Subjective well-being (SWB) is composed of people’s evaluations of their lives, including pleasant affect, infrequent unpleasant affect, life satisfaction (LS). We review the research literature concerning the influence of culture on SWB. We argue that some types of well-being, as well as their causes, are consistent across cultures, whereas there are also unique patterns of well-being in socie...

All individuals strive to be happy. How they pursue this ultimate human goal, however, seems to vary in interesting ways across cultures. Three key findings have emerged from recent scientific research: 1) individualist cultures are happier than collectivists, 2) psychological attributes characterizing the self (e.g., self-esteem, self-consistency) are more relevant to the happiness of Western ...

This paper analyses whether the aggregation of individual happiness scores to a National Happiness Index can still be trusted once governments have proclaimed their main objective to be the pursuit—or even maximization— of this National Happiness Index. The answer to this investigation is clear-cut: as soon as the National Happiness Index has become a policy goal, it can no longer be trusted to...

This chapter deals with three question: 1) What are ‘subjective’ measure? 2) What is ‘wellbeing’? and 3) Are subjective measures of wellbeing of use for policymaking, in particular in developing nations? The first question is answered by making a distinction between two kinds of ‘subjectivity’: subjective substance and subjective assessment. On that basis nine types of indicators are discerned,...

We use two waves of a population based survey (the RAND American Life Panel) to investigate the relations between various evaluative and experienced well-being measures based on the English Longitudinal Study of Aging, the Gallup Wellbeing Index, and a 12-item hedonic well-being module of the Health and Retirement Study. In a randomized set-up we administered several versions of the survey with...

Objectives: Work-related subjective well-being (SWB) may be negatively affected by early-life adverse experiences, such as school bullying experience. This study aimed to identify the association between work-related SWB and experiences. Methods: A systematic review was conducted using five electronic databases search for published observational studies from inception May 5th, 2022. Eligibility...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between subjective experience dreams, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Specifically, aimed explore whether including how often dreams are remembered, presence nightmares, way in which a person thinks about could influence occurrence state trait as well depression. Nightmares, subset characterized by high distress negative tone, were...