Recent findings on subjective well-being

Abstract

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a field of psychology that attempts to understand people's evaluations of their lives. These evaluations may be primarily cognitive (e.g., life satisfaction or marital satisfaction) or may consist of the frequency with which people experience pleasant emotions (e.g., joy, as measured by the experience sampling technique) and unpleasant emotions (e.g., depression). Researchers in the field strive to understand not just undesirable clinical states, but also differences between people in positive levels of longterm well-being. The artic1ebriefly reviews research on measuring SWB, on the demographie correlates of it, and cultural differences in reports of SWB. We also describe influences on SWB such as temperament, and theoretical models of SWB (e.g., context approaches). 23.4.08, BST, E-Dokumente: Diener1997subjective well-being.pdf