Important Goals, Meanings, and Relationships in Flourishing and Languishing States: Towards Patterns of Well-being

AbstractQualitative studies of lay people ’s perspectives on facets of well-being are scarce, and it is not known how the perspectives of people with high and low levels of well-being dovetail or differ. This research explored the experiences of people with high/flourishing versus low/languishing levels of positive mental health in three cross-sectional survey design studies. Languishing and flourishing participants were selected in each study based on quantitative data from the Mental Health Continuum - Short Form as reported by Keyes et al. (Journal of Health and Social Behavior 43:207 –222, 2002). Qualitative content analyses were conducted on written responses to semistructured open-ended questions on the what and why of important meaningful things (study 1,n = 42), goals (study 2,n = 30), and relationships (study 3,n = 50). Results indicated that well-being is not only a matter of degree—manifestations differ qualitatively in flourishing and languishing states. Similar categories emerged for what flourishing and languishing people found important with regard to meaning, goals, and relationships, but the r easons for the importance thereof differed prominently. Languishing people manifested a self-focus and often motivated responses in terms of own needs and hedonic values such as own happiness, whereas flourishers were more other-focused and motivated responses in terms of eudaimonic values focusing on a greater good. We propose that positive mental hea...
Source: Applied Research in Quality of Life - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research