An Integrated Look at Well-Being: Topological Clustering of Combinations and Correlates of Hedonia and Eudaimonia

AbstractSubjective measures of well-being are increasingly seen by scholars and policy makers as valuable tools to assess quality of life.Hedonic accounts focus on people ’s experience of life in positive ways whileeudaimonic accounts are concerned with realization of personal potential. However, to what extent do an “enjoyable” and a “flourishing” life overlap? Using an innovative clustering-and-projection technique (Self-Organized Map), the joint distributional patterns of multiplehedonic andeudaimonic well-being indicators were examined in a nationally representative longitudinal study of US adults (MIDUS). Results show that the two accounts largely converged with about 70% of the sample observations registering high/low scores in both well-being dimensions. However, the remaining 30% of respondents experienced divergent well-being levels. Association between these combined profiles and a series of socio-demographic characteristics and social stratification factors were investigated. Findings showed that chances of uniformly high well-being increase with age, while higher income, educational level, marriage, and being a female are linked to lesser probabilities of experiencing joint low well-being patterns. Experiencing a combination of highhedonic/loweudaimonic well-being was more frequent for less educated individuals, and men. Finally, the persistence over time of these combined well-being profiles was more frequent in case of convergenthedonic/eudaimonic leve...

Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - October 13, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research