A new paper in Sustainability explores whether the importance assigned to well-being domains may be associated with actual self-reported well-being in these same domains. “Associations between the Importance of Well-Being Domains and the Subsequent Experience of Well-Being,” authored by Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska, Matthew T. Lee, Piotr Bialowolski, Eileen McNeely, Ying Chen, Richard G. Cowden and Tyler J. VanderWeele, looked at longitudinal data from 1209 employees to examine the associations between the perceived importance of six well-being domains (emotional health, physical health, meaning and purpose, social connectedness, character strengths, and financial stability) and subsequent well-being in these domains reported approximately 1 year later.
New Paper – Associating the importance of well-being with the experience of well-being
This research showed that the importance of character strengths and the importance of physical health, followed by the importance of social connectedness, were the most consistent predictors of well-being outcomes. However, the researchers also found that none of the valuations predicted subsequent emotional health, the importance of physical health predicted only physical health, and only two valuations were associated—both inversely—with subsequent financial stability (the importance of character strengths and physical health).
The research provided further evidence that living well appears best achieved by valuing immaterial goods, especially social connectedness and character strengths, as opposed to domains such as financial stability or physical health. This has important implications for sustainable growth, as our main findings are consistent with a “politics of being” rather than a cultural emphasis on “having.”
Read the full paper.