Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T11:52:30.986Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Subjective Well-being, Personality, and Loneliness as Correlates of Saudade: A Preliminary Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2020

Félix Neto Open the ORCID record for Félix Neto [Opens in a new window]  and
Etienne Mullet
Félix Neto*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, Oporto University, Oporto
Etienne Mullet
Affiliation:
Institute of Advanced Studies (EPHE), Paris, France
*
Address for correspondence: Félix Neto, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200-135Porto, Portugal. Email: fneto@fpce.up.pt
Get access

Abstract

Saudade is a psychological reaction to the absence of significant others or familiar places. The correlates of the experience of saudade were examined using a sample of Portuguese adults. Two hundred and twenty-seven participants of both genders, aged 20–65, were presented with (a) the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), (b) the Positive and Negative Affect Schedules (PANAS), (c) the brief Loneliness Scale (ULS-6), (d) the Neo Five-Factor Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI), and (e) an experience of saudade two-item scale. Experience of saudade was more often reported by females than by males, and positively correlated with negative affect, loneliness, and neuroticism.

Keywords

genderpersonalityPortugalsaudadesubjective well-being
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Relationships Research , Volume 11 , 2020 , e4
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barros, A., & Marques, J.F. (1996). Os valores e os ‘cinco factores’ de personalidade [Values and ‘five factors’ of personality]. Revista Portuguesa de Psicologia, 34, 29–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botelho, A. (1990). Saudosismo como movimento: Da saudade ao saudosismo. [From saudade to saudosismo]. Lisboa: Instituto de Cultura e Língua Portuguesa.Google Scholar
Cacioppo, J.T., & Hawley, L.C. (2005). People thinking about people: The vicious cycle of being a social outcast in one's own mind. In Williams, K.D., Forgas, J.P., & von Hippel, W. (Eds.), The social outcast: Ostracism, social exclusion, rejections, and bullying (pp. 91–108). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Castro, A.B. (1980). Saudade (ensaio): Etimologia (árabe), significação, antologia [Saudade (essay): Etymology (Arabic), meaning, anthology]. Porto: Edição do autor.Google Scholar
Chida, Y., & Steptoe, A. (2008). Positive psychological well-being and mortality: A quantitative review of prospective observational studies. Psychosomatic Medicine, 70, 741–756.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Costa, P.T. Jr., & McCrae, R.R. (1992). The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Odessa; FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
de Ridder, D. (2000). Gender, stress and coping: Do women handle stressful situations differently from men? In Sherr, L. & St Lawrence, J.S. (Eds.), Women, health and the mind (pp. 115–135). Chichester, UK: Wiley.Google Scholar
Diener, E.R., Emmons, R., Larsen, R., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diener, E., & Chan, M.Y. (2011). Happy people live longer: Subjective well-being contributes to health and longevity: Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being, 3, 1–43.Google Scholar
Diener, E., Gohm, C.L., Suh, E., & Oishi, S. (2000). Similarity of the relations between marital status and subjective well-being across cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 31, 419–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. (2015). National accounts of subjective well-being. American Psychologist, 70, 234–242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Farrell, P. (2006). Portuguese saudade and other emotions of absence and longing. In Peeters, B. (Ed.), Semantic primes and universal grammar: Empirical evidence from the Romance languages (pp. 235–258). Amsterdam: John Benjamin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkley, L.C., Thisted, R.A., & Cacioppo, J.T. (2009). Loneliness predicts reduced physical activity: Cross-sectional & longitudinal analysis. Health Psychology, 28, 354–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawley, L.C., & Cacioppo, J.T. (2010). Loneliness matters: A theoretical and empirical review of consequences and mechanisms. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 40, 218–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Headey, B.W., & Wearing, A.J. (1989). Personality life events and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 731–739.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howell, R.T., & Howell, C.J. (2008). The relation of economic status to subjective well-being in developing countries. A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 536–560.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, H., & Martin, P. (2019). Who gives and receives more? Older couples’ personality and spousal support. Personal Relationships, 26, 429–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyubormirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803–855.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machado, J.P. (Ed.). (2003). Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa [Etymological dictionary of Portuguese language] (8th ed.). Lisboa: Livros Horizonte.Google Scholar
Magnus, K., Diener, E., Fujita, F., & Pavot, W. (1993). Extraversion and neuroticism as predictors of objective life events: A longitudinal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1046–1053.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mahon, N.E., Yarcheski, A., Yarcheski, T.J., Cannella, B.L., & Hanks, M.M. (2006). A meta-analytic study of predictors for loneliness during adolescence. Nursing Research, 55, 308–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCrae, R.R., & Costa, P.T. Jr. (2003). Personality in adulthood: A five-factor theory perspective. (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellor, D., Stokes, M., Firth, L., Hayashi, Y., & Cummins, R. (2008). Need to belonging, relationship satisfaction, loneliness and life satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 213–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullet, E., & Neto, F. (2014). Life domain satisfaction in Portugal and France. In Michalos, A.C. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of quality of life and well-being research, pp. 3557–3560. Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, L.S., Gamst, G., & Guarino, A. (2006). Applied multivariate research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Neto, F. (1992). Loneliness among Portuguese adolescents. Social Behavior and Personality, 20, 15–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neto, F. (1995). Predictors of satisfaction with life among second generation of immigrants. Social Indicators Research, 35, 93–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neto, F. (2007). Forgiveness, personality and gratitude. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 2313–2323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neto, F. (2014). Psychometric analysis of the short-form UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-6) in older adults. European Journal of Ageing, 11, 313–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neto, F. (2016a). Gratitude uniquely predicts loneliness above socio-demographics, the Big 5 personality factors and life satisfaction. In Howard, A.R. (Ed.), Psychology of gratitude: New research (pp. 61–73). New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Neto, F. (2016b). Predictors of loneliness among Portuguese youths from returned migrant families. Social Indicators Research, 126, 425–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neto, F., & Fonseca, A.C. (2018). The Satisfaction with Job Life Scale among immigrants. Psychological Studies, 63, 209–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neto, F., & Mullet, E. (2014). A prototype analysis of the Portuguese concept of saudade. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 45, 660–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (2008). The satisfaction with life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3, 137–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peplau, L.A., & Perlman, D. (1982). Perspectives on loneliness. In Peplau, L., & Perlman, D. (Eds.), Loneliness: A sourcebook of current theory, research, and therapy (pp. 1–20). New York: Wiley-Interscience.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, U.T. (1967). A saudade na poesia portuguesa [Saudade in Portuguese poetry]. Lisboa: Portugália Editora.Google Scholar
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In Rosch, E. & Loyd, B.B. (Eds.), Cognition and categorization (pp .27–71). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Russell, D.W., Cutrona, C.E., McRae, C., & Gomez, M. (2012). Is loneliness the same as being alone? The Journal of Psychology, 146, 7–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Russell, D., Peplau, L., & Cutrona, C. (1980). The revised UCLA Loneliness Scale: Concurrent and discriminate validity evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 472–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, S. (2012). Saudade: A key Portuguese emotion. Emotion Review, 4, 203–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simões, A. (1993). São os homens mais agressivos que as mulheres? Revista Portuguesa de Pedagogia, 3, 387, 404.Google Scholar
Sletta, O., Valas, H., Skaalvick, E., & Sobstad, F. (1996). Peer relations, loneliness, and self-perceptions in school-aged children. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 431–445.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Today Translations. (2008). https://www.todaytranslations.com/news/most-untranslatable-word/Google Scholar
Vasconcelos, M.C. (1996). A saudade portuguesa [Portuguese saudade]. Lisboa: Guimarães Editors.Google Scholar
Watson, D., Clark, L.A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Widiger, T.A. (2009). Neuroticism. In Leary, M.R. & Hoyle, R.H. (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behaviour (pp. 129–146). New York, NY: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. (2006). Nostalgia: Content, triggers, functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 975–993.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed