this is where you briefly explain to the reader (that would be me) what you accomplished in the paper. Gap in the literature, hypothesis, and results briefly stated. This should be no longer than 100 or 200 words.
Generally, the idea when doing research is to start by looking at what other people have already thought about (to avoid reinventing the wheel).The goal of the literature review section is to convince the reader that you are familiar with your topic and to locate a weakness, a gap in the field that you can fill.
Term 'Subjective well-being'(SWB), which is used by psychologists as a synonym for 'happiness' (Lu, 2006) , was promoted by Ed Diener. Since 1984 “Dr. Happiness” - as Diener is called among colleagues (Wallis, 2005) - published about 200 works (Eid & Larsen, 2008), and his original work “Subjective Well-Being(1984)” was cites over 1200 times (Eid & Larsen, 2008).
The study of SWB focuses on how people evaluate their lives: both at the moment and during long periods of time(Diener et. al. 2003). These evaluations - according to Diener, Oishi, and Lucas - include emotional reactions to events, moods(affects), judgements about their life satisfaction, fulfilment(life satisfaction), and satisfaction with different life domains, such as marriage and work (domain satisfaction). SWB researchers have shown that these constructs are separable, moreover, pleasant(e.g. 'joy', 'pride', 'ecstasy') and unpleasant('envy','guilt', 'shame') affects are moderately inversely correlated, but clearly separable (Diener et. al. 1999).
In order to measure SWB, Satisfaction With Life Scale(SWLS) was developed (Diener et. al. 1985). SWLS consists of 5 items or statements, each in scale from 1 to 7, resulting into 5-35 scale. Diener suggests a number of factors that influence the overall life satisfaction: social relationships; work, school, or performance in an important role; satisfaction with the self, standing for spiritual life, learning, growth, and leisure (Diener, 2006). Though psychologists developed a lot of other tools to assess SWB, based on peer-reports, observations, emotion-sensitive tasks, and cognitive tasks, self-report assessment considered reliable, thus SWLS considered valid and reliable (Diener et. al. 1999) and used as a standard measure of SWB (Eid & Larsen, 2008).
Through decades researches found relations between SWB and individual's income (Diener et. al. 1993), marriage
\[ SWB = Physictal Well-Being (Health + Stimulation(activities, sports, study, etc.)) \\+ Social Well-Being (Status + Behevioral Confirmation(Social Skills, Compliance - Behave according to norms) \\+ Affection(emotional exchange, spending time together, empathy)) \]
Chinese researcher Luo Lu claims that “cultural conceptions of happiness are critical aspects of SWB, which has largely been neglected” (Lu, 2005)
Having hinted at the inadequacies in the literature, the research design section is where you flesh out your theory, specifying the structure of your model, what you expect to find (main hypotheses), what would prove your hypothesis wrong (your hypotheses must be falsifiable). If at all possible, you should explain the mechanism by which you expect two variables to be related. You reader (that is to say I) would be most unhappy if there was just a list of hypotheses with no causal explanations as to why you expect that relationship with that sign to hold. You may also add some control variables here that are part of the already reviewed literature and can be tested using your dataset but are not part of your core model. You may wish to look at what hypotheses you can test using the datasets you chose and which you cannot. It’s ok if there’s something you have to leave out because of data limitations.
Trying to reproduce Lu's research on ESS data.
Since Welzel(m.b. Ingleheart too, need to find proof) postulated, that there is no much variance of values inside one country, calculate mean value for each scale inside each county. Next, calculate the fitness index for each respondent: distance from the mean. This would be our 'Cultural Fit' index.
\[ SWB = Health + Salary + Cultural fit \]
Also try another model
\[ Social Fit = Compliance + Relative Status \]
\[ SWB = Health + Cultural Fit + Social Fit \]
(Salary is included into Relative Status)
What data are you using? Did you merge data from more than one source? Can the reader get it from somewhere? Explain what (if any) latent variables you are using and what their components are. What are the ranges (min-max) of the most important variables (or latent variable components)? Have you normalized (rescaled to a 0-1 scale) anything? How many observations do you have in your final analysis, and how did you handle missing data?
ESS data
Data analysis. Explain what methods you used. Assume your reader doesn’t teach statistics. Actually, assume your reader is your grandma, who for some reason, wants you to address her a bit more formally in writing these days. What were your meth-ods? What software did you use? (Make sure to include the R or whatever code in an appendix) What were your results? Did you test for small changes in the model and for excluding outliers? Did that change your core results significantly? Give a straightforward interpretation of your results. Are your hypotheses falsified or did they resist your best attempt at falsifying them?
Discuss your results. Why are your results interesting? Are there any implications – social, political, or even perhaps personal (such as “Research indicates conclusively that personal happiness can be increased greatly by daily Nutella consumption to the amount of at least 20 grams”)) –of your research that you would like to share with the
reader? What other tests could be employed to falsify your hypothesis? What other tests would you do if you had a large sum of money?