The Research On Chinese Life Satisfaction And Its Relationship With Mental Health

Life satisfaction is a subjective evaluation and emotional experience about whether one's life situation meets his expect. It is one of the pop issues in the studies of positive psychology and psychology of happiness. In the west, studies on life satisfaction achieved much valuable outcome, but in China, there was no suitable measurements to assess life satisfaction of Chinese people. The aim of this study is to develop this kind of measurements, and explore the relationship between life satisfaction and mental health, then to offer some proposal to improve the quality of people's life.Firstly, we structure the dimensions of life satisfaction on the basis of literature review, personal interviews and open questionnaire. We modify them according to some experts'advice.985 adults were told to complete the final questionnaires. We come to some conclusions as following:a. The structure of life satisfaction for Chinese people is a seven-factor multi-dimension. The dimensions of undergraduates'life satisfaction contain material living, family atmosphere, self, interpersonal relationships, natural environment, social environment, and study; and material living, family atmosphere, self, interpersonal relationships, natural environment, social environment, and work are dimensions of Working people'life satisfaction.b. Questionnaire of life satisfaction for undergraduates has good reliability and validity. The Cronbachs alpha is.872 and the Guttman split-half is.873, the validity of content, construct and discrimination validity have all meeted the requirement of psychometrics. The Cronbachs alpha and Guttman split-half of another questionnaire are 0.857 and 0.813. Both of the two questionnaires can be used to measure the life satisfaction of Chinese.c. The level of Chinese life satisfaction is not high. From high to low, undergraduates'life satisfaction are interpersonal relationships, family atmosphere, material living, self, natural environment, study and social environment, the freshmen and senior have higher satisfaction than other grades. Working people'life satisfaction, from high to low, are family atmosphere, interpersonal relationships, self, natural environment, work, material living and social environment. Gender, the types of professions, and economic status affect life satisfaction significantly.d. There is nothing wrong with the mental health of Chinese. But some phenomenon should catch our eyes. Undergraduates have more negative affectivity and depression, and working people feel more anxious and depressed. Satisfaction of life has affected mental health significantly.e. Some people need the service of mental health.