ideal types of well-being

Good life is more than being happy.

The claim that well-being is a universal human concern is one that even cultural relativists would probably agree on given that leading a good life constitutes a central issue of all major thinking and religious traditions. However, the way well-being is understood and achieved differs across traditions, disciplines, and times. People construe well-being in various ways. Psychological science deals with the complexity of human flourishing by adopting the assumption that the pursuit of each type of well-being is ultimately aimed at becoming happy. As Kwan, Bond and Singelis (1997, p. 1038) have argued:

“An ultimate dream for everyone in the field of psychology is to understand human behaviors so that psychology can contribute to people's well-being. On the basis of this common goal, a single construct of life satisfaction, which illustrates "the highest good" and "the ultimate motivator" for all human behaviors, has drawn continuous attention for the past few decades.”

Indeed, life satisfaction is probably one of the most popular topics in psychology. According to Scopus database, Diener and colleagues’ (1985) paper introducing the Satisfaction with Life Scale was cited over 10,000 times, which makes it one of the most impactful papers in all psychological literature. Also, the growing body of research on National Accounts of Well-being pertains to the logics that well-being equals happiness. Yet, the assumption that happiness is the ultimate aim and the “highest” type of well-being can be contested from philosophical, psychological, cross-cultural, and evolutionary perspectives.

In our project we acknowledge that happiness is an important component of well-being, but we want to understand the complexity of well-being conceptualizations around the globe. Thus, we target four well-being types - happiness, meaning, harmony and spirituality - to research their ideal levels across cultures.