The influence of perceived discrimination , sense of control , self-esteem and multiple discrepancies on the mental health and subjective well-being in Serbian immigrants in Canada

The study focuses on the mental health and subjective well-being (SWB) of Serbian immigrants of the first generation in Canada. We wanted to examine if perceived discrimination, sense of control, self-esteem and perceived multiple discrepancy affect their mental health and SWB. Our results indicate that self-esteem and sense of control have a positive effect on mental health and all aspects of the SWB, while the perceived discrimination and perceived multiple discrepancy negatively affect SWB and mental health. Self-esteem was the most salient predictor of mental health, while the perceived multiple discrepancy was the most salient predictor of life satisfaction of Serbian immigrants.

Subjective well-being (SWB) plays an important role in personality psychology as well as in positive psychology.SWB is defined as 'a person's cognitive and affective evaluations of his or her life' (Diener, Oshi, & Lucas, 2002, p. 63).Three distinctive components have been identified in studies on SWB: positive and negative affect and life satisfaction (Diener 1984;Eid & Dinner, 2003).The affective component consists of how frequently an individual reports experiencing positive and negative affect.Life satisfaction is a cognitive component of this construct.Such a tridimensional structure of SWB has been confirmed in a series of studies (Arthaud-Day, Rode, Mooney, & Near, 2005;Lucas, Diener, & Suh, 1996).The term "happiness" is often used in literature as a synonym for SWB (Diener, Scollon, & Lucas, 2009;McGillivray & Clarke, 2006) even though happiness results from balance between positive and negative affect and is narrower concept than SWB (Bruni & Porta, 2007).
Corresponding author: Zorica_Kuburic@ceir.co.rsAlthough life satisfaction, positive affect and the lack of negative affect are mutually connected, they are empirically distinguishable components and they have to be observed as such in order to obtain a whole picture of overall SWB.
SWB becomes an increasingly studied construct in cultural psychology, especially in studies of immigration.SWB have been proven to be very useful indicators of psychological and sociological problems of immigration (Shin, Han, & Kim, 2007;Verkuyten & Nekuee, 1999).This is the first study of SWB of Serbian immigrants.
Coinciding with the political turbulence in ex-Yugoslavia, a number of Serbian immigrants in Canada increased rapidly in early 1990s reaching over 80 000 people (Statistics Canada, 2006).As there are only a few psychological studies on Serbian immigrants in Canada, we wanted to give contribution to a better understanding of some of psychological aspects of Serbian immigration.The aim of this study is to investigate relationships between perceived discrimination, sense of control, perceived multiple discrepancies, and self-esteem on one side, and on the other side SWB and mental health in Serbian immigrants of the first generation in Canada.This study covers all three components of SWB as well as mental health.Even though SWB and mental health are similar concepts, they are not the same.A person could not be happy if mentally unwell.Unlike mental health, SWB is a subjective phenomenon (Kecmanovic, 2010).
Immigration experience as such causes distress to the immigrants and subsequently it has a negative impact on their SWB and mental health (Liebkind, 1996).Moreover, immigrants and ethnic minorities are social groups which are frequently victims of negative stereotypes and are exposed to discriminations and prejudices.It has been repeatedly proven that experiencing prejudices and discrimination has a negative effect on the SWB (Tummala-Narra, Alegria, & Chen, 2012).Moreover, discrimination may be an additional risk factor for immigrant groups that have not been acculturated yet.Persons who have experienced discrimination or who have been exposed to some other kind of unfair treatment report more psychological stress, depression and lower level of SWB (Williams, Spenser, & Jackson, 1999).
According to studies conducted on members of other immigrant communities, discrimination directly affects and compromises the mental health of immigrants (Noh, Kaspar, & Wickrama, 2007).Although Canada is a multicultural society and generally tolerant toward new immigrants, we assumed that prejudices and discrimination against immigrants still exist.In this research we wanted to investigate whether the perceived discrimination was associated with the SWB and mental health in Serbian immigrants in Canada.
The multiple discrepancy theory (MDT) offers a cognitive approach to explanation of life satisfaction.The MDT is based on a theoretical concept that life satisfaction is a function of comparison between perceived life accomplishment and a set of standards used to assess these accomplishments (for instance, life accomplishment of relatives and friends, a situation of an average person in a similar position) (Michalos, 1985).The MDT explains 49% of variance in happiness and 53% of variance in life satisfaction (Michalos, 1985).
The MDT is very adequate for studying life satisfaction of immigrants.Applying postulates of the MDT we wanted to explore if life satisfaction of immigrants depends on a series of discrepancies between the evaluation of life accomplishments and postulated set of standards.The following evaluative standards were used: expectations of immigrants at the time of immigration, the accomplishments of relatives and friends who stayed back in Serbia, accomplishments of other Serbian immigrants in Canada, accomplishments one thinks one could have attained if one had stayed in Serbia.
A sense of control is highly important for SWB.Sense of control is the extent to which a person perceives to be in control of own life (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978).A sense of control is a crucial personal resource which helps an individual to cope with different life circumstances and to remain resilient when facing negative circumstances (Schieman & Turner, 1998).A diminished sense of control produces psychological distress, could compromise SWB and may have significant consequences on mental health.One of the possible reasons is that a low sense of control is a stressor itself.Also, a sense of control provides psychological resilience and helps psychological adaptation in stressful situations, including acculturation stress The sense of control reduces depression, anxiety, addictions and all this indirectly causes a reduction in physical and mental diseases (Ross & Mirowsky, 1992).A life in immigration may be very stressful as a person needs to adapt in a new country.Migration implies a loss of important psychological and social determinants, such as a loss of culture, income, social status, familiar environment, values, language, family relationships, social roles, employment, and most importantly a loss of former identity.Since all these actual losses most certainly diminish sense of control, immigrants may experience losing a sense of control over their lives.Research has shown that the sense of control which immigrants have over their life is directly correlated with their mental health (Sam, 1998).Therefore, we wanted to investigate whether the sense of control was connected with the SWB and MH in Serbian immigrants in Canada.
Self-esteem is a very important construct in psychology of SWB and is one of the central issues in research on immigrants and ethnic minorities.Selfesteem expresses an attitude of approving or disapproving oneself, it is the evaluation a person makes and maintains about himself or herself (Rosenberg, 1965).Self-esteem has become one of the most studied predictors of SWB and it has been proved that positive self-esteem is a crucial predictor of one's general well-being.Empirical studies over the past 15 years have indicated that selfesteem is an important psychological factor which contributes to mental health and life satisfaction (Diener, 1984).
Although self-esteem is widely recognized as a central aspect of psychological functioning, a little has been known to what extent and in what way self-esteem contributes to mental health and happiness of immigrant groups.That is why one of the goals of this study is to explore relationship between this psychological construct and SWB and MH in Serbian immigrants.

Research Question
The aim of this research was to explore the psychological predictors of all 3 components of SWB (positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction) and mental health among Serbian immigrants of the first generation in Canada.The psychological predictors under consideration are multiple discrepancy, self-esteem, sense of control, and perceived discrimination.

Recruitment
A written consent for participation in the research was obtained from all respondents.The research was conducted in Toronto during the summer and autumn of 2012.The respondents were approached by random search of Serbian surnames in the GTA telephone directory.Participants were also recruited through Serbian organizations (folk dancing groups, churches, and sport groups) as we were interested in particular demographic characteristics of the participants (first generation of Serbian immigrants).The "snowball" method was also used i.e. the approached respondents were asked to recommend their friends and relatives who would be willing to participate in the study.

Measures
Perceived discrimination is assessing how often the respondents experienced different situations of perceived discrimination on the basis of being an immigrant.After examining the existing scales, we found them not appropriate for our sample since they measure discrimination against visible minorities.Therefore, we created our own scale validated through a pilot study.Originally the scale had 15 questions and after the pilot study we decided to change some of the wording and to keep only 11 items.An example of item from the scale is: "Your education or/and work experience obtained outside of Canada was underestimated".Each item was rated on 4 point Likert-type scale ranging from "very often" to "never" (See Appendix A).The internal consistence of the scale is good with Cronbach's alpha being 0.89.
Multiple discrepancies scale is measuring the gap between perceived accomplishments and multiple standards for its evaluation.On the basis of the Michalos' MDT (Michalos, 1980(Michalos, , 1985) ) and our observation of immigrants for the purpose of this research we created our own scale using 6 following evaluation criteria: expectation the immigrants had at the time of immigration; accomplishments of their relatives and friends who stayed back home; accomplishments of person of the same age and education who stayed in Serbia; accomplishments the immigrants believe they would have reached if they had stayed in Serbia; accomplishments of non-immigrants in their surroundings and one's current accomplishments compared to one's aspirations, life goals and plans.Originally the scale had 10 items, but after the pilot study only 6 items were kept (see Appendix B).An example of item from the scale is: "All in all, compared with lives of other Serbians who came to Canada at the same time as you, what is your current life look like?"The provided answers were ranked on 5-point Likert scale from "much better" to "much worse".A higher score indicates larger discrepancy.Internal consistency of this scale is good as measured by Cronbach's alpha of .89.
Sense of control measures how much control a person perceives to have over their life.It is measured with the Mastery scale constructed by Pearlin and Schooler (1978).The scale consists of 7 items.The answers were ranked on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.A higher score indicates a higher sense of control over life situations.An example of an item from this scale is: "I often feel helpless dealing with the problems of life."The internal consistence of the scale is good with Cronbach's alpha being .87.
Self-esteem is assessing positive or negative orientation toward oneself; an overall evaluation of one's worth or value.It is measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (Rosenberg, 1965).The scale consists of 10 items with answers on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.Higher scores indicate higher selfesteem.Example of item from this scale is: "At times I think I am no good at all".Cronbach's alpha is .89,indicating very satisfactory reliability.
The cognitive aspect of the Subjective well-being (SWB) i.e. life satisfaction was measured with the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985).The scale is designed to measure global satisfaction with life.This instrument has 5 items, and each item was rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree.The 5-point scale version was chosen based on Verkuyten & Nekuee (1999) research to be consistent with other scales in this research (originally this is 7-point Likert scale, but no other instruments in this research use 7-point scale).An example of an item from this scale is: "In most ways my life is close to my ideal".The full version of this instrument can be found in Appendix C. Cronbach's alpha for this scale is .91showing very satisfactory reliability.
The emotional aspect of the SWB is measured by the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-PANAS (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988).This scale examines the balance of positive and negative experiences during the past four weeks.Originally the PANAS scale is comprised of 10 items for positive affect and 10 items for negative affect.A principal component analysis using pilot sample data with two-factor model helped us to identify the five positive and five negative items with the highest factor loadings.For this research we used the following 5 items to measure positive affect (interested, energetic, strong, determined, excited) and 5 items to measure negative affect (guilty, afraid, distressed, nervous, irritable).The respondents rated their emotions on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from never to mostly.The internal consistence for the obtained sample was good, and Cronbach's alpha is .90and .85 for positive and negative affects respectively.
Mental health scale examines current mental health of an individual.We used GHQ-12 (Golderberg & Williams, 1988), which is one of the most commonly used scales to measure current mental health in general population.This scale is focused on two basic phenomena: inability to function in everyday life and occurrence of new stress phenomena.The questions examine whether a respondent has experienced a certain symptom recently.The scale has 12 items with 4-point Likert scale responses ranging from never to almost constantly.Example of question on this scale is: "In the past four weeks, how often have you felt you couldn't overcome your difficulties".Cronbach's alpha for this scale is .92showing very satisfactory reliability.

Statistical Analysis
Relationships between perceived discrimination, self-esteem, perceived discrepancies, and sense of control (independent variables) and mental health and components of SWB measured through satisfaction with life and positive and negative emotions (dependent variables) were examined using Pearson correlation coefficients.
The multiple regression analysis was used to determine whether the observed independent variables are significant psychological predictors of SWB and mental health in Serbian immigrants and also to measure their importance in explaining SWB and mental health.Sobel z-test was used to examine mediation role of specific independent variables.For multiple discrepancy scale (since it was designed exclusively for this study) the item-total correlation test was used to determine which items within a scale have the highest correlation with the total score.

Participants
We obtained a sample of 260 first generation Serbian immigrants of first generation living in Toronto, 112 (43%) being men and 148 (56.9%) being women.Their ages ranged from 19 to 74 years, with a mean age of 44.47 years (SD=9.61years).The average length of residence in Canada was 15.91 years (SD=6.37years).The age of the respondents at the time of their arrival in Canada ranged from 3 to 53 years, averaging 28.56 years (SD=8.94years).The majority of respondents were married (73.8%).Respondents were well educated, 146 respondents (56.2%) had graduated from universities, and 36 of the respondents (13.8%) had earned a MA or PhD.Such education structure could be explained by the fact that majority of the last wave of Serbian immigrants in Canada are highly educated professionals selected under Canada's points based system.78.8% respondents were employed.Almost a half of immigrates had annual household income over $100,000 and half had members of their extended family living in Canada.
Participants were also asked some basic demographic questions including: gender, current age, age at immigration, employment status, household income category, highest level of education, marital status, length of residence in Canada, presence of an extended family in Canada.Descriptive characteristics of the sample participants are presented in Table 1.

Results
Bivariate associations were explored using correlation analysis and results are presented in Table 2.A moderate negative correlation was found between the perceived discrimination and mental health (r=-.53,p<.01), perceived discrimination and life satisfaction (r=-.45,p<.01) and perceived discrimination and positive affect (r=-.35,p<.01), and there is a moderate positive correlation between perceived discrimination and negative affect (r=.50, p<.01).
According to the obtained results, there is a strong correlation between self-esteem and mental health (r=.76, p<.01), as well as with positive affect and life satisfaction.However, strong negative correlation was found between selfesteem and negative affect (r=-.69,p<.01).
Regarding the sense of control, the results show a strong positive correlation between sense of control and mental health (r=.72, p<.01), sense of control and life satisfaction (r=.68, p<.01), sense of control and positive affect (r=.56, p<.01).Out of all variables, the sense of control has the strongest correlation with mental health.Also the correlation between the sense of control and negative affect is strong and negative (r =-.66, p<.01).
A strong negative correlation was found between perceived multiple discrepancies and mental health (r=-.59,p<.01) as well as all aspects of SWB, including life satisfaction (r=-.78,p<.01) and positive affect (r=-.50,p<.01).The correlation between the perceived multiple discrepancies and negative affect is strong and positive (r=.60, p<.01).Those respondents who experience less discrepancy also experience more positive emotions, less negative emotions, have higher life satisfaction and have better mental health in comparison to respondents with larger discrepancies.Smaller discrepancy is associated with better mental health and SWB of Serbian immigrants.
All items in the multiple discrepancies scale give a strong significant contribution to the total score, the highest item-total correlation of r=.85 has the item measuring discrepancy between immigrants' current life and expectations they had when arrived in Canada.In addition, it was found that the life satisfaction has the strongest correlation with the multiple discrepancies total score.We further examined which of the six aspects of multiple discrepancies is most correlated with life satisfaction.We found that the same items (discrepancy between immigrants' current life and expectations they had when arrived in Canada) have the most effect on life satisfaction of the Serbian immigrants in Canada.This component of MD item in which the respondents compared themselves with other Serbian immigrants has the smallest item-total correlation of 0.67, indicating that this aspect of multiple discrepancies has the smallest effect on life satisfaction.the results of MD items analysis are presented in Table 3.Since the results indicated that perceived discrimination was correlated with mental health, we examined whether sense of control and self-esteem mediate this relationship.Mediator effect was tested using Sobel z-test.We found sense of control being a partial mediator (there is a direct relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health as well as an indirect relationship through sense of control), Sobel z=-3.65,p<.05.Similarly, we found self-esteem being a partial mediator (there is a direct relationship between perceived discrimination and mental health as well as an indirect relationship through self-esteem), Sobel z =-6.31, p<.05.
In order to explore the predictive power of self-esteem, multiple discrepancies, sense of control and perceived discrimination on mental health and SWB while controlling for demographic characteristics, we conducted four regression analyses models.In each model we added one predictor variable on top of demographic variables and observed how it affects the criterion variable (how much it increases the R-square in addition to demographic).This allows us to quantify and compare the effects/predictive power of each criterion variable.Because of the significant correlation between four criterion variables, they cannot be included in the same regression model (mutlicollinearity issue).The results of regression analysis are presented in Table 4.

Predictors of life satisfaction
Age of a person at the time of their arrival in Canada ( =-.22, p<.01) and current employment status ( =.20, p<.01) are significant demographic predictors of life satisfaction.Those two demographic factors explain 22.8% of variance in life satisfaction.When demographic variables are controlled for, the multiple discrepancies are the strongest negative predictor of life satisfaction ( =-.74, p <.01) and the percentage of the variance being explained by this variable is 40.7%, followed by the self-esteem ( =.63, p <.01) explaining 32% of the variance and finally, sense of control ( =.63, p <.01) which explains 30.7% of the variance in life satisfaction.Perceived discrimination is a negative predictor of life satisfaction ( =-.36, p <.01).

Predictors of mental health
Concerning the contribution of demographic variables to mental health, two variables appeared to be significant predictors of mental health: employment ( =.15, p =.02) and income above $150,000 ( =.33, p <.01); they explain 22.1% of variance in mental health.Self-esteem ( =.71, p <.01) and sense of control ( =0.67, p <.01) appeared to be the most significant predictors of mental health; self-esteem explains 39.7% of variance in mental health, while the sense of control explains 35.6% of variance.The portion of variance being explained by perceived discrimination and multiple discrepancies amounts to about 18% each, when the demographic factors are controlled.Perceived discrimination negatively affects mental health.

Predictors of positive affect
Income above $150,000 ( =-.26, p =.04) and employment status ( =.17, p =.01) are demographic variables that are significant predictors of positive affect and those variables carry 12.1% in explanatory power.Out of the all observed variables, self-esteem is the strongest predictor of positive affect ( =.60, p <.01), followed by sense of control ( =.55, p <.01), multiple discrepancies ( =-.47, p <.01) and the perceived discrimination ( =-.31 p <.01) which is a negative predictor of positive affect.The percentage of the variance being explained by self-esteem and by sense of control amounts to 28.7% and 23.9% respectively, when the demographic factors are controlled.

Predictor of negative affect
Employment ( =-.17, p <.01) appeared to be the only significant demographic predictor of negative affect.This relation is negative, which means that unemployed persons experience more negative emotions.Demographic factors explain 16.8% of variability in negative affect.When the demographic factors are controlled for, self-esteem ( =-.67, p <.01) and sense of control ( =-.63, p <.01) are the strongest predictors of negative affect, and they are followed by multiple discrepancies ( =.56, p <.01) and perceived discrimination ( =.43, p <.01), and the last two are positively correlated with negative affect.Self-esteem and sense of control explain 36.1% and 31.6% of variance in negative affect respectively, when the demographic factors are controlled for.

Discussion
Our results demonstrate that the sense of control has an impact on mental health and SWB in Serbian immigrants.More sense of control is associated with better mental health and higher SWB.The sense of control appeared to be one of the most influential predictor of mental health, explaining almost 36% of variance in mental health.However, the exact mechanism of how the sense of control works impacting mental health is not known and could be a subject for further research.
Our results are in accordance with the findings of other researchers who have studied this psychological construct on immigrants.Lachman and Weaver obtained the same results in their study that applied to both, general and immigrant population (Lachman & Weaver, 1998).The study conducted by Shin and associates (Shin et al., 2007) on SWB of Korean immigrants in the USA showed that a higher sense of control was correlated with a higher level of happiness as a measure of SWB among those immigrants.Our results are also in accordance with the findings of Felix Neto who studied life satisfaction of the young second generation immigrants with Portuguese background in France.Neto determined that the internal locus, a psychological concept very close to the concept of sense of control, resulted in higher life satisfaction of young immigrants (Neto, 2002).In the research of Emmons and Diener (Emmons & Diener, 1985), locus of control correlated with all three aspects of SWB.Previous researches indicated that sense of control was correlated with life satisfaction, mental health (Lachman & Weaver, 1998) and happiness measured through both positive and negative affect (Shin et al., 2007).
The results of our study are consistent with results obtained in previous studies on other ethnic minorities.Our research has shown that perceived discrimination is strongly negatively correlated with life satisfaction, positive affect and mental health in Serbian immigrants.Perceived discrimination is a strong negative predictor of life satisfaction and positive affect components of SWB.Out of all aspects that we studied, mental health is most strongly affected by perceived discrimination.Our finding is also consistent with findings of other studies which suggest that exposure to discrimination has an averse effect on emotional well-being (Libkind, 1996) and mental health (Bhui et al., 2005).
Given the fact that immigrants in our sample are highly educated, mostly employed and with relatively high income and are not members of so called "visible minorities", it is to be expected that they are less exposed to ethnic discrimination.However, more than a half of the respondents (56%) in our sample reported having experienced some kind of discrimination within the last year.Based on grounds for discrimination, the most reported form of discrimination were discrimination due to accent, a treatment as if one comes from a culturally inferior environment, and discrimination based on education and work experience obtained outside of Canada.The least common form of discrimination reported in our sample is crude and offensive behavior as well as overt verbal insult or assault.
Mediation analysis has shown that perceived discrimination has not only a direct effect on mental health, but also affects mental health indirectly through diminished sense of control and self-esteem.In other words, sense of control and self-esteem can serve as internal mechanisms through which experience of discrimination manifests its psychological consequences.This intervening role of sense of control has also been found in other studies (Jang, Chiriboga, & Small, 2008;Moradi & Hasan, 2004).Numerous studies have also found a partial mediation role of self-esteem in relation between perceived discrimination and mental health (Cassidy, O'Connor, Howe, & Warden, 2004).
Results of this study have shown that perceived multiple discrepancy is an important factor which affects all aspects of SWB and mental health, and that lower discrepancy between expectations and actual situation contributes to better mental health and SWB.We can see from the results that out of all aspects of SWB, presence of multiple discrepancies is the most correlated with satisfaction with life.This can be explained by the fact that life satisfaction is a cognitive evaluation of one's own life (Diener, 1984) and perceived discrepancy is a reflection of the cognitive evaluation of ones' life circumstances (Michalos, 1980(Michalos, , 1985)).
This paper confirms that a large discrepancy between life accomplishment and a postulated set of standards is correlated with lower SWB, especially with lower life satisfaction in immigrants.The results show that those respondents whose immigration expectations are fulfilled are more satisfied with their life.This can be explained by the fact that immigration is a serious undertaking initiated by a defined set of goals and expectations; in cases when these expectations were not accomplished, immigrants are generally not satisfied with their lives.
As said previously the discrepancy between the expectations at the time of arrival in Canada and current life has been proven to have the strongest influence on life satisfaction of immigrants.It has been followed by the discrepancy between overall life goals and what was accomplished.
This research has shown that if immigrants estimate that they have better life in Canada than they would have had if they had stayed in Serbia they probably feel that they have made the right decision when they decided to immigrate.On the other hand, if immigrants estimate that their life could have been better in Serbia than in Canada, they feel that the decision was wrong and that makes them unsatisfied and unhappy, which also reflects on their mental health.However, it has been also shown that the comparison with other Serbian immigrants in Canada has the least impact on life satisfaction.
Our research is consistent with the research of other authors on influences of perceived discrepancy on happiness and life satisfaction, both in a nonimmigrant population (Michalos 1980(Michalos , 1985;;Vermunt, Spaans, & Zorge, 1989) and in an immigrant population (Vorha & Adair, 2000).
A large international study on self-esteem and happiness conducted by Diener and Diener (Diener & Diener, 1995) showed that self-esteem was the most important predictor of happiness.In that study the correlation between these two variables was significant and amounted to .47.In our paper similar correlation was even larger and amounted to r=0.69, p<.01.Correlation between self-esteem and mental health was even higher and amounted to r=.76, p<.01.
Concerning the role of self-esteem in SWB and mental health in Serbian immigrants, our results indicate that a high level of self-esteem positively affects both emotional and cognitive aspects of SWB and it also positively affects mental health; even more, self-esteem is one of dominant and the most powerful predictors of SWB.Our results are in concordance with other studies which examined the effect of self-esteem on mental health (Furnham & Cheng, 2000).Shin and associates (Shin et al., 2007) also established that sense of control and self-esteem were the two most important predictors of happiness in Korean immigrants.
Demographic factors have been shown to have association with SWB and mental health of Serbian immigrants.Among significant factors are age at the time of arrival in Canada, length of residence in Canada, employment status and income.Marital status, highest level of education, education obtained in Canada and the presence of extended family members in Canada have not been shown any association with SWB and mental health.

Conclusion
The study has shown that SWB and mental health in Serbian immigrants in Canada depend on all studied independent variables: multiple discrepancy, self-esteem, sense of control, and perceived discrimination.The paper has shown that self-esteem is the most significant predictor of mental health.
Our results demonstrate that a sense of control is associated with better mental health and higher SWB, explaining almost 36% of variance in mental health.Believing one is in control over their own life circumstances is emotionally empowering.Obstacles are immanent to immigration, and if prolonged and/or extended on important life domains, they could diminish one's sense of control and cause anxiety, emotional instability and depression.
Out of all the aspects that we studied, mental health is most strongly affected by perceived discrimination.Perceived discrimination has not only a direct effect on mental health, but also affects mental health indirectly through a diminished sense of control and self-esteem.Moreover, an experience with discrimination has been more profound for our respondents due to the fact that before immigrating to Canada they belonged to privileged educational/ professional groups.
This paper confirms that the presence of multiple discrepancies is the most correlated with satisfaction with life; respondents whose immigration expectations are fulfilled are more satisfied with their lives.The decision to immigrate to Canada in our studied group was based on the expectations for an economically better life.If one perceives that their act of immigration was fruitful, this results in a higher satisfaction about own life in whole.
This research has shown that a high level of self-esteem positively affects all aspects of SWB as well as mental health.Moreover, self-esteem is the most powerful predictor of SWB.This could be explained by the fact that all immigrants are exposed to acculturative stress at different extents.Having high self-esteem reduces the effect of acculturative stress and has a protective role in preserving mental health.Immigrants who have high self esteem tend to highly evaluate their overall life and to be more satisfied and happy.

Table 1
Demographic Characteristics of the Participants, n = 260

Table 4
Results of the Regression Analysis Notes.The following demographic variables were controlled for: gender, age, marital status, length of residence in Canada, age at the time of arrival in Canada, education, employment status and income.** statistically significant correlations with p <.01