Examining the Relationship Between Students' Life Satisfaction and School-Based Social and Behavioral Success
type: CreativeWork
description: Life satisfaction is key indicator of psychological well-being, a central component of positive psychology, and an important correlate of positive development. Concurrent and predictive validity of global and domain-specific life satisfaction reports were explored with respect to social success within the classroom, peer rejection, and externalizing behavior problems. The Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS), which yields an overall subjective life satisfaction score in addition to five domain-specific satisfaction scores (family, friends, self, school, living environment), was administered to a sample of 198 3rd through 8th grade students in an urban public school in a northeastern U.S. city during the fall of 2008 (Time 1) and spring 2009 (Time 2). A friendship survey was also administered at both time points; peer nominations from these surveys were used to calculate individual peer acceptance and peer rejection scores, as well as to identify classroom social networks and students' salience within them. Data were also collected on individual disciplinary incidents throughout the year resulting in a total number of office discipline referrals (ODRs) for each student. Given the abundance of literature suggesting that low levels of self-reported life satisfaction are linked to poor social and behavioral outcomes, it was expected that subjective satisfaction ratings would demonstrate an inverse relationship with peer rejection and disciplinary referrals, and a positive relationship with social success, as measured by peer acceptance and social network centrality. At Time 1, in contrast with the hypothesis, none of the domain-specific or global life satisfaction variables were found to demonstrate any significant relationships with peer rejection or acceptance. However, as expected, Time 1 social network centrality demonstrated a small but significant correlation with satisfaction with self and a moderate correlation with satisfaction with…
abstract: Life satisfaction is key indicator of psychological well-being, a central component of positive psychology, and an important correlate of positive development. Concurrent and predictive validity of global and domain-specific life satisfaction reports were explored with respect to social success within the classroom, peer rejection, and externalizing behavior problems. The Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale (BMSLSS), which yields an overall subjective life satisfaction score in addition to five domain-specific satisfaction scores (family, friends, self, school, living environment), was administered to a sample of 198 3rd through 8th grade students in an urban public school in a northeastern U.S. city during the fall of 2008 (Time 1) and spring 2009 (Time 2). A friendship survey was also administered at both time points; peer nominations from these surveys were used to calculate individual peer acceptance and peer rejection scores, as well as to identify classroom social networks and students' salience within them. Data were also collected on individual disciplinary incidents throughout the year resulting in a total number of office discipline referrals (ODRs) for each student. Given the abundance of literature suggesting that low levels of self-reported life satisfaction are linked to poor social and behavioral outcomes, it was expected that subjective satisfaction ratings would demonstrate an inverse relationship with peer rejection and disciplinary referrals, and a positive relationship with social success, as measured by peer acceptance and social network centrality. At Time 1, in contrast with the hypothesis, none of the domain-specific or global life satisfaction variables were found to demonstrate any significant relationships with peer rejection or acceptance. However, as expected, Time 1 social network centrality demonstrated a small but significant correlation with satisfaction with self and a moderate correlation with satisfaction with…
author: Greenwell, Rebecca
language: eng
keywords: Educational Psychology, Psychology, School Counseling, Behavioral Success, Life Satisfaction, Positive Psychology, School Psychology, Social-emotional Screening, Social Success
license: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
date published: 2012
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:21:38Z
provider: Temple University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Temple University. Libraries

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12613/1342