Life satisfaction

Life satisfaction is the assessment of the general life situation of a person by herself this case is not determined by feelings. Similarly, life satisfaction is not a current state and not dependent on whims, but the result of a reflection on his own situation. Life satisfaction is always related to a longer period of time and includes the evaluation of very different areas such as partnership, profession, finance, leisure, friends, housing, etc.. Psychologists determine life satisfaction often with general questions, such as " All in all, how satisfied are you with your life? " To which the people then " mediocre " to be able to answer "completely " with varying degrees of "not at all " about.

The life satisfaction are compared to the living conditions. Depending on how the living conditions really are and what life satisfaction arises from this, various technical terms are used in the social sciences:

• The coincidence of good living conditions and positive well-being is the most desirable combination and is referred to as the " Well-Being ".
• "Adaptation " means the combination of poor living conditions in the coexistence of satisfaction (also called " Zufriedenheitsparadox "). The term " paradox of life satisfaction in old age " has found its way into the Gerontology this appearance.
• In the " deprivation" go bad living conditions associated with negative well-being.
• " Dissonance " refers to the state of affairs in which good living conditions are present, however, dissatisfaction is expressed (also called " dissatisfaction dilemma ").

In psychology and the social sciences various standardized questionnaires were designed to capture differences in life satisfaction or quality of life and to compare with results of population- representative surveys, such as questionnaire on life satisfaction.