Synonyms
Definition
Life goals are aims to which an individual may give higher or lower priority.
Description
Life goals are usually measured in surveys by asking respondents to rate or rank how “important” various aims in life are to them (e.g., a good marriage and family life; a high material standard of living; helping others in the community). A typical response scale runs between 0 and 10, or 1 and 4, with the top end of the scale marked “very important” and the bottom end marked “not at all important.”
Importance ratings have been regarded as problematic in research on subjective well-being (SWB). Clearly, from both a “pure” research point of view, and for public policy purposes, it is crucial to ascertain which domains and subdomains of life matter most to people. The obvious way to find out is to ask. However, the Michigan pioneers of quality of life research, notably Andrews and Withey (1976), found that data on life goals, elicited by importance ratings, had...
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References
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Headey, B. (2014). Life Goals. In: Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_1644
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