The Psychology of Quality of Life

The third, thoroughly revised and enhanced edition of this bestselling book analyses and discusses the most up-to-date research on the psychology of quality of life. The book is divided into six parts. The introductory part lays the philosophical and academic foundation of much of the research on wellbeing and positive mental health, showing the beneficial effects of happy people at work, health, and to society at large. Part 2 (effects of objective reality) describes how sociocultural factors, income factors, other demographic factors, and biological and health conditions affect wellbeing and positive mental health. Part 3 focuses on subjective reality and discusses how individuals process information from their objective environment, and how they manipulate this information that affects wellbeing and positive mental health. Part 4 focuses on the psychology of quality of life specific to life domains, while Part 5 reviews the research on special populations: children, women, the elderly, but also the disabled, drug addicts, prostitutes, emergency personnel, immigrants, teachers, and caregivers. The final part of the book focuses on theories and models of wellbeing and positive mental health that integrate and unify disparate concepts and programs of research. The book addresses the importance of the psychology of quality of life in the context of public policy and calls for a broadening of the approach in happiness research to incorporate other aspects of quality of life at the group, community, and societal levels.  It is of topical interest to academics, students and researchers of quality of life, well-being research, happiness studies, psychotherapy, and social policy.

M. JOSEPH (JOE) SIRGY is a management psychologist (Ph.D., U/Massachusetts, 1979) and the Virginia Tech Real Estate Professor of Marketing at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). He has published extensively in the area of marketing, business ethics, and quality of life (QOL). He co-founded the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS) in 1995, served as its Executive Director/Treasurer from 1995 to 2011, and as Development Co-Director (2011-present).

In 1998, he received the Distinguished Fellow Award from ISQOLS. In 2003, ISQOLS honored him as the Distinguished QOL Researcher for research excellence and a record of lifetime achievement in QOL research. He also served as President of the Academy of Marketing Science (2002-04) from which he received the Distinguished Fellow Award in the early 1990's and the Harold Berkman Service Award in 2007 (lifetime achievement award for serving the marketing professoriate). In the early 2000's, he helped co-found the Macromarketing Society and the Community Indicators Consortium and has served as a board member of these two professional associations. He co-founded the journal, Applied Research in Quality of Life, the official journal of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, in 2005; and he has served as co-founding editor (1995-present). He also served editor of the QOL section in the Journal of Macromarketing (1995-2016). He received the Virginia Tech's Pamplin Teaching Excellence Award/Holtzman Outstanding Educator Award and University Certificate of Teaching Excellence in 2008. In 2010, ISQOLS honored him for excellence and lifetime service to the society. In 2010 he won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Happiness Studies for his theory of the balanced life; in 2011 he won the Best Paper Award in the Journal of Travel Research for his goal theory of leisure travel satisfaction. In 2012 he was awarded the EuroMed Management Research Award for outstanding achievements and groundbreaking contributions to well-being and quality-of-life research. In 2019 the Macromarketing Society honored him with the Robert W. Nason Award for extraordinary and sustained contributions to the field of Macromarketing.  He is currently serving as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Macromarketing (2020-present)

He also was the editor of ISQOLS/Springer book series on International Handbooks in QOL (2008-15), Community QOL Indicators: Best Cases (2004-15), Applied Research in QOL: Best Practices (2008-12). He is currently the co-editor of Springer book series on Human Well-Being and Policy Making (2015-present).