When a person takes the Quality of Life (QOL) Inventory, he or she rates each of the 16 areas of life according to how important it is (from 0 to 2) and how satisfied he or she is with it (from -3 to +3). Then the individual scores are combined according to a scoring algorithm to yield an overall QOL score that can be compared to national norms, showing how this persons satisfaction compares to the general population.
What interests me is the way the weighting works, where the importance level is multiplied by the satisfaction level for each item.
If the importance level is 0 (Not Important), the area of life is essentially removed from consideration. It can’t raise or lower the overall QOL score, even if it is an extreme value (-3 or +3). That seems reasonable. For people with no desire to have children or have contact with children, it wouldn’t make sense to lower their satisfaction levels because they had no children. It’s a ways of saying this area of life is irrelevant for me.
What I find particularly interesting is the way marking areas of life Important (1) rather than Extremely Important (2) puts a ceiling on overall QOL scores. Consider a person who thinks all items are important. That person’s maximum possible range of total weighted values is -48 to +48 (16 times +/-3 times 1). Another person who rates all areas of life Extremely Important (2), has a maximum possible range of -96 to +96 (16 times +/-3 times 2).
This implies two different approaches to raising life satisfaction scores:
- For an area with a negative satisfaction score, one can work to raise the satisfaction score or reduce the importance score or both.
- For an area with a positive satisfaction score, one can still work to raise the satisfaction score. But instead of reducing the importance score, one could work to raise it.
Does it make sense to think about modifying both sides of the QOLI like this, or should one view the importance levels as fixed representations of the way a given person weighs the 16 areas of life?
If it makes sense to modify the satisfaction level as well, what are the positive interventions targeted at doing so?
I know this may be like “teaching to the test” but I think the question is an interesting one: Is a person with more Extremely Important areas of life endowed with greater potential life satisfaction than a person with fewer Extremely Important areas?
2 responses so far ↓
Michael B. Frisch // March 12, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Dear Kathryn,
Very thoughtful!
This is really not teaching to the test. For example, it is part of the CASIO or Five Paths to Meaning or Fulfillment approach:
Five Paths to Life List Success and Happiness
• Qol theory says overall happiness is made up of the sixteen areas of life, or at least, those of the sixteen that you see as important.
• Qol theory says overall happiness is made up of your satisfaction with the specific areas of life that you value.
• Our theory also identifies the five elements that make up your fulfillment in any one, single, specific area of life.
• We turn these five elements into a blueprint for life list success called Five Paths to Success or The MAGIC Way To Life List Success.
• We turn these five elements into a blueprint for life list success called Five Paths to Success or The MAGIC Way To Life List Success. Three of these techniques require no change in your circumstances at all to achieve your life list goal. You can achieve life list success in any area of life or for any specific life list goal if you:
1. Change Your Circumstances—M for circumstances
The first strategy involves changing your circumstances to achieve a goal or improve a particular area of your life. It’s not all in your head. Some circumstances are terribly unfulfilling or “psychonoxious” and must be changed to find happiness. For example, you could try to change boring job or a loveless marriage by talking to your boss or getting marriage counseling. If all else fails, you may need to leave the situation and start over to find happiness as in the song, “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover.” Or “take this job and shove it”. So try to choose the most positive and rewarding life situations you can. Misty did this and achieved a life list goal of getting a Ph.D. in History by leaving a psychonoxious and unrewarding history department in a university that never funded this area of study properly. At a new college with better mentors, she achieved her life list dream of a college education with a major in history
2. Change Your Attitude—A for Attitude
The second way to achieve a life goal of greater in a particular area of life is to change your attitude about the situation, to correct any distortions or negativity in your thinking. The essence of the Changing Attitude Strategy from the magic model is to find out what is really happening in an area and to carefully evaluate what it means for you and your future in an objective and realistic way that preserves your self-esteem and gives you some reason to hope for fulfillment and happiness in the future.
Changing your attitude involves taking a new look at an area of life by asking two key questions:
(1) “What is really happening here? What are all the facts?” and
(2) “How will this situation affect me and my future prospects for happiness?”
“What does this situation say about my abilities or my worth as a person?
Many times our view of a situation is not based on the facts. For example, you may believe that your boss is unhappy with your work because he or she seems to be ignoring you, when in fact your boss is preoccupied with a personal problem. Because of our tendency to jump to conclusions, it is important to get all the facts, before deciding things are hopeless. Our interpretation of facts can also give us trouble.
[[ED: A KEY EXAMPLE.]]Jonathan had “change jobs and find a supportive boss in software engineering” as a life list goal. After consulting the Magic pathways to fulfillment, he asked about his boss’ apparent indifference and neglect only to find out that his boss’ was struggling with the diagnosis of alzheimer’s disease in his spouse of 30 years! This attitude change led Jonathan to achieve his life list goal without changing jobs as he had planned.
3. Change Your Life list Goal or Standards for Fulfillment
The third strategy for reaching a life list goal like a satisfying job or successful marriage is to change your goal or standards for that area. This will boost your fulfillment and life list success with an area even though you have done nothing to change things! The key idea here is to set realistic goals and to experiment with raising and lowering your standards of fulfillment for particular areas of life that you are unhappy with. To do this, you have to answer questions like “What do I really want in this part of life? How much is enough?” Often it helps to lower your standards slightly so that you can gain more fulfillment in that part of your life.
4. Change Your Priorities or What Is Important To You
This part says that you can boost your overall quality of life by de-emphasizing specific areas you cannot change and putting more importance on areas you can change or control. For example, if you have an untreatable health problem, you may de-emphasize the importance of health in your life and instead focus on relationships or your work. These may be two areas you can change to make yourself happier. To pursue this strategy, you have to ask “What are my priorities?”
5. Boost Your Satisfaction in Other Areas Not Previously Considered
The essence of this strategy is to try to increase your quality of life by increasing satisfaction in any or all areas of life you care about, even ones that don’t seem to be a problem right now. This is especially helpful when you are working on an area that is very difficult and slow to change, such as a love relationship. While a particular area of concern, like Love, may be moving slowly toward improvement, you can boost your overall quality of life by focusing on other areas of life that you care about, such as recreation and friendships, even though these areas are not your “number one” concern at the moment.
Michael B. Frisch // March 12, 2008 at 6:34 pm
The http://www.qoltc.com website is down right now. To access Mike’s web site or info on qoltc or the Quality of Life Inventory or QOLI:
1. google michael b frisch
2. go to baylor university and “Search” frisch, and
select html version of web page.
3. select : http://www3.baylor.edu/Psychology/Michael_Frisch/frisch.html