engleski

Approaches to happiness, life goals and well-being

According to Seligman (2002) there are three paths to happiness: the life of pleasure, the life of engagement and the life of meaning. The pleasant life, consists of having as many pleasures as possible and skills to amplify the pleasures. The good life comes through deep engagement, using one's strengths and virtues, in work, family life or other activities that one finds challenging and rewarding. The meaningful life consists of using one's strengths in the service of something that one believes is larger than him/herself. Within the domain of well-being, characteristics of personal goal systems have been explored as precursors of life satisfaction and long-term positive and negative affective states. Several lines of research (Kasser & Ryan, 1993, 1996, 2001) have shown that investment in, or success at, so-called intrinsic goals is associated with enhanced well-being. On the other hand, investment in and/or success at extrinsic goals do not enhance, and often detracts from, well-being. Evidence from a number of studies has indicated that well-being is probably best conceived as a multidimensional phenomenon that includes aspects of both the hedonic and eudemonic conceptions of well-being (Compton, Smith, Cornish & Qualls, 1996 ; King & Napa, 1998). Ryff (1989) suggested a theoretical model of psychological well-being that encompasses six distinct dimensions of wellness. Each dimension of psychological well-being articulates different challenges individuals encounter as they strive to function positively (Ryff & Keyes, 1995). Whereas the subjective well-being tradition formulates well-being in terms of overall life satisfaction and happiness, the psychological well-being tradition draws heavily on formulations of human development and existential challenges of life. The present study examined the relationship between approaches to happiness, intrinsic and extrinsic life goals, and psychological and subjective well-being. Generally, it was hypothesized that pleasant life would be related to subjective well-being, while meaningful life and good life would predict psychological well-being. Also, extrinsic goals would mediate the relationship between pleasant life and subjective well-being, while intrinsic life goals would mediate the relationship between good and meaningful life and psychological well-being. Results Four questionnaires, Approaches to Happiness Questionnaire (Peterson, Park & Seligman, 2005), Aspiration Index (Kasser & Ryan, 1996), The Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, 1985) and The Scales of Psychological Well-Being (Ryff, 1989) were administered to 479 high-school students and 297 college students (286 males and 490 females, aged from 15 to 20 years). Results from path analysis revealed that pleasant life was directly positively related to subjective well-being, meaningful life to both subjective and psychological well-being, and good life to psychological well-being. In addition to that, it was found that life goals mediated the relationship between ways of life and both types of well-being. Pleasant life was positively related to extrinsic goals, and there was positive connection of these goals to subjective well-being and negative one to psychological well-being. On the other hand, meaningful life was positively related to intrinsic goals, and intrinsic goals to psychological well-being. It was concluded that different approaches to hapinness are connected to different types of wel-being and that this relationship is mediated by different kinds of life goals.

approaches to happiness; life goals; well-being

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