Being as Having, Loving, and Doing: A Theory of Human Well-Being.

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT: Stronger theory on the nature of human well-being is needed, especially as well-being indicators are increasingly utilized in policy contexts. Building on Erik Allardt, who argued that a theory of well-being is, in essence, a theory of human nature, I propose four modes of existence each capturing one dimension central to human well-being: Having recognizes humans as biological creatures requiring certain material resources for survival. Loving captures human social nature and our dependence on others for well-being. Doing highlights the active and agentic nature of human existence. Being acknowledges humans as experiencing their existence. Each mode of existence gives rise to a few more specific needs, and a full assessment of human well-being requires both subjective and objective indicators tapping into these needs. The proposed theory integrates psychological well-being research with sociological and philosophical traditions and contributes to debates about how the progress of nations and sustainability should be measured. PUBLIC ABSTRACT: Well-being is something we all value individually, and it is also a key political goal. Accordingly, how we define and measure well-being influences what physicians, managers, policy-makers, politicians, and international organizations aim to improve through their work. Better theories of well-being make better measurement of well-being possible, which makes possible more effective and evidence-based advancement of human well-being. In this spirit, the present article argues that there are four fundamental dimensions to human well-being: Having highlights that as biological creatures, we have physical needs, loving highlights human social needs, doing highlights that we are active and agentic beings with goals and strivings, and being highlights that we feel and evaluate our lives. To assess well-being, we need measures tapping into all four of these dimensions. And to assess the sustainability of well-being, we need to examine how to provide well-being for all humanity while remaining within planetary boundaries.

Which predicts longevity better: Satisfaction with life or purpose in life?

Life satisfaction and purpose in life are fundamental yet separate ways to evaluate one's life. Both positively predict physical health and longevity, making them key factors for length and quality of life. However, we do not know which of them predicts mortality, when controlling for the influence of each other. Given that purpose in life involves a more active engagement with life and can help to cope with suffering, we hypothesize that purpose in life could be a more direct prospective predictor of longevity, overshadowing any effect of life satisfaction, when the two are pitted against each other as prospective predictors of longevity. To examine these hypotheses, we utilized Midlife in the U.S. survey, which is a 23-year follow-up study, (N = 5,993) and Cox proportional hazards models, repeating the analyses both without covariates and when controlling for various demographic and health-related variables. We show that both life satisfaction and purpose in life predict mortality when modeled separately. When life satisfaction, purpose in life and self-rated health were entered as simultaneous predictors of mortality, purpose in life remained a slightly more robust predictor of mortality, while life satisfaction became only marginally significant, suggesting that some of the factors that connect it to mortality are covered by the other two subjective evaluations. Overall, the results demonstrate that purpose in life is a robust predictor of mortality, and thus a key dimension of well-being to attend to as people age, while the predictive power of life satisfaction is more dependent on the choice of covariates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Basic psychological needs, quality of motivation, and protective behavior intentions: a nationally representative survey study.

Objective: Building on the Self-Determination Theory, this study examines how basic psychological need satisfaction related to COVID-19 behavioral measures is associated with motivation quality and whether motivation quality is associated with intention to wear a face mask and to avoid meeting others. Methods: Cross-sectional survey study involving a nationally representative sample of Finnish adult population aged 18-79 (N = 2272, M age = 48.63, SD = 16.89, 975 men and 1297 women) was conducted in Finland in May 2021 when protective behaviors were recommended to prevent acceleration of the epidemic. Measures included scales of Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction in Adhering to COVID Prevention Measures, Motivation to Adhere to COVID Prevention Measures, Perceived Personal Risk, Fear of COVID-19, and Protective Behavior Intention. Analysis of variance tests, linear regression analysis, and multinomial logistic regression were conducted. Perceived personal risk and fear of COVID-19 were controlled for in the regression analyses. Results: All three psychological needs were positively related to autonomous motivation (all p < .001). Autonomous motivation (range OR = 1.82-3.55, p = .001) was consistently related to intention to wear a mask and intention to avoid meeting people. Controlled motivation (range OR = .66-.93, p = .001-.457) was associated with decreased protective behavior intentions. The effects of amotivation (range OR = .65-1.02, p = .001-.911) varied across analyses. Conclusions: Fostering autonomous motivation could increase adherence to protective behaviors in situations without clear mandates.

Clarifying Eudaimonia and Psychological Functioning to Complement Evaluative and Experiential Well-Being: Why Basic Psychological Needs Should Be Measured in National Accounts of Well-Being.

Measuring subjective well-being as a key indicator of national wellness has increasingly become part of the international agenda. Current recommendations for measuring well-being at a national level propose three separate dimensions: evaluative well-being, experiential well-being, and eudaimonia. Whereas the measurement of the first two dimensions is relatively standardized, the third category has remained undertheorized, lacking consensus on how to define and operationalize it. To remedy the situation, we propose that the third dimension should focus on psychological functioning and the identification of key psychological factors humans generally need to live well. A key part of psychological functioning is the satisfaction of basic psychological needs-specific types of satisfying experiences that are essential for psychological health and well-being. Psychological needs as a category provides a parsimonious set of elements with clear inclusion criteria that are strongly anchored in theory and our current understanding of human nature-and could thus form a core part of the third, "eudaimonic" dimension of well-being. The needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness have especially received broad empirical support. Accordingly, national accounts of well-being should include measures for key psychological needs to gain an enriched and practically useful understanding of the well-being of the citizens.

Experiential appreciation as a pathway to meaning in life.

A key research program within the meaning in life (MIL) literature aims to identify the key contributors to MIL. The experience of existential mattering, purpose in life and a sense of coherence are currently posited as three primary contributors to MIL. However, it is unclear whether they encompass all information people consider when judging MIL. Based on the ideas of classic and contemporary MIL scholars, the current research examines whether valuing one's life experiences, or experiential appreciation, constitutes another unique contributor to MIL. Across seven studies, we find support for the idea that experiential appreciation uniquely predicts subjective judgements of MIL, even after accounting for the contribution of mattering, purpose and coherence to these types of evaluations. Overall, these findings support the hypothesis that valuing one's experiences is uniquely tied to perceptions of meaning. Implications for the incorporation of experiential appreciation as a fundamental antecedent of MIL are discussed.

Responding to Positive Emotions at Work - The Four Steps and Potential Benefits of a Validating Response to Coworkers' Positive Experiences.

In order to capitalize on positive emotions at work and build high-quality interpersonal relationships and psychological safety, it is important that coworkers respond to each other's positive emotions in a constructive and validating way. However, despite the importance of symmetrical emotion regulation outcomes, organizational research has largely overlooked how an employee can positively respond to coworkers' positive emotions. Existing research has concentrated almost exclusively on negative ways of responding, with a particular focus on envy. This article develops a theoretical model of employees' positive responses to coworkers' positive emotional experiences, introduced here as a validating response. We identify four steps - noticing, sensemaking, feeling, and acting - and the key mechanisms within each step that enable a responder to react in a validating way. We connect the validating response to important potential individual and organizational outcomes. These outcomes include improved relationship quality and trust, as well as increased positivity and well-being that can result in enhanced learning behavior and collaboration. This article also discusses the connection between a validating response and compassion. We identify them both as parallel affirmative processes that acknowledge a coworker's emotions, with the former being a response to positive emotion while the latter is a response to negative emotion.

In selecting measures for a comprehensive assessment of well-being, it is essential to include indicators of psychological need satisfaction.

Human well-being is an important goal in both policy contexts and in health care, while also predicting various health-related outcomes. However, the proliferation of conceptions of well-being has become a major obstacle for the progress of a comparable and cumulative science of well-being, leading to a need to reach consensus on the key dimensions and indicators to be measured as part of human well-being. While attempts at consensus have been made, we see that the currently suggested dimensions need to be complemented by the inclusion of indicators for basic psychological needs, as need satisfaction is a crucial dimension of human wellness, flourishing, and more eudaimonic conceptions of well-being. In particular, we argue that the inclusion of the three psychological needs as proposed by Self-Determination Theory - autonomy, competence, and relatedness - would provide a parsimonious set of indicators of key elements of experienced well-being deeply rooted in human nature, and thus measuring them alongside other dimensions would offer a broader view of psychological wellness in policy and health care contexts.

Expanding the Map of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Aspirations Using Network Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling: Examining Four New Aspirations.

Life goals or aspirations can be distinguished as intrinsic or extrinsic, with different implications for well-being. In this study we used network analysis to reexamine this intrinsic-extrinsic distinction, illustrating how novel candidate aspirations can be mapped along this dimension using innovative methods. We identify four previously unexamined life aspirations, predicting that aspiring for power and social adherence would group with extrinsic goals, whereas aspiring for self-expression and mastery would group with intrinsic goals. In two samples (n = 196; n = 346) we analyze both the original life-goal variables and these novel aspirations using factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, circumplex modeling, and a network analysis using a graphical least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (glasso) to estimate the network structure of aspirations using EBIC. Replicating past intrinsic-extrinsic distinctions, all four methods further classified power and social adherence as extrinsic goals, and self-expression and mastery as intrinsic goals. The intrinsic-extrinsic distinction was also clearly visible in the network analysis. Finally, consistent with hypotheses, power and social adherence were unrelated to wellness indicators, whereas self-expression and mastery correlated positively with well-being indicators and negatively with ill-being indicators, supporting their hypothesized nature as extrinsic and intrinsic, respectively.

Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness, and Beneficence: A Multicultural Comparison of the Four Pathways to Meaningful Work.

Meaningful work is a key element of positive functioning of employees, but what makes work meaningful? Based on research on self-determination theory, basic psychological needs, and prosocial impact, we suggest that there are four psychological satisfactions that substantially influence work meaningfulness across cultures: autonomy (sense of volition), competence (sense of efficacy), relatedness (sense of caring relationships), and beneficence (sense of making a positive contribution). We test the relationships between these satisfactions and perceived meaningful work in Finland (n = 594, employees of several organizations), India (n = 342, collected through Mturk), and the United States (n = 373, collected through Mturk). Regression analyses show that - except for competence in United States - all four satisfactions are significantly and independently associated with meaningful work. Moreover, structural equation modeling shows that they fully mediated the relationship between occupational position and work meaningfulness in India and in the United States. In sum, the results support the importance of these four satisfactions in explaining the psychological underpinnings of meaningful work.

Significant Work Is About Self-Realization and Broader Purpose: Defining the Key Dimensions of Meaningful Work.

Research on meaningful work has proliferated in recent years, with an increasing understanding of the centrality of meaningfulness for work-related motivation, commitment, and well-being. However, ambiguity around the main construct, "meaningful work," has hindered this progress as various researchers have used partly overlapping, partly differing conceptualizations. To bring clarity to this issue, we examine a broad range of various definitions of meaningful work and come to argue that meaningfulness in the broadest sense is about work significance as an overall evaluation of work as regards whether it is intrinsically valuable and worth doing. Furthermore, we argue that there are two key sub-dimensions to this work significance: Broader purpose as work serving some greater good or prosocial goals (the intrinsic value of work beyond the person in question). And self-realization as a sense of autonomy, authenticity and self-expression at work (the intrinsic value of work for the person in question). Previous definitions of meaningful work feature typically one or two of these elements-significance, broader purpose, self-realization -, but in the future it would be beneficial to clearly acknowledge all three elements in both definitions and operationalizations of meaningful work.

The Benefits of Benevolence: Basic Psychological Needs, Beneficence, and the Enhancement of Well-Being.

Pro-social behaviors have been associated with enhanced well-being, but what psychological mechanisms explain this connection? Some theories suggest that beneficence-the sense of being able to give-inherently improves well-being, whereas evidence from self-determination theory (Weinstein & Ryan, 2010) shows that increases in well-being are mediated by satisfaction of innate psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Here we simultaneously assess these two explanations. Study 1 (N = 335) used a cross-sectional survey with an Internet sample to develop a measure to assess beneficence satisfaction. The next two cross-sectional Internet-sample studies tested mediators between pro-social behavior and general well-being (Study 2, N = 332) and situational peak moment well-being (Study 3, N = 180). A fourth study (N = 85) used a diary method with university students to assess daily fluctuations in well-being associated with needs and beneficence. It was shown across all studies that both the three psychological needs and beneficence satisfaction mediate the relations between pro-social actions and well-being, with all four factors emerging as independent predictors. Together, these studies underscore the role of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in explaining the well-being benefits of benevolence, and they also point to the independent role of beneficence as a source of human wellness.