Last week, we looked at subjective well-being, an approach which focuses on how individuals feel about their life and circumstances, with a specific emphasis on positive emotional experiences and life satisfaction. While this approach receives a lot of attention from psychologists, it is not the only school of thought as it relates to well-being as…
Our main focus of attention up to this point has been to establish that when we speak of well-being, rather than only thinking about reducing negatives, we should also think in terms of boosting positives. As pointed out more than once in the previous two blog entries, seeking to reduce and/or remove symptoms of negative…
Last week, I began this series by focusing mainly on the tendency we sometimes see for conversations on well-being to be framed – usually unconsciously – in the context of ill-being. We can see this tendency when discussions concerned with well-being devote most or all of their content to the important task of reducing negatives,…
What comes to mind when you think of well-being? It might seem like an obvious question, but if you asked it of random passers-by on the street, the odds are that each answer would differ, at least somewhat. The obvious questions are ones we tend to spend little or no time thinking about, because, well,…