This is a study about perceptions of well-being. Its purpose is to investigate how these perceptions are organized in the minds of different groups of American adults, to find valid and efficient ways of measuring these percep tions, to suggest ways these measurement methods could be implemented to yield a series of social indicators, and to provide some initial readings on these indicators; i.e., some information about the levels of well-being perceived by Americans. The findings are based on data from more than five thousand Americans and include results from four separate representative samplings of the American population. One of the ways our research is unusual is that it includes a major methodological component. Typical surveys involve a modest effort at instru ment development, the application of the instrument to a group of respondents, and an analysis of the resulting data that mainly describes the people studied. Our work, however, was implemented in a series of sequential cycles, each of which consisted of conceptual development, instrument design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. Ideas and findings generated in prior cycles affected the design of subsequent cycles.

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1: Introduction.- Social Indicators.- The Research Problem.- Basic Concepts and a Conceptual Model.- Methods and Data.- Summary.- 1: Developing Indicators of Perceived Well-Being.- 2: Identifying and Mapping Concerns.- 3: Measuring Global Well-Being.- 4: Predicting Global Well-Being: I.- 5: Predicting Global Well-Being: II.- 6: Evaluating the Measures of Well-Being.- 7: Exploring the Dynamics of Evaluation.- 2: Well-Being in the United States: Americans' Perceptions.- 8: Americans' Well-Being: Specific Life Concerns.- 9: Americans' Well-Being: Differences Among Population Groups.- 10: Americans' Well-Being: Life-as-a-Whole.- 3: Future Applications.- 11: Applications.- Appendixes.- Appendix A: Interview and Questionnaire Schedules.- Interview Used with May Respondents.- Interview Used with November Form 1 Respondents.- Interview Used with November Form 2 Respondents.- Interview Used with April Respondents.- Questionnaire Used with July Respondents.- Appendix B: Sampling Designs, Response Rates, Sampling Precision.- Appendix C: Clusters of Concern Items.- Appendix D: Interrelationships Among Concern Items in May and April Surveys, by Population Subgroups.- Appendix E: Factor Analyses of Concern Items from May, November, and April National Surveys.- Appendix F: Factor Analysis of Global Measures from the April National Survey.- Appendix G: Scan for Interactions Involving Concern Measures and Life 3.- Appendix H: Demographic Characteristics of July Respondents.- Appendix I: Distributions Produced by the DelightedTerrible, Faces, and Circles Scales on Five Concerns.- Appendix J: Number of Cases Used in Computing Means Shown in Exhibit 7.1.- Appendix L: Formation of Socioeconomic Status Scale.- Appendix M: Subgroup Ns and Percentage Distributions.- Appendix N:Perceived Well-Being in 1974, 1976.- References.