Mohammed T. Abou-Saleh

LIFE SATISFACTION 77that most caregivers report that their lives are satisfying. A relatedimplication for policy analysis is the utility of life satisfactionmeasures for assessing the effects of intervention. Given the stabilityof life satisfaction measures in the face of all but the most majorchanges in life circumstances, it is probably unwise to evaluate theutility of an intervention on the basis of changes in life satisfaction.Such measures may be so insensitive that meaningful changes in lifecircumstances would be missed if life satisfaction were the onlyoutcome examined. Moreover, most interventions need notimprove life satisfaction to be demonstrably beneficial. Forexample, interventions that prevent illness or help to alleviate thefunctional consequences of illness need not improve life satisfactionto be beneficial. It is enough that they make a demonstrabledifference in the incidence or functional consequences of disease.Second, although it may be problematic for policy purposes thatperceptions of life quality often stray rather far from objective lifeconditions, there is something admirable in the fact that mostolder people find life satisfying despite deprivations in the materialand social resources so highly valued in modern societies. We needto investigate the foundations of this phenomenon. Increasedunderstanding of this perplexing facet of life satisfaction is mostlikely to occur if subjective experience more broadly becomes thefocus of investigation. In particular, increased attention should bedevoted to studying the life of the self in old age and the sources ofmeaning that older adults attach to various life domains.The 15% of the older population who are not able to sustain asense of well-being also should not be ignored. Although we knowthat these older adults fare less well than their age peers onmeasures of income, health, social bonds and leisure participation,we know little else about them. We do not know, for example,whether their dissatisfaction in old age is a life-long pattern or is aresponse to age-related losses. Given the stability of life satisfactionmeasures, we also know little about how to facilitate higherlevels of satisfaction among these individuals. Modern societies doquite well at providing the social and economic conditions thatallow most older adults to find life satisfying. But we still do notknow much about how to change life satisfaction. Such knowledgeis of high priority, both for the practical purposes of promotinglife quality and for gaining a better understanding of its dynamics.Finally, we must remember that there is important informationyet to be learned about life satisfaction. Life satisfaction is not thekey barometer of successful aging (as, unfortunately, some of itsadvocates have implied). But it is important. It is important becauseit reminds the scientific community that we should be interested inenhancement as well as rehabilitation, in promoting the good life aswell as intervening to alleviate bad times. Life satisfaction mattersbecause it demonstrates that social, economic and psychologicalfactors are as important in understanding life’s triumphs as itstragedies. Life satisfaction is important because it reminds us tostrive for health as well as the absence of disease and to invest inmental health as well as the amelioration of mental illness.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTPreparation of this chapter was supported by a grant from theJohn Templeton Foundation.REFERENCES1. Maddox GL, Wiley J. Scope, concepts, and methods in the study ofaging. In Binstock RH, Shanas E, eds, Handbook of Aging and the SocialSciences, 1st edn. 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