There is a great migratory flow from Argentina to Israel, because there is one of the largest Jewish communities in the world today. Many judeo-argentines choose Israel as an alternative for settlement due to the political and economic instability that has rocked Argentina in recent decades. During the 2001 Argentine economic crisis, Israel saw the largest number of these Olim (Hebrew for “immigrants”) arrive in the country (
According to a report by the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) entitled "Migration Profile
of Argentina,” in 2012 Israel was among the first destinations chosen by
Argentines to emigrate, ranking 5th and representing almost 5% of the Argentine
diaspora (
Specifically, when immigration is
motivated by psychological, physical or social insecurity of the original
country, such as could be in these migrations to Israel from Argentina, the
event can be traumatic and may negatively impact mental health (
Commonly
called happiness, meaning all those experiences that make life pleasant or
unpleasant, well-being is directly affected by psychological factors including
personality traits or general tendencies that are reflected in many aspects of
a person's life. Diener et al., (
Openness to experience is one of the personality
traits used in the Five Factor Theory (
Agreeableness is another of the five
personality traits of the Five Factor Model. A person with a high level of
agreeableness in a personality test is usually warm, cooperative, polite and
friendly (
Extraversion refers to a tendency to be
positive, assertive, energetic, social, talkative, and warm (
Neuroticism or emotional instability is a
psychological trait, with the tendency to experience negative emotions such as
sadness or anxiety, as well as mood swings and irrational thoughts (
Finally, people high in conscientiousness tend
to exhibit hard-working behavior, and are generally understood as responsible (
Argentine immigrants, on the other hand, have
certain obligations and responsibilities that they have to fulfil in Israel to
ensure the social cohesion such as respecting the laws and regulations of
Israel. Responsibility, therefore, is a mutual aspect on both sides and if
there is a lack of responsibility then problems could emerge for the immigrants
during their acculturation period. Research supports a positive correlation
between positive affect in subjective well-being and the personality trait
conscientiousness (
Following a widely cited, controlled
psychological study, there is an argument to consider spirituality as the
potential sixth personality trait in the aforementioned Five-Factor Model or
Big Five Personality Traits (
Israel being a religious nation, spirituality
is intrinsically linked to the “Aliyah” migration to Israel. These immigrating
“Olim” must prove a Jewish bloodline or behold an adequate conversion status to
the religion in order to immigrate under the Jewish Law of Return (
In this study, we will analyze a
correlation of variables that may contribute to the immigrants’ ability to cope
with adversity and the capacity to develop skills in stressful
situations: personality, spirituality and subjective well-being (
It was conducted as a non- experimental,
cross-sectional study (
The sample was composed of 220 argentinian immigrants (115 women and 105 men) living in Israel, and the questions were referring to the moment of the subjects’ migration. All participants were between the ages of 18 to 77 years old and voluntarily partook in the study.
A test battery was administered from the University of Buenos Aires, and participants were gathered via Facebook audience analytics. Translation from Spanish to English was aided by Google Translate and affirmed by the researchers of this study.
The data was collected through a self-administered evaluation instrument. It was integrated by the following techniques:
ASPIRES (
Mini-IPIP (
EBA (
SWLS (
Acculturation model developed by John Berry (
The survey results
underwent a correlational analysis to associate significance between variables
(
Negative affect shows inverse correlation with life satisfaction, positive affect, conscientiousness, assimilation; and direct correlation with neuroticism and rejection. Positive affect correlates directly with life satisfaction, extroversion, agreeableness, spirituality, assimilation, and integration; and inversely with neuroticism, rejection and marginalization.
Notes: SWLS =
Satisfaction with Life Scale. NA = Negative Affect. PA = Positive Affect. OP =
Openness. CO = Conscientiousness. EX = Extroversion. AG = Agreeableness. NE =
Neuroticism. RE = Religiousness. SP = Spirituality. REJ = Rejection. ASSI =
Assimilation. IN = Integration. MA = Marginalization. *p < ,005; **p <
,001
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
1.SWLS
1
2.NA
-,40**
1
3.PA
,61**
-,27**
1
4.OP
,09
-,05
,04
1
5.CO
,12
-,14*
,12
,01
1
6.EX
,22**
-,01
,24**
,09
,10
1
7.AG
,14*
-,03
,28**
,21**
,15*
,34**
1
8.NE
-,32**
,42**
-,20**
-,19**
-,16*
-,16*
-,16*
1
9.RE
,04
,09
,03
-,06
-,06
-,02
-,01
,06
1
10.SP
,24**
,04
,23**
-,04
,10
,16*
,07
-,13*
,51**
1
11.REJ
-,30**
,32**
-,18**
,06
-,07
-,03
,00
,18**
,01
-,06
1
12.ASSI
,32**
-,30**
,25**
-,08
,11
,015
-,06
-,11
,00
,09
-,70**
1
13.IN
,09
,07
,14*
-,00
-,02
,037
,07
,05
,06
,17**
,18**
-,24**
1
14.MA
-,20**
,22**
-,14*
-,03
-,17**
-,13*
-,05
,22**
-,08
-,11
,22**
-,28**
,16*
Life satisfaction shows inverse correlation with negative affect, neuroticism, rejection and marginalization; and a positive correlation with positive affect, extroversion, agreeableness, spirituality and assimilation.
Three regression
models subsequently show the different variables that may relate, or have
influence on, life satisfaction, negative affect and positive affect. A
regression analysis with backward method addressed the following associations
(
According to life satisfaction model: extroversion (β= .180; sig .014), neuroticism (β= -.344; sig .000), spirituality (β= .070; sig .044), assimilation (β= 1.025; sig .000) and integration (β= .409; sig .014) affect life satisfaction.
Notes: SWLS = Satisfaction with Life Scale. EX =
Extroversion. NE = Neuroticism. SP = Spirituality. ASSI = Assimilation. IN =
Integration. NA = Negative Affect. REJ = Rejection. PA = Positive Affect. AG = Agreeableness.
B
Standard
Error
Beta
t
sig
SWLS
(Constant)
15,04
1,77
8,49
,000
EX
,18
,07
,14
2,46
,014
NE
-,34
,08
-,25
-4,23
,000
SP
,07
,03
,12
2,03
,044
ASSI
1,02
,19
,31
5,20
,000
IN
,40
,16
,15
2,49
,014
NA
(Constant)
11,15
3,37
3,30
,001
NE
,95
,14
,39
6,59
,000
SP
,11
,06
,11
1,98
,048
REJ
,79
,47
,14
1,67
,095
ASSI
-,99
,47
-,17
-2,07
,039
PA
(Constant)
17,66
3,33
5,30
,000
EX
,22
,11
,12
1,85
,065
AG
,46
,13
,22
3,43
,001
NE
-,22
,12
-,11
-1,80
,073
SP
,10
,05
,12
1,98
,048
ASSI
1,37
,30
,28
4,53
,000
IN
,69
,25
,17
2,72
,007
By negative affect model: neuroticism (B= .959; sig .000), spirituality (B= .118; sig .048), rejection (B= .795; sig .095) and assimilation (B= -.990; sig .039) affect negative affect.
And finally, depending on positive affect model: extroversion (B= .221; sig .065), agreeableness (B= .463; sig .001), neuroticism (B= -.229; sig .073), spirituality (B= .105; sig .048), assimilation (B= 1.379; sig .000) and integration (B= .691; sig .007) affect positive affect.
The results of the general
literature on happiness and subjective well-being give very useful clues to
study the well-being of migrants, however, at the same time they indicate very
significant limitations, where the happiness functions of this group may differ
from those of the population in general for various different reasons (
In contrast, multicultural groups
are likely to consider different criteria relevant when judging the success of
their society since they have different sets of values. Different cultures
living in one place and their subjective definitions of a concept like
well-being can be a perfect example of the extent to which people in each
society are actualizing the values that they hold in high regard (
A recently published article in the
Frontiers Magazine studies the relation between Spirituality and Psychological
Well-Being; however, it did not consider the Big Five Factors of Personality
(
Limitations of this study include a
small and therefore non-representative sample. The omission of certain
demographic variables could have affected the correlations and regressions,
such as age, sex, relationships, offspring, socio-economic status and more.
This study omitted those variables in order to simplify the process. Finally,
the happiness of migrants may depend to a greater extent on the specific
reasons that motivated their transfer whether religious, political,
socio-economic or other. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that migrants, even if
they improve their material living conditions, experience greater subjective
well-being after migration (