This article mainly focuses on the average person’s satisfaction with life. With that being said, the sample used in the study consisted of people of random ages, races, and years of education. In the end, the main survey topics discussed were self-esteem, private regard, sexual identification, satisfaction with life, and sex role inventory. Each topic received an average of “Agrees” and “Strongly Agrees”, showing that most of the participants of the study were living fulfilling lives. Even the graphs represent this trend well by showing a Bell curve. However, that does not mean that the study was not without its faults.
It is true that the statistics in the article were rather precise, with the calculated means and standard deviations all being shown to the 4th decimal place. Despite this, the study does not exactly give the reader anything to think or reflect on. There is no major importance to this study. Since it is not being compared to past studies or studies from different countries, there is not much to take in at the end, other than most people in this country are satisfied with their lives. Along with that, the majority of the participants in this study were white college graduates in their 20s, which somewhat skews the results. The outlook on life of a white person in their 20’s is going to differ from an African American in their 50’s, or a white person who did not go to college.
Lined up next to other research studies I have encountered in the past, it looks pretty similar, only simpler. The precision and structure of the data match many other studies on similar topics. Although, it was not exactly what I had expected, based on prior research. In the past few years, I have been led to believe that the self-esteem of the average person in the US has been slowly declining. While these two events could still be true, it makes me wonder what the self-esteem of the average person was in the past. Regardless of these conflicts, this study will still be useful in the future for comparing outlooks on life from different years.