost her battle with cancer. We also farewell Keri Little, who has returned to resume her studies at Melbourne University.

Acknowledgement: On the page http://www.acqol.com.au/about#our-team we acknowledge, with gratitude, the two people who initiated the design and functionality of this new website in 2017 as “The original web design and software development for this site was created by Samantha Teague and Adrian Shatte, respectively.”

Brief reportSaunders, P., & Bedford, M. (2018). New estimates of the costs of children: Family Matters 2018 No. 100. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies http://apo.org.au/system/files/141701/apo-nid141701-713916.pdf.

The weekly costs of children vary between $137 and $203 for families in low-paid (minimum wage) work and between $106 and $174 for unemployed families in receipt of Newstart Allowance.


Executive Volunteer MediaTitle: Loneliness on its way to becoming Britain's most lethal conditionAuthor: Joe Smith http://theconversation.com/loneliness-on-its-way-to-becoming-britains-most-lethal-condition-94775

Loneliness is no longer just a feeling, it's an epidemic. In Britain, the Office for National Statistics reports that 2.4m residents suffer from chronic loneliness. Loneliness researchers say that this number could actually include up to 9m. The numbers are troubling due to loneliness being linked to an array of health conditions including alcoholism, drug abuse, eating disorders and depression. A study found that loneliness is associated with a 50% increase in mortality from any cause. This makes it comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a

http://theconversation.com/loneliness-on-its-way-to-becoming-britains-most-lethal-condition-94775

http://theconversation.com/loneliness-on-its-way-to-becoming-britains-most-lethal-condition-94775

http://www.acqol.com.au/about#our-team


day, and more dangerous than obesity. John Cacioppo, leading researcher, theorizes that loneliness has become a biological issue rooted in evolution. Humans are designed to live a community-based life centered around family and connection. As society evolved into an independent and automatic workplace, humans evolved to experience social rejection in the same way as physical pain. Brain scans have shown that "social pain" activates the same region - the dorsal anterior cingulate - as bodily trauma. This drives humans into a state of cognitive hyper-vigilance, in order to find social information that may allow them to re-establish personal connections. Ironically, this hyper-alert state clouds social thinking making humans misinterpret information as critical, self-centered, competitive and threatening. The remedy is reconnecting with others but this state makes humans insecure of social situations and may also cause the same feared rejection. Cacioppo's research found that social cognitive therapies best enhanced social skills and provided opportunities for social interaction. The question is, how will Britain combat loneliness?

The article provides a link to a TED talk by John Cacioppo speaking about the lethality of loneliness.



other person.

Background: Collecting data online through respondents who offer their services has become a very popular research technique. Referred to here as ‘Crowdsourcing’, it is more explicitly referred to in this context as ‘Incentivised Online Panels’. Such panels are maintained for profit and offer a small (sometime miniscule) reward for completing a questionnaire. Much has been written as to the nature of the biases that attend such data. This paper provides interesting insights into the industry, the responders, and ways of optimizing the reliability of the produced data.

Reference: Lovett, M., et al. (2018). "Data Quality from Crowdsourced Surveys: A Mixed Method Inquiry into Perceptions of Amazon's Mechanical Turk Masters." Applied Psychology 67(2): 339-366.

Author summary: While there is evidence that crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk can produce data as reliable as more traditional survey collection methods, little is known about Amazon’s Mechanical Turk’s most experienced respondents, their perceptions of crowdsourced data, and the degree to which these affect data quality. The current study utilises both quantitative and qualitative data to investigate Amazon’sMechanical Turk Masters’ perceptions and attitudes related to the data quality (e.g. inattention). Recommendations for researchers using crowdsourcing data are provided.

Comment on Lovett et al (2018)Robert A. Cummins


Mechanical Turk’s most experienced respondents are qualified by Amazon as Mechanical Turk Masters (MTMs). They can command the highest levels of payment and are presumed to provide the highest quality data. The attitudes of these MTMs to questionnaire completion reveals much of interest, not just to users of this system, but also to the gathering of questionnaire data generally. By far the main reason MTMs performed the job was for income; their particular interest in a survey topic was irrelevant; a majority were on the lookout for questions intended to be attention checks or to increase careful responding; they tend not to read instructions carefully; if a survey is longer than expected, they tend to speed through it. The lessons learned are consistent with good survey design in general – use a clear format with simple wording, be honest about the time it will take for completion, and pay a fair wage.


Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 24th April Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.


News of Mother(Longitudinal Mother)

The first cross-sectional survey of 2,000 Australian people, forming the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, was conducted by telephone in June 2001. The first, follow-up, longitudinal survey (ARC-1) in 2002.

Participants in ARC-1 were those respondents from the first cross-sectional survey who had agreed to join the longitudinal study. These people (typically around 50-60% of those interviewed for each cross-sectional survey) provided their contact details and sometime later were sent a paper-and-pencil questionnaire containing some 100 items. These returned questionnaires (typically around 50% of those dispatched) were then sent to a firm specializing in transferring such data into an electronic file. These coded data were then duly received and filed at Deakin.

The following ARC-2 adopted the same procedure, only the mailing list for the new questionnaire comprised two sets of people. Those who were new recruits from the latest cross-sectional survey plus those people who had returned their completed questionnaires from ARC-1. And so this process continued up to the final survey ARC-25 (April 2013).

Now, some five years later, a decision has been made to re-activate the longitudinal study. This time, however, the project is to be conducted electronically. It will involve making contact again with the approximately 2,000 respondents to ARC-25 by postal mail, asking them to complete an on-line survey. It will also require making similar contact with the 10,000 or so people who have responded to our cross-sectional interviews in the intervening period. This will all take place over some years.

These data will be added to the existing Mother database, to form LONGITUDINAL MOTHER. It is envisaged that these respondents will be engaged in an annual survey.




Title: Kids hit hard by junk food advertisingAuthor: Lisa Smithers, University of Adelaidehttps://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180417100541.htm

Children watch a lot of TV. Parents monitor cartoons, TV shows, movies and documentaries that their kids watch in order to protect them from inappropriate or harmful content. What parents don't know is that their children are stealthily being bombarded with junk food ads. A large study conducted by the University of Adelaide found that during peak viewing times for children, ads for junk food were 2.3 times higher each hour, when compared to healthy food ads. Researchers collected their data via a digital television tuner which logged the hours. It was found that with just 80 minutes a day, a child can watch 800 junk food ads in a year. What are the repercussions of this? Kids seeing ads of junk food with funny characters, bright colors, toys will make them ask their parents for the food. Adults are also targeted with junk food ad but the difference is that adults (are supposed to) are more aware of their decisions and the negative effect these have on their health. With the rise in children's obesity and unhealthy diets, countries like Canada, France and Norway have adopted measures to ban or limit the exposure of children to junk food ads. The Australian Heart Foundation is supporting research like these in order to improve the health of all Australians and the world.

Potential collaborationShu-Ching Chiu [[email protected]]

I am a senior instructor from department of nursing, Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Right now, I am writing a proposal about intervention study. Topic is " Influence of sit muscle strength training and game on elderly". From literature review, I find the scale "Personal Wellbeing Index" had a good validity and reliability. I think it maybe suit for my study subjects for checking quality of life. Shu-Ching Chiu | Instructor, PhD, RN Department of Nursing, Central Taiwan University of Science and Technology 666, Buzih Road, Beitun District, Taichung City 40601, Taiwan (R.O.C.) t: +886 4 22391647 | f: +886 4 22398540 | e: [email protected]



other person.

Background: This is one of our most important papers. It concerns the beating heart of homeostasis theory, which is the existence of set-points for Homeostatically Protected Mood. We published our first demonstration of set-points in 2014, using the technique of ‘emotion-




stripping’, which separates the over-lying emotion in each subjective wellbeing response, from the underlying mood. This current paper uses the same technique applied to both the measure of subjective wellbeing used for the original demonstration (Global Life Satisfaction) and to a new measure as Homeostatically Protected Mood. Both the replication and the extension were successful. Reference: Capic, T., et al. (2018). "Confirmation of Subjective Wellbeing Set-points: Foundational for Subjective Social Indicators." Social Indicators Research 137(1): 1-28.Author summary: The usefulness of subjective wellbeing (SWB) as a social indicator rests on understanding what controls its level when measured through self-report data. While the theory of SWB homeostasis provides a cogent explanatory framework for the control processes, this theory relies on set-points, and direct evidence for their existence rests on a single study. In this replication, participants completed between 5 and 10 surveys. Data preparation involved the iterative elimination of scores based on significant deviation from their over-time mean score. It is confirmed that GLS and HPMood set-points are both normally distributed between 75 and 90 points (on a 0-100 point scale). These results offer further support for the usefulness of SWB as a social indicator.Comment on Capic et al (2018)Robert A. CumminsSo, the summary explanatory story is as follows. The most basic influence on the SWB level of each person is their set-point. This provides a genetically determined, unchanging level of a mood ‘molecule’ comprising the three affects; content, happy, and alert. This molecule is called Homeostatically Protected Mood (HPMood), so named because a homeostatic system seeks to equate the level of experienced affect, on a moment-to-moment basis, with the level of HPMood. Thus, under resting conditions, the overall experienced level of affect approximates the level of the set-point. However, people are not usually at rest. When we measure HPMood by asking people ‘how [content] they feel’, the response they give does not normally correspond to their set-point. This is because, within our single stream of consciousness, HPMood forms a weak background, with the foreground being comprised of stronger affects derived from emotional responses to percepts. These emotions are providing us with a constantly-changing affective map of the world we are encountering. Thus, in order to be effective information agents, these emotions must be stronger than HPMood and, so, our ratings of SWB are most likely to be dominated by the emotional content at that time. Only when this emotion is stripped from the affective rating can the set-point be revealed. This is consistent with our results and demonstrates that what we think we are measuring, using self-report data, is not what we get. Instead of getting HPMood we get HPMood + emotion. This story is also consistent with the idea that meditation is a form of emotion-stripping, leading us to experience HPMood.


Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 17 April Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.


Welcome to new members Alexander Mussap <[email protected]>


Associate Professor, School of Psychology, Deakin University

Brief reportBaxter, J. (2018). Stay - at - home fathers in Australia . Melbourne, Australian Institute of

Family Studies http://apo.org.au/system/files/139476/apo-nid139476-696721.pdf.

The small number of stay-at-home fathers (4−5% of two-parent Families) suggests that, despite changes in attitudes toward involved fathering, and also increased employment

participation among mothers, there are factors making this arrangement not workable for many families. This is in part likely to be related to financial constraints on families needing

two incomes, but gendered parenting attitudes are also likely to play a part.


Executive Volunteer MediaTitle: How your next meal can help fight depression and stressAuthor: Max Lugaverehttps://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/20/health/food-depression-stress/index.html

Do we eat junk food when we are stressed or does junk food make us more stressed? Deakin University's Food and Mood Centre is working to better understand this relationship. The centre recently ran a trial in which they either allocated a participants to diet change or to social support sessions for 3 months. All 67 participants had unhealthy diets, took antidepressants and/or attended regular psychotherapy. The diet consisted of boosting extra-virgin olive oils, nuts, eggs, seeds vegetables, fruits, fatty fish, and grass-fed beef. For the diet group, before and after measures of depression improved on average by 11 points. 32% experienced such a drop in depression symptoms, that they no longer met criteria. In comparison, the social support group only improved on average 4 points, with only 8% achieving remission.

For more information about the emerging field of nutritional psychiatry and lead researcher Dr. Felice Jacka access the links below:

Dr. Felice Jacka statement: https://www.townhallmedicine.com/our-experts/dr-felice-jacka-phd/

Deakin University's Food and Mood Centre: foodandmoodcentre.com.au/

Can We Prevent Depression By Improving Diet? -Dr. Felice Jacka gives a 1 hour presentation overviewing the relationship between mental health and diet: http://ibpf.org/article/dr-felice-jacka-can-we-prevent-depression-improving-diet

ACQol Bulletin Vol 2/14: 050418 Bulletin of the Australian Centre on Quality of LifeEditor: Robert A. Cumminshttp://www.acqol.com.au/Note 1: This site is under development and some content is missing.


http://ibpf.org/article/dr-felice-jacka-can-we-prevent-depression-improving-diet

http://foodandmoodcentre.com.au/

https://www.townhallmedicine.com/our-experts/dr-felice-jacka-phd/

https://www.townhallmedicine.com/our-experts/dr-felice-jacka-phd/

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/20/health/food-depression-stress/index.html

http://apo.org.au/system/files/139476/apo-nid139476-696721.pdf

Note 2: Please address any correspondence to the editor only.


other person.

Background: This paper was identified by Mathew Ling [email protected]. Slowly but surely evidence is building, within the social sciences, for a disturbing reality. This is the emerging understanding, in relation to self-report data, that what you see is not what you get. When researchers or practitioners use a scale called, for example, ‘Grit and Persistence’ they expect the latent construct represented by their measurement to represent the scale title. To the contrary, what their scale is dominantly measuring may be something else entirely. Read on if you really want to spoil your day.

Reference: Maul, A. (2017). "Rethinking traditional methods of survey validation." Measurement: Interdisciplinary Research and Perspectives 15(2): 51-69.

Author summary: “It is commonly believed that self-report, survey-based instruments can be used to measure a wide range of psychological attributes, such as self-control, growth mindsets, and grit… The validity of such instruments is typically investigated using a classic set of methods, including the examination of reliability coefficients, factor or principal components analyses, and correlations between scores on the instrument and other variables.However, these techniques may fall short of providing the kinds of rigorous, potentially falsifying tests of relevant hypotheses commonly expected in scientific research. This point is illustrated via a series of studies in which respondents were presented with survey items deliberately constructed to be uninterpretable, but the application of the aforementioned validation procedures nonetheless returned favorable-appearing results. In part, thisdisconnect may be traceable to the way in which operationalist modes of thinking in the social sciences have reinforced the perception that attributes do not need to be defined independently of particular sets of testing operations.”

Comment on Maul (2017)Robert A. CumminsI applaud Maul for his very nifty paper. Two aspects particularly impress. First in drawing attention to the inadequate ‘trinity of statistics’, which so often accompany reports based on self-report data. Internal scale reliability, factor analysis, and ‘validity’ determined through convergent correlations were deemed adequate fifty years ago, but not now. As Maul notes, very considerable advances have been made over this period in psychometrics, validity theory, and field-specific psychological theories. Second, his study is brilliant. It demonstrates that the ‘trinity’ statistics can be adequately met, even when the participants are responding to nonsense questions, or even to a response scale lacking a question. While Maul offers a partial explanation of these results, there is another possibility. If the respondents had relied on Homeostatically Protected Mood as the basis for their replies, the results would be much as demonstrated. Discussion of this possibility is invited.


Substantive comments received by midnight on Tuesday 10th April Oz time will be published in the following Bulletin.




Brief reportJoy and data: Creating success for every student

Australian Learning Lecture (ALL)State Library of Victoria

http://apo.org.au/node/138306Education in Australia has increasingly become a highly-pressurised pursuit of success. More than ever, students are told to excel academically if they are going to succeed in life. Are we

at risk of losing all joy of learning?


Executive Volunteer MediaTitle: Dietary supplement shows promise for reversing cardiovascular agingAuthor: Doug Seals - University of Colorado at Boulder https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180329083313.htm

We all know that loosing weight, when overweight, benefits health. Exercise and dieting are ideal, but it does not come easy. Dietary supplements are controversial, but could prove to be beneficial to those with health conditions that require prompt weight loss. A study found that when people consumed a natural dietary supplement called nicotinomide riboside (NR) daily, it mimicked caloric restriction, aka "CR," kick-starting the same key chemical pathways responsible for its health benefits. The supplement also improved blood pressure and arterial health, particularly for those diagnosed with mild hypertension. The supplement was found to benefit older adults due to restoring a compound that activates enzymes responsible for the beneficial effects of caloric restriction. The author reports that "We could potentially be ramping up the activity of enzymes responsible for helping protect our bodies from stress." The study was small and "pilot in nature" but seems to be a promising supplement to a diet and exercise regime.


http://apo.org.au/node/138306

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