Saudi Arabian Oil Company (ARAMCO) Research Paper

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (ARAMCO) - Research Paper Example Oil currently represents approximately 86% of exports down from 88% in 2003 (Ministry of Economy and Planning 2010). It has led to an improvement in the standard of living of the Saudis and has contributed to every aspect of the Saudi Economy. It has impacted positively on education and training and on the development of the country’s infrastructure. Improvement in the standard of living and the Saudi economy Oil wealth has led to a transformation of Saudi Arabia, a country that was once dependent on agriculture. The standard of living as represented by gross domestic product (GDP) has improved and continues to do so. Saudi Arabia is now recognized as an upper middle income country with per capita GDP at US$15,711 in 2005 (nation master n.d.). The country’s human development index (HDI) which is a better indicator of the standard of living stood at 0.772 in 2006 and placed it at 75th out of 178 countries in 2005 (Nation Master n.d.). The company is now a welfare state w hich indicates that it provides unemployment and other benefits including retirement to its citizens. These improvements have been driven by oil, both directly and indirectly. The industry triggered the demand for various services and products to both drive the industry and as spinoffs. Jaffe and Elass (2007) states that the petroleum sector represents 40% of the Saudi Arabia’s GDP and is therefore the cornerstone of the economy. This sector is driven by Saudi Aramco which is described by Jaffe and Elass (2007) as the most influential oil company in the world. Saudi Aramco manages 98% of the oil reserves in Saudi Arabian which represents 25% of the world’s reserves (Jaffe and Elass 2007). Between 2003 and 2010 both nominal and real GDP has grown. Real GDP calculated at 1990 prices increased from SR686.8 billion in 2003 to SR869.0 billion in 2010. The only year that experienced a decline was 2008 when it fell by less than SR1 billion. Nominal GDP grew from SR804.6 billi on in 2003 to SR1, 630 billion in 2010. Since taking over from agriculture, oil continues to be the main contributor to GDP representing a significant portion of exports. Vitalis (2007) states that in addition to building up the oil industry Saudi Aramco has also provided the expertise and support required to move the Saudi Kingdom out of its backward state by developing and modernizing its agriculture, transportation, education, and health and welfare provision. Impact on education and training Saudi ARAMCO has contributed significantly to the development of education in Saudi Arabia. According to Al Dawood (2010; qtd. in Smith 2010) a major portion of Saudi Aramco’s investment in human resources is reflected in the number of the company’s employees, (including students who are expected to work with Saudi Aramco after graduation) to study at various universities and institutions across the globe. Simpson (2000) also indicates that Saudi Aramco’s pre-university College Preparatory Program (CPP) has made annual contributions to Saudi students studying in Europe and the United States. Although fluctuating from year to year this trend has been on the increase. Despite the fact that growth in oil production has declined (Ministry of Economy & Planning 2010) the company continues to play a positive role. According to VooDooDog (2009) Saudi ARAMCO has c

Inoperability Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Inoperability - Research Paper Example (2010). All these applications applied individually will support communications through interfaces which demand for constant maintenance and modification due to their dynamism. This as one way of attaining operability has not proved worthwhile. Similarly, there is standardization of an interface can as well be employed in attaining operability since this method eliminates the extra cost which would be incurred when building separate interfaces. The second approach is fuel by the fact that application developers are able to construct applications that are in line with the standardized interfaces, this increases the prospects of interoperability hence reducing cost which also includes reduced maintenance costs since there is a drop in the number of the interfaces to be accorded maintenance. The health level seven (HL7) is an application protocol for exchange of data in the healthcare environment. It is developed to be used to transfer data of healthcare information from department or f unction to the other basing its applications on the vast concept of application to application exchange of message system. The HL7 is the unit in form of an atom that passes data through systems. Or instance, the HL7 facilitates the admission of patience to a hospital or giving a lab order for blood test (Au, S, 2003). Every world real world event is defined by HL7 through an abstract messaging system which is comprised of a group of segments in a defined criterion and the rules and regulations for the construction of such abstract is created by the HL7 developed message framework which comprises of elements which are the building blocks and follows a hierarchy in context. Individually, the elements are associated by the factors like option ability, value set, length and data form that gives a constraint to them. The other components such as segments and segment groups are likely to compose additional elements while sub-components are purely primitive in nature since they are in the position of holding a data value without having a descendant structure Electronic Healthcare Information Security. (2010). HL7 was not there in the past but in the onset of its development, it was basically formed to give room too many dynamic business procedures that face the healthcare industry. However, the wider forms resulted into standardization which in turn created so many optional parts hence the alignment of the implementation of interfaces proved futile. HL7 applications are normally joined in two ways that is point to point or through the middleware which is clearly shown by the interface engine outcomes. Point-to- point applications entails the connection of each pair of applications in an independent way while the middle way application is the process where all the applications are connected centrally to the message broker. The operating system interconnection separates the functions of the protocols into five main layers with every layer having only a function of the layer that is found below it. This is the protocol stack and it is used for implementation in the software or hardware with the lower layers in the hardware and the higher in the software Data Exchange Standards, Health Level Seven Version 2.5 an application protocol for electronic data exchange in healthcare environments. (2009). In a variety

Respond Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 8

Respond - Essay Example The narrator spins the story around several occurrences at the office. These range from the worsening situation of the company caused by leaving of the clients which subsequently leads to the firing of the employees; to personal issues faced by the employees such as Amber’s unexpected pregnancy, speculation about personal life, death, illness, fear of work place violence, Benny’s totem-pole dilemma, Carl’s depression and pharmaceutical abuse as well as the disintegration by Chris over his chair issues. The story culminates with the discovery that the cool-headed Lynn is dying of cancer. I feel that the ‘we’ connotation used by the narrator is questionable to some extent. This is because even though the narrator uses the plural pronoun ‘we’ to narrate the story and insinuate a sense of solidarity at the workplace, this is far from the truth as the coworkers know every little about each other and are unable to maintain genuine long-term relationships at the

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (ARAMCO) Research Paper

Saudi Arabian Oil Company (ARAMCO) - Research Paper Example Oil currently represents approximately 86% of exports down from 88% in 2003 (Ministry of Economy and Planning 2010). It has led to an improvement in the standard of living of the Saudis and has contributed to every aspect of the Saudi Economy. It has impacted positively on education and training and on the development of the country’s infrastructure. Improvement in the standard of living and the Saudi economy Oil wealth has led to a transformation of Saudi Arabia, a country that was once dependent on agriculture. The standard of living as represented by gross domestic product (GDP) has improved and continues to do so. Saudi Arabia is now recognized as an upper middle income country with per capita GDP at US$15,711 in 2005 (nation master n.d.). The country’s human development index (HDI) which is a better indicator of the standard of living stood at 0.772 in 2006 and placed it at 75th out of 178 countries in 2005 (Nation Master n.d.). The company is now a welfare state w hich indicates that it provides unemployment and other benefits including retirement to its citizens. These improvements have been driven by oil, both directly and indirectly. The industry triggered the demand for various services and products to both drive the industry and as spinoffs. Jaffe and Elass (2007) states that the petroleum sector represents 40% of the Saudi Arabia’s GDP and is therefore the cornerstone of the economy. This sector is driven by Saudi Aramco which is described by Jaffe and Elass (2007) as the most influential oil company in the world. Saudi Aramco manages 98% of the oil reserves in Saudi Arabian which represents 25% of the world’s reserves (Jaffe and Elass 2007). Between 2003 and 2010 both nominal and real GDP has grown. Real GDP calculated at 1990 prices increased from SR686.8 billion in 2003 to SR869.0 billion in 2010. The only year that experienced a decline was 2008 when it fell by less than SR1 billion. Nominal GDP grew from SR804.6 billi on in 2003 to SR1, 630 billion in 2010. Since taking over from agriculture, oil continues to be the main contributor to GDP representing a significant portion of exports. Vitalis (2007) states that in addition to building up the oil industry Saudi Aramco has also provided the expertise and support required to move the Saudi Kingdom out of its backward state by developing and modernizing its agriculture, transportation, education, and health and welfare provision. Impact on education and training Saudi ARAMCO has contributed significantly to the development of education in Saudi Arabia. According to Al Dawood (2010; qtd. in Smith 2010) a major portion of Saudi Aramco’s investment in human resources is reflected in the number of the company’s employees, (including students who are expected to work with Saudi Aramco after graduation) to study at various universities and institutions across the globe. Simpson (2000) also indicates that Saudi Aramco’s pre-university College Preparatory Program (CPP) has made annual contributions to Saudi students studying in Europe and the United States. Although fluctuating from year to year this trend has been on the increase. Despite the fact that growth in oil production has declined (Ministry of Economy & Planning 2010) the company continues to play a positive role. According to VooDooDog (2009) Saudi ARAMCO has c

Respond Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 8

Respond - Essay Example The narrator spins the story around several occurrences at the office. These range from the worsening situation of the company caused by leaving of the clients which subsequently leads to the firing of the employees; to personal issues faced by the employees such as Amber’s unexpected pregnancy, speculation about personal life, death, illness, fear of work place violence, Benny’s totem-pole dilemma, Carl’s depression and pharmaceutical abuse as well as the disintegration by Chris over his chair issues. The story culminates with the discovery that the cool-headed Lynn is dying of cancer. I feel that the ‘we’ connotation used by the narrator is questionable to some extent. This is because even though the narrator uses the plural pronoun ‘we’ to narrate the story and insinuate a sense of solidarity at the workplace, this is far from the truth as the coworkers know every little about each other and are unable to maintain genuine long-term relationships at the

Literature Review - Business Schools Role in Society Essay Example for Free

Literature Review Business Schools Role in Society Essay Introduction Since 2007, the people of this planet have been living on 150 percent of its natural resource capacity (WWF, 2010). Increase in consumption does not show any signs of slowing down, as a consequence of emerging third world countries. The role that business schools play in this situation and its importance cannot be understated (Financial Times, 2010). In order to save this planet, we need to create a sustainable business environment, where corporations put ethics and social responsibility in front of profits. We need to switch the focus of all businesses from shareholders to stakeholders. Can this actually be taught? Or do governments need to legislate such actions? This topic is especially interesting because of the weight of our future that lies within this. If we do not change the way we teach students about core values of our society, the future of our planet may become very undesirable. These sources were acquired mainly from the EUR sEURch engine, as well as reading several articles from global news agencies in order to grasp a certain overview of this topic. * * * Literature Investigation * Addressing Concerns Raised by Critics of Business Schools by Teaching Multiple Approaches to Management (Dyck, B et al. 2011) 0 This article is a study about two ways of teaching management at classroom level. The article mentions concerns from other researchers about the way management is being taught in today’s universities. The authors argue that today’s students have a materialistic-individualistic point of view during their studies, and that these characteristics are consolidated during their time in the business study. These arguments are supported by an experiment. The authors indicate that there is flaws in the way business schools teach, and therefore actions should be taken. Others reject this and say management is an objective science. * This article might help to understand how business schools can change in order to make students more focused on stakeholders and ethics than shareholder profits. The article was published in a journal called Business and Society Review. It holds many references, where three of them are from Harvard Business Review. It was published 2011, therefore its currency cannot be questioned. Arguments are supported by an experiment. However, only one experiment was conducted which included a relatively small sample. The role of business schools in society (Cornuel, E 2005) The main subject of this article is very closely related to arguments stated in the introduction. It underlines the important role that business schools play to raise awareness of corporate social responsibility. It briefly mentions the need of humbleness in today’s business schools. Published in The Journal of Management Development in 2005, the importance and relevance of this article has become more of a current interest after it was published. Although the arguments are logical, this source does not provide sufficient support for its arguments. However, it does discuss interesting points and views within the subject. The author is Eric Cornuel, an Affiliate Professor at HEC, and Director General CEO of EFMD. The non-profit turn and its challenges for business schools (Cornuel, E Kletz, P 2011) Here, the researchers describe the challenges that business schools are facing today. Aiming towards the increase in demand for managers with an education in non-profit organizational management. The increase in large foundations (Bill Melinda Gates Foundation for example) is supposedly one of these demand shifters. The recent financial crisis is also argued to be one of the reasons for the movement towards education for non-profit and sustainability management at top business schools. There are two different models in how to change the curriculum in order to fill this need. The Double Standard Model, which argues that non-profit organizations should be managed differently than ordinary businesses, while the Business-Driven Model argues the opposite. Same author as in the previous source, Eric Cornuel, together with Pierre Kletz, Mandel Leadership Institution, Jerusalem, Israel. This research paper was published in the Journal of Management Development in 2011. This source gives meaningful insights to how and why business schools should make changes in their curriculum. Strategy Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility (Porter, M Kramer, M R 2006) This article was published in the Harvard Business Review in 2006. It is about how corporations can benefit from corporate social responsibility, instead of seeing it solely as a cost. One of the two authors is Michael Porter of Harvard Business School, one of the world’s most famous economists. This source is highly reliable because of two reasons. 1. Reputation of the author. 2. For the fact that it was published in one of the world’s most prestigious journals. It provides useful information for my future arguments, when it comes down to what business schools and businesses can gain from increasing CSR, and thereby improving global sustainability. Conclusion These articles all have one common argument. Business schools have to change. The disagreements lie in how this change should be executed, and what result that is to be expected from it (Financial Times, 2008). They all agree that business schools have a major impact on society, and therefore a great responsibility. Most researchers focus on how corporations must change, consequently leading to a change in demand for young managers with special skills in that area. Hence provoking the change of the business schools curriculum. This could be seen as delegating the responsibility of change to those corporations. As shown in the recent financial crisis, greed can make top executives act unethically, with no sense of corporate social responsibility. Should corporate social responsibility be legislated in order to achieve global sustainability? What role do business schools play in this? How can business schools act to ensure a positive future for our planet? Bibliography WWF 2010. Human demand outstrips natures supply, viewed 14 April 2012, http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/demands_on_our_planet/ Financial Times, 2010. Schools ignore sustainability revolution, viewed 17 April 2012, http://search.proquest.com/docview/756187538 Dyck, B et al., 2011, ‘Addressing Concerns Raised by Critics of Business Schools by Teaching Multiple Approaches to Management’, Business and Society Review, Volume 116, Issue 1, pp. 1 – 27, viewed 17 April 2012, retrieved from Wiley Online Library database. Cornuel, E 2005, ‘Role of Business Schools in Society’, The Journal of Management Development, Volume 24, Issue 9, p. 819, viewed at 17 April 2012, retrieved from ABI/INFORM Complete database. Cornuel, E Kletz, P 2011, ‘The non-profit turn and its challenges for business schools’ Journal of Management Development, Volume 30, Issue 5, pp. 483 – 491, viewed at 17 April 2012, retrieved from ABI/INFORM Complete database. Porter, M Kramer, M R 2006 ‘Strategy Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility’, Harvard business review, Volume 84, Issue 12, p. 78, viewed at 17 April 2012, retrieved from Business Source Premier database. Financial Times, 2008. The importance of sustainability, viewed 16 April 2012, http://search.proquest.com/docview/229149506 Self Reflection I approached the writing of this essay by and initial review if my previously submitted work, in order to grasp the full context, but also to see where I wanted to go and remind myself of the opinions I had while writing. I mostly free wrote for quite some time, and then later putting it all together with more approvable sentences in an academic sense. My biggest struggle was to get all the sources together to create some sort of an overview of the topic, since many of the articles were devoted to certain specific topics. I (hopefully) overcame this by reading a lot of different sources, and making connections to my own topic. I learned that starting an essay by free writing is the best approach for me personally, although a lot of time has to be dedicated to editing in the end, especially in the sense of making it all stick together as a whole piece. *

Environmental Influences on Happiness

Environmental Influences on Happiness Critical Evaluation: The Contagion Effect of Happiness The thought of happiness had sparked much interest among past psychologists. Dated back in the 20th century, happiness had been a rising area of concern. However, many studies have yet to converge on a universal definition of happiness. Despite so, several longstanding studies permit the definition of happiness to be a subjective well-being construct consisting of positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction (Bartels Boomsma, 2009; DeNeve Cooper, 1998; Diener, 2009). In recent years, the factors that predict happiness has caught great amount of attention in the realm of psychology. Specifically, the question lies in whether happiness can be contagious either through the social network or genetic influences. A recent paper by Matteson, McGue, and Lacono (2013) has offered insights to address the discrepancy between social network and genetic influences. The central tenet of the paper investigates the contagion hypothesis of happiness. Specifically, it seeks to find the impact of the well-being of family members on individual well-being. In an attempt to account for previous ethological findings by Fowler and Christakis (2008), the authors had adopted an adoption design as an alternative test of shared environment effects on happiness. A sample consisting of 284 adoptive, 208 non-adoptive and 123 mixed families were selected from the Sibling Interaction and Behaviour Study (SIBS; McGue, Keyes, Sharma, Elkins, Legrand, Johnson, 2007). Results revealed that family members have no similar levels of happiness when they are not genetically related. In fact, the authors have noted that the findings demonstrated the consistency with behavioural genetic literature among genetically related famil y. Hence, challenging the contagion hypothesis. In view of these findings, the current paper will review the findings of Matteson et al. (2013) to further justify and suggest drawbacks that may have been oblivious to the authors. In addition, this paper will employ various key works to provide auxiliary for the review of methodology, results and discussion sections of Mattesson et al. (2013). In Fowler and Christakis (2008) study, a social network analysis was employed to study the impact of happiness level of people in an individual’s social network. However, although Mattesson et al. (2013) had also focused on the contagion hypothesis of happiness, they have noted that both genes and environment could have played a role in the influence of happiness among people. Thus, a superior component of Matteson’s study was that they drew on the adoption design to include both genetic and environmental effects in the investigation of the contagion hypothesis. This had allowed them to examine if genetically unrelated family members in a shared environment would have similar levels of happiness (Matteson et al., 2013). However, an adoptive family environment may not be representative of the general family environment (Lemery Goldsmith, 1999). Rueter, Keyes ,Iacono, and McGue (2009) have noted that the interactions between families could have differed between adoptive and non-adoptive families. This suggests that interaction factors could have impacted child adjustments. In addition, McGue et al. (2007) found that there is an increased in parent-child conflict in adoptive as compared to non-adoptive families. Such factors could have influenced the well-being of adoptees. As a result, the inclusion of adoptees for the contagion hypothesis illustrates that the authors could have oversight the assumption of family environment. Also, it should be noted that instead of a shared environment in adoptive studies, siblings might experience a unique environment instead. A unique environment is an environment that is not shared by siblings or families (Neisser, Boodoo,Bouchard, Boykin, Brody, Ceci, Halpern, Loehlin, Perloff, Sternberg, Urbina, 1996). According to Braungart, Plomin, DeFries and Fulker (1992), siblings raised in the same family might experience a unique environment whereby both siblings may have diverse range of peers, attend different education systems and may experience different style of bonds with their parents. As a result, the authors failed to notice that a unique environment may be experienced by siblings in an adoption design. Future research in this area could include the use of family design (Lemery Goldsmith). Family design enables the assessment of siblings, parent versus off-springs. half-siblings, uncle versus nephew, auntie versus niece, grandparent versus grandchild and first cousin pairs (Pike, McGuire, Hetherington, Reiss, Plomin, 1996). This would allow more in-depth opportunity to investigate both shared and unique environments on the contagion hypothesis as it investigates a variety of relationships as compared to the limited parent-child and sibling relationships in an adoption design. Previous work by Fowler and Christakis (2008) utilized the items from the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977) as a measure of happiness. Although the CES-D was developed to examine depression, items pertaining to happiness were chosen to question about experiences and feelings on happiness in the past one week. In contrary, Matteson et al. (2013) had employed a Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire to examine happiness. The MPQ is a personality measure which assesses cognitive and affective components of life. Diener (2009) have noted that test-retest reliabilities have demonstrated that a correlation of .54 to .73 accounts for stability in well-being scales of MPQ. Thus, the use of MPQ could be a reliable measure for the well-being construct of the affective component on happiness. However, the authors could have overlooked the purpose of MPQ as a measure of trait instead of state happiness (Stones, Hadjistavopoulos, Tuuko, Kozma, 1995). As MPQ was mainly developed as a personality measure, the items were inclined towards trait-like properties of well-being and happiness. Thus, the results on happiness construct could have actually reflected the trait happiness instead of state-level happiness. Tellegen (1982) have noted that MPQ is a self report questionnaire to measure the disposition to feel good. Also, the utilization of this measure in other studies tends to yield genetic influences on happiness (Weiss, Bates, Luciano, 2008). In other words, MPQ was oriented towards the assessment of trait happiness instead of state-level happiness. Therefore, the use of MPQ by Matteson et al (2013) may have been an oversight as they failed to recognize that the use of MPQ could have skewed the data towards the findings of trait personality instead of happiness on the ba sis of situations. Hence, resulting in their findings of familial correlations among genetically related instead of unrelated family members. It is suggested that the authors could have employed the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) in conjunction with the MPQ to assess the subjective well-being of participants (Hills Argyle, 2002). The OHQ is a 29 item measure that taps on the self-esteem, sense of purpose, social interest and sense of humour. The combination of both OHQ and MPQ would serve as a better stringent methodology to elicit an equal amount of trait and state-level happiness. Extensive studies by McGue et al. (2007) have demonstrated that the Siblings Interaction and Behaviour Study (SIBS) provides a good basis for the selection of participants for adoption design. Participants from the SIBS consisted of adoptive, non-adoptive and mixed families. This allowed identifications of characteristics between biological and adoptive families. Matteson et al. (2013) employed participants from the SIBS which is fairly representative for an adoption design. However, McGue et al. (2007) have noted that in order to differentiate adoptive and non-adoptive families in SIBS, they recruited participants on the basis of selection effects of certain factors. Evidence by Stoolmiller (1999) has shown that selection effects in a research study could actually affect participants who do and do not participate in the study. As cited in Matteson et al. (2013), McGue et al. (2007) have noted that after interviewing non-participants in adoptive and non-adoptive families, non-participating but eligible families differed minimally from participating families. However, the authors failed to recognize that McGue et al. (2007) were unable to interview 27% of non-participating families and this 27% could have differed significantly from the interviewed participating and non-participating families. Ruggles, Sobek, Alexander, Fitch, Goeken, and Hall (2004) concluded that this difference could have resulted in minimal sampling bias. Therefore, the details concer ning recruitment of SIBS sample could have inadvertently influence the results obtained. Furthermore, there are issues regarding the generalizability of the results presented by Matteson et al. (2013). The author did not report in the paper that SIBS samples were recruited from Minnesota only and not internationally. McGue et al. (2007) noted that adoptive families were ascertained from infant placements made by Minnesota agencies and non-adoptive families were determined by Minnesota State birth records. This suggests that the average sample were from Minnesota and hence, the results can only be generalizable to families of Minnesota. Therefore, the sample chosen could have implicated the results. A further consideration influencing the generalizability of the results presented by Matteson et al. (2013) is the choice of participants. Despite the participants being from the SIBS study, the authors did acknowledge that eligibility is limited to siblings of five years apart and adopted siblings who were adopted before age of two years (McGue et al., 2007). However, this age criteria suggest the limitation of generalizing the results to siblings of more than five years apart or adopted after the age of two years. Thus, the age criteria could have been an oversight by the authors as it suggests the inability to further generalize the results to others in a shared environment. Another limitation noted within the research was the onetime assessment of parent’s personality within the three years interval of the study. An established body of knowledge on personality have shown that personality changes throughout the lifespan (Haan, 1981). Findings by Haan (1981) revealed that re-test intervals on personality yielded that it does not remain stable overtime. In addition, Moss and Susman (1980) converged on a conclusion that the increased in time interval between personality tests contributes to the evidence of decreasing stability in personality. Matteson et al. (2013) have taken the changes in personality into consideration. In their study, the authors assessed well-being twice across a three years interval; allowing change over time. However, they had only assessed parent’s personality once. As mentioned, personality stability decreases over time. Thus, neglecting a second assessment of parent’s personality over the three years interval m ay have accounted for important information being overlooked and distorted the results. It is suggested that parent’s personality should be assessed at least twice as it constantly changes across the lifespan (Haan, 1981). Other methodological constraints in Matteson et al. (2013) paper include the use of results after a large dropout rate. Out of the adolescents participating at intake, only 83% returned and completed the well-being measure at follow-up. In other words, 17% of the adolescent have failed to complete the well-being measure at follow-up. It is possible that this 17% of dropout could have found the procedure to be dull or mundane which in turn, inflated the results attained. In addition, the authors had included the scores of the dropouts who had previously completed the intake but not the follow-up. Although they noted that the intake well-being scores of those who did not complete the well-being measure did not differ significantly from the well-being scores of those who did return, it should be known clearly that those results should not be taken into account as it reflected only the intake and not the follow-up scores (Matteson et al., 2013). Thus, it is inappropriate for the authors to make an assumption that the similar results would be obtained for the follow-up. Hence, the comparison was not clear and fair. As a result, the inclusion of the 17% at the intake results could have affected the entire study’s results. In summary, the findings suggest that shared environmental influences on happiness may not reflect contagion effects. While shared environment is an important aspect in the adoption design, it should also be noted that siblings in both adoptive and non-adoptive families may experience unique environments (Neisser et al., 1996). As such, biologically related siblings showed more support as genes could have played a higher factor in the influence of happiness as compared to environment. This suggests that the findings of the paper by Matteson et al. (2013) do provide some novel insights. However, intense research is required to understand more details between shared environment and unique environment. The authors have failed to recognize that despite the high reliability MPQ well-being scale might not be the most suitable measure for happiness. Future research is needed to examine a comprehensive well-being scale to measure happiness as evidence suggests that the use of MPQ well-being scale could have been skewed more towards trait happiness. References Bartels, M., Boomsma, D. I. (2009). Born to be happy? The etiology of subjective well- being. Behavior Genetics, 39, 605-615. Braungart, J. M., Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., Fulker, D. W. (1992). Genetic influence on tester-rated infant temperament as assessed by Bayleys Infant Behavior Record: Non- adoptive and adoptive siblings and twins. Developmental Psychology, 28, 40-47. DeNeve, K. M., Cooper, H. (1998). The happy personality: A meta-analysis of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 197-229. Diener, E. (2009). Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities. In E. Diener (Ed.), Assesing well-being: The collected works of Ed Diener. Social Indicatiors Research Series 39(pp. 25-65). Dordrecht, NL: Springer. Fowler, J. H., Christakis, N. A. (2008). Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network : Longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study. British Medical Journal, 337, a2338. Haan, N. (1981). Common Dimensions of Personality Development: Early Adolescene to Middle Life. In D. H. Eichorn, J. A. Clausen, N. Haan, M. P. Honzik, P. H. Mussen (Eds.). Present and Past in Middle Life (pp. 117-151). New York: Academic Press. Hills, P., Argyle, M. (2002). The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire: A compact scale for the measurement of psychological well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 33, 1071-1082. Lemery, K. S., Goldsmith, H. H. (1999). Genetically informative designs forthe studyof behavioural development.International Journal ofBehavioralDevelopment, 23, 293-317. Matteson, L. K., McGue, M. K., Lacono, W. (2013). Is Dispositional Happiness Contagious?: The Impact of the Well-Being of Family Members on Individual Well- Being. Journal of Individual Differences, 34(2), 90-96. DOI: 10.1027/1614- 0001/a000103 McGue, M., Keyes, M., Sharma, A., Elkins, I., Legrand, L., Johnson, W. (2007). The environments of adopted and non-adopted youth: Evidence on range restriction from the Sibling Interaction and Behavior Study (SIBS). Behavior Genetics, 37, 449-462. Moss, H. A., Susman, E.J. (1980). Longitudinal study of personality development. In O.G. Brim, Jr., J. Kagan (Eds.), Constancy and change in human development (pp. 530- 595). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Neisser, U., Boodoo, G., Bouchard, T. J., Jr., Boykin, A. W., Brody, N., Ceci, S. J., Halpern, D. F., Loehlin, J. C., Perloff, R., Sternberg, R. J., Urbina, S. (1996). Intelligence: Knowns and unknowns.American Psychologist, 51,77-101. Pike A., McGuire S., Hetherington E. M., Reiss D., Plomin R. (1996). Family environment and adolescent depressive symptoms and antisocial behaviour: A multivariate genetic analysis. Developmental Psychology, 32(4), 590-603. Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D Scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1, 385-401. Rueter, M. A., Keyes, M. A. Iacono, W. G., McGue, M. (2009). Family interactions in adoptive compared to nonadoptive families. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 58- 66. Stones, M.J., Hadjistavopoulos, T., Tuuko, H. Kozma, A. (1995). Happiness has traitlike and statelike properties: a reply to Veenhoven. Social Indicators Research, 36, pp 129-144. Tellegen, A. (1982). Brief manual for the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Weiss, A., Bates, T. C., Luciano, M. (2008). Happiness is a personality thing: The genetics of personality and well-being in a representative sample. Psychological Science, 19, 205-210.