Approaches to happiness, life goals and well-being

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Approaches to happiness, life goals and well-being

• Majda Rijavec University of Zagreb, Croatia
• Ingrid Brdar University of Rijeka, Croatia
• Dubravka Miljkovic University of Zagreb, Croatia

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Well-being

• hedonic conceptions of well-being
• eudaimonic conceptions of well-being

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• HEDONIC APPROACH
• creating high levels of happiness
• finding and fostering positive
  emotionality
• Kahnemann, Diener Schwartz, 1999.

• EUDAIMONIC APPROACH
• expanding potentials
• cultivating personal growth
• Ryan Deci, 2001.

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Hedonic approach
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Eudaimonic approach
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Well-being

• subjective well-being hedonic aspects
• psychological well-being eudaimonic aspects

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Precursors of well-being

• Approaches to happiness
• Life goals

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Approaches to happiness
Seligman, 2002

• Pleasant life
• Engaged life
• Meaningfull life

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Pleasant life

• consists of having as many pleasures as possible
  and skills to amplify the pleasures

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Engaged life

• comes through deep engagement, using one's
  strengths and virtues in activities that one
  finds challenging and rewarding

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Meaningfull life

• consists of using one's strengths in the service
  of something that one believes is larger than
  oneself

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Types of life goals

• Extrinsic

Intrinsic

• financial success
• physical attractiveness
• social fame/popularity

• emotional intimacy
• community service
• personal growth

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Intrinsic and extrinsic life goals Kasser
Ryan, 1993, 1996, 2001

• intrinsic goals are associated with enhanced
  well-being
• extrinsic goals do not enhance and often detracts
  from well-being

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Aim

• To examine the relationship between
• approaches to happiness
• intrinsic and extrinsic life goals
• hedonic and eudaimonic well-being

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Hypotheses
Pleasant life
Extrinsic goals
Hedonic well being
Engaged life
Eudaimonic well-being
Intrinsic goals
Meaningfull life
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Instruments

• Ways of life questionnaire (Peterson, Park
  Seligman, 2005)
• Aspiration Index (Kasser Ryan, 1996)
• The Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, 1985)
• The Scales of Psychological Well-Being (Ryff,
  1989)

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Participants

• 776 students
• 286 males and 490 females
• aged from 15 to 20 years

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• Pleasant life is positively related only to
  hedonic well-being directly and through
  extrinsic life-goals
• Engaged life is directly positively related only
  to eudaimonic well-being
• Meaningfull life is positively related to both
  hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, and postively
  to eudaimonic well-being through intrinsic
  life-goals

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Conclusions

• Different approaches to happiness are related to
  different types of well-being
• This relationship is to a certain extent mediated
  by different kinds of life goals

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And that would be all, I guess!