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On the definition and varieties of attitude and wellbeing

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Abstract

In a paper published in Social Indicators Research in 1975, Levy and Guttman proved the proposition that wellbeing is a special case of attitude. They exploited this result for establishing a certain lawfulness for wellbeing behavior, and built on this for revealing more specialized features of the lawfulness. Five years later in this same journal, Andrews and McKennell published two papers on exactly the same proposition, but without proving it, without building on known relevant lawfulness of attitudinal behavior, and without mentioning (neither positively nor negatively) the Levy-Guttman work. The Andrews-McKennell papers are shown to be a retrogression rather than a scientific advance, being conceptually confused, using inappropriate data analysis, and dealing with arbitrary assumptions which are either untested, untestable or false.

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Guttman, L., Levy, S. On the definition and varieties of attitude and wellbeing. Soc Indic Res 10, 159–174 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00302508

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00302508

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