SIMHA F. LANDAU, BENJAMIN BEIT-HALLAHMI and SHLOMIT LEVY THE PERSONAL AND THE POLITICAL: ISRAELIS’ PERCEPTION OF WELL-BEING IN TIMES OF WAR AND PEACE (Accepted 27 November, 1997) ABSTRACT. This study investigated the perception of personal well-being among different segments of Israeli society for various levels of national stress. The three measures utilized (health worries, happiness, and coping) were derived from 203 surveys of national samples conducted between June 1967 and August 1979 (N = 112,005). Gender, education, age, religiosity, and ethnic origin were correlated with these indicators during periods of low, medium, and high national stress. In general, lower levels of well-being were reported by women, the less educated, the older age groups, the religious, and those of Eastern origin, as predicted. Contrary to expectation, health worries decreased during times of high national stress. The results are discussed in the context of differences between measures of well-being, the intensity of stress on the national level, and the role of each of the above sociodemographic variables as a resource, buffer or handicap, in dealing with stress. KEY WORDS: stress, health worries, happiness, coping, sociodemographic vari- ables The growing research on stress has identified a number of major factors that affect the way in which individuals or groups deal with external stressors. We suggest that these factors be classified into three broad categories: resources, buffers and handicaps. Some of the main elements of these categories include: Resources: Income, education, social cohesion (Dent et al., 1987), status, SES (Argyle, 1994), personal hardiness (Kobasa et al., 1981). Buffers: Marital status – intact family (Friedman et al., 1995), social support (Cobb, 1976), meaning systems (religious explana- tions, secular explanations, political ideologies), “sense of coher- ence” (Antonovsky, 1979), personality variables such as locus of control (Solomon et al., 1988), or sensation seeking (Jorgensen and Johnson, 1990. Smith et al., 1992). Social Indicators Research 44: 329–365, 1998. c 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.