current studies
current studies
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psychological richness
psychological richness
Characterizing the psychologically rich life:
Personality traits, daily activities, and goal pursual
Characterizing the psychologically rich life:
Personality traits, daily activities, and goal pursual
The idea of a ‘good life’ has traditionally been thought of as one filled with happy, pleasurable moments of comfort (hedonic), or one filled with meaningful dedication to personally valued goals (eudaimonic). Moving beyond the eudaimonic–hedonic divide to conceptualizing well-being, a new pathway has been proposed: well-being via pursuing a psychologically rich life. The psychologically rich life is characterized by a variety of interesting and perspective-changing experiences. The purpose of this study is to identify the individual and contextual factors that characterize the psychologically rich life in an everyday context. We first completed a cross-sectional quantitative pilot study is to understand how the personality traits, positive psychological functioning, and daily activities characteristic of those who pursue a life of richness differ from those who pursue a life of pleasure, meaning, or engagement. These findings informed our hypothesis-driven longitudinal study (4-wave weekly surveys). Data analysis is now underway while we collect qualitative data through life story interviews.
Psychological richness as a meta-quality of well-being:
evidence across cross-sectional and longitudinal networks
Psychological richness as a meta-quality of well-being:
evidence across cross-sectional and longitudinal networks
Psychological richness - a life marked by variety, complexity, and perspective change - has been proposed as a potential third dimension of well-being alongside happiness and meaning. Yet it remains unclear whether richness constitutes a distinct type of well-being, a facilitating process that links motivational and evaluative elements, or a broader meta-quality that shapes the organization of the well-being system. Across two studies, we used network analysis to map the structural position of psychological richness within well-being architecture. Study 1 estimated an EBICglasso network in a large cross-sectional sample (N = 489) including basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, relatedness, novelty), psychological richness (PRL-Q), and evaluative well-being. Richness did not form an independent cluster; instead, it occupied a bridging position linking need satisfaction with life evaluation. Study 2 replicated this structure using Wave 1 data from an independent longitudinal sample (N = 442) and then examined descriptive network dynamics across four weekly waves. Across waves, need and well-being nodes showed stable clustering, and Network Comparison Tests indicated structural invariance over time. Richness, assessed at Waves 1 and 4, consistently reappeared as an integrative connector within this motivational–evaluative system. These findings support conceptualizing psychological richness as a facilitating process or meta-quality rather than a distinct type of well-being, providing a structural foundation for dynamic models of flourishing that integrate comfort, purpose, and experiential depth.
positive psychology
positive psychology
What people prioritize matters:
Longitudinal links between well-being priorities and life satisfaction
What people prioritize matters:
Longitudinal links between well-being priorities and life satisfaction
Subjective well-being reflects not only individuals’ circumstances but also the priorities they use to evaluate their lives. Using three waves of nationally representative UK panel data (BHPS; Wave 1 N = 9,051; Wave 6 N = 13,513; Wave 11 N = 12,110), this study examined how self-defined well-being priorities predict life satisfaction. Personal priorities (e.g., health, peace of mind) were nearly universal (≈98%), whereas endorsements of material, relational, leisure, spiritual/community, and local-environment priorities varied substantially across waves. Linear mixed-effects models with random intercepts showed that endorsing spiritual/community priorities predicted higher life satisfaction (β = .16), as did endorsing leisure-related priorities (β = .10). In contrast, priorities involving other people (e.g., caretaking responsibilities; β = –.36) and environmental concerns (β = –.40) were associated with lower life satisfaction. Material priorities were unrelated to well-being. Age predicted higher life satisfaction, whereas women reported slightly lower satisfaction than men. Within-person change models revealed similar patterns: increases in spiritual/community priorities predicted increases in life satisfaction, whereas increases in relational or environmental priorities predicted decreases. Changes in personal, material, and leisure priorities were not associated with changes in well-being. Together, these findings demonstrate that naturally occurring, self-defined well-being priorities - particularly those reflecting spirituality, community engagement, relational obligations, and environmental concerns - meaningfully shape how individuals evaluate their lives. Well-being appears shaped less by how many domains people prioritise than by the emotional tone and contextual meaning of what they prioritise.
A decade of life’s ups and downs:
Investigating trajectories of population well-being using nonlinear growth curve modeling on nationally representative UK social surveys
A decade of life’s ups and downs:
Investigating trajectories of population well-being using nonlinear growth curve modeling on nationally representative UK social surveys
Living a satisfying life has external, secondhand benefits for families and communities, which makes it relevant to healthy public policy. We examined life satisfaction trajectories and how demographic covariates and satisfaction with specific domains influence life satisfaction over 13 waves of data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (N = 89,3333 overall). Using nonlinear growth curve modeling, we found that life satisfaction remained relatively stable over the 13 waves (average of 5.06 to 5.26 out of 7), with small but significant variations based on demographic characteristics. Older individuals and those identifying as ethnic minorities reported higher baseline satisfaction, while males experienced steeper changes over time relative to females. Domain-specific satisfaction (leisure, income, health) predicted global life satisfaction at each wave; leisure satisfaction was consistently the strongest predictor. These findings support bottom-up models of subjective well-being: that satisfaction in personally valued life domains shapes overall life satisfaction. Plotting observed life satisfaction by age also provided descriptive support for the highly-debated U-shaped age trajectory of life satisfaction. By highlighting the importance of leisure satisfaction, our results highlight the potential for public policy to promote well-being through community leisure opportunities for all ages. This study contributes to theoretical debates around well-being stability and change, suggesting that while life satisfaction has trait-like qualities (i.e., is stable over time), it is also influenced by domain-specific appraisals (particularly leisure). Interventions aimed at enhancing population well-being may be most effective when they prioritize time affluence (e.g., work-life balance policies), promote leisure engagement, and are designed to support fulfillment in valued life domains.
How does it feel to pursue personally important goals?
Emotional complexity, positive engagement, and the well-being benefits of self-concordant striving
How does it feel to pursue personally important goals?
Emotional complexity, positive engagement, and the well-being benefits of self-concordant striving
Why do self-concordant goals promote eudaimonic well-being? Although self-concordant goal pursuit is reliably associated with greater psychological functioning, less is known about the emotional processes through which these benefits emerge, or about how everyday activities, goals, and meaning are structurally related. Drawing on three complementary samples - including a personal projects study (N = 327) and two independent daily diary samples (total N = 224; 2,789 activity episodes) - we examined how activity type structures goal pursuit and routinisation, how goal-directed engagement relates to meaning and life purpose, and which emotional experiences explain the well-being benefits of self-concordant striving. Across daily diary samples, activity type strongly predicted perceived goal pursuit but only weakly predicted routinisation, meaning in life, or life purpose. Goal-directed engagement clustered around activities involving self-regulation, relationships, and personal development, whereas leisure, maintenance, and restorative activities were experienced as relatively low in goal pursuit. In contrast, meaning and purpose were predominantly person-level constructs, showing high between-person stability and minimal activity-level variance. Analyses of self-concordant projects further revealed that challenging goal pursuit was characterised by emotionally complex experiences, including co-occurring stress, uncertainty, and hope. However, emotional diversity did not explain the association between self-concordance and eudaimonic well-being. Instead, average positive affect during goal pursuit emerged as the primary mediator linking self-concordant striving to well-being, whereas negative affect played a comparatively minor role. Together, these findings suggest that self-concordant goal pursuit is emotionally rich, but that its well-being benefits are driven by sustained positive engagement rather than emotional complexity per se. The results clarify how hedonic experience contributes to eudaimonic outcomes without collapsing the distinction between the two, and they reposition psychological richness as a descriptive feature of meaningful striving rather than a direct pathway to well-being.
Finding the flourishing fit:
Motivational coherence as a dynamic pathway to well-being
Finding the flourishing fit:
Motivational coherence as a dynamic pathway to well-being
Understanding why some people flourish more than others requires examining how behavior, motivation, and personality align to support well-being. Two pre-registered studies tested the newly developed Flourishing Fit Model, which conceptualizes well-being as the outcome of alignment among what people do (activities), why they do it (motives and orientations), and who they are (personality traits). Using cross-sectional person-level data (N = 392), activity-level data (N = 1,179), and longitudinal data (N = 239, 823 observations), Study 1 examined activity-, motivational-, and personality-level fit, while Study 2 tested within-person coherence and balance over time. In Study 1, eudaimonic motives and orientations strongly predicted well-being, whereas activity content had minimal effects once motivational alignment was considered. Personality traits calibrated rather than determined flourishing, showing small but interpretable motive–trait interactions. In Study 2, weeks characterized by greater orientation–experience coherence predicted subsequent increases in life satisfaction and life worthwhileness through competence and novelty need satisfaction. Personality moderated these dynamics: neuroticism amplified, and conscientiousness dampened, reactivity to weekly experience. Across studies, motivational coherence emerged as the most consistent and causal pathway to flourishing, with personality acting as a regulatory boundary condition. Together, the findings frame the Flourishing Fit Model as an integrative, dynamic account of well-being in which alignment across activities, motives, and dispositions sustains positive functioning over time.
well-being meta-science
well-being meta-science
Measure what matters: An environmental scan and quality appraisal of population well-being surveys
Measure what matters: An environmental scan and quality appraisal of population well-being surveys
Population well-being surveys collect information from large, representative groups of people living in a defined geographic region on various social, emotional, and psychological factors that contribute to overall quality of life. Surveys provide relevant data to shape policies and practices to improve overall quality of life, such as informing the development of national quality of life frameworks. Ensuring that high-quality measures are being used in surveys is essential, because population level data inform policies that affect entire populations. The purpose of this study was to identify all existing population well-being surveys and analyze the quantity and quality of the established measures used in each survey. We conducted an environmental scan and identified 14 population well-being surveys, representing four continents, administered at monthly to 5-year intervals, and on samples of 3,928 to 65,000 individuals. We systematically appraised both the psychometry and pragmatism of each measure used in population well-being surveys through double-blind extraction using an established quality assessment tool. Overall measure quality was 33.05 (range: 20-46) and we found comparable domain scores for psychometric (M = 16.21) and pragmatic quality (M = 16.84). Psychometrically, measures tended to have high convergent validity and lower predictive validity. Practically, measures tended to have high readability scores and be briefer rather than longer. Our findings should be interpreted with our quasi-systematic method in mind, and our English language restriction. By highlighting how survey measures can be improved or refined in order to better measure population well-being, we hope these findings can support future population well-being surveys conducted across the world.
When brevity met diversity:
Evaluating the TIPI in global well-being research
When brevity met diversity:
Evaluating the TIPI in global well-being research
Large-scale global surveys increasingly include personality measures to test theoretically rich models of well-being, yet little work has evaluated whether commonly used ultra-brief personality inventories are psychometrically adequate for such purposes across cultural contexts. Using two-wave data from the Global Flourishing Survey (GFS; N > 200,000 across 22 countries), this study combines longitudinal modeling with cross-cultural psychometric diagnostics to assess both substantive personality–well-being processes and the methodological viability of the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) in global research. We employed cross-lagged panel models to examine whether Big Five personality traits predict subsequent well-being indirectly through basic psychological need satisfaction (competence, autonomy, and relatedness), and we assessed how personality traits relate to discrepancies between current and anticipated life evaluations. To evaluate the robustness and interpretability of these associations, we conducted a series of measurement-focused analyses, including country-specific estimation of internal consistency for each TIPI trait, country-level regression of trait–well-being slopes, and meta-regression of these slopes on Hofstede’s individualism–collectivism index. We further tested the sensitivity of all key findings to measurement specification by adjusting for cross-national variability in reliability and by re-estimating models using only positively keyed personality items to remove reverse-wording artefacts. Across analytic approaches, basic psychological need satisfaction exhibited stable and theoretically coherent associations with multiple well-being outcomes over time. In contrast, personality–well-being associations were uniformly small and highly sensitive to measurement specification, with several apparent cross-cultural moderation effects substantially attenuated or altered after accounting for reliability differences across countries. These patterns indicate that variation in measurement precision, rather than substantive psychological differences, can meaningfully shape inferences about personality–well-being relations in global datasets. By integrating longitudinal modeling with systematic psychometric diagnostics, this study demonstrates how ultra-brief personality measures can constrain or distort substantive conclusions in cross-cultural well-being research. The findings highlight the importance of explicitly evaluating reliability and measurement functioning when personality traits are used as predictors in large, diverse surveys and provide methodological guidance for future global studies of personality and flourishing.
Beyond additive models:
Well-being as a dynamic cost–recovery system
Beyond additive models:
Well-being as a dynamic cost–recovery system
Research in positive psychology has identified numerous experiences, motivations, and activities associated with well-being. However, effects are often modest, heterogeneous, and difficult to sustain over time, and increases in engagement can sometimes coincide with strain or burnout. These patterns are typically treated as anomalies or methodological limitations. In this paper, we argue that they reflect a deeper theoretical assumption: that well-being accumulates additively from positive experiences. We propose the Dynamic Cost–Recovery Model of Well-Being, a process-level framework that conceptualises well-being as an emergent outcome of dynamic interactions between costs and recovery unfolding over time. The model advances five propositions: that many flourishing-relevant experiences impose structural costs; that recovery is necessary for benefits to accrue; that well-being effects are temporally displaced; that effects are non-additive; and that timing and sequencing moderate outcomes. By integrating insights from Self-Determination Theory, Broaden-and-Build Theory, and the Positive Activity Model, the framework explains why identical experiences can produce divergent well-being trajectories across individuals and occasions. We discuss implications for theory, research design, and intervention development, and outline a research agenda for studying well-being as a dynamic system rather than as the cumulative result of positive experiences.
When fulfilment costs energy:
Rethinking the dynamics of well-being
When fulfilment costs energy:
Rethinking the dynamics of well-being
Contemporary well-being frameworks increasingly emphasise meaning, purpose, and value-aligned engagement as central to flourishing. However, lived experience and emerging empirical evidence suggest a more complex reality: activities and goals that are meaningful and identity-defining are not always energising and may involve short-term experiential costs. Existing well-being theories struggle to account for experiences in which fulfilment and exhaustion coexist, in part because short-term affective energy and longer-term meaning are often collapsed into unitary well-being outcomes. This paper introduces the Sparkle–Depth Dynamic Model, a theory-driven framework that conceptualises well-being as a system of partially independent experiential resources: short-term affective energy, vitality, and enjoyment (sparkle), and longer-term meaning, identity coherence, and fulfilment (depth). The model proposes that these resources follow distinct temporal dynamics, such that engagement in meaningful or effortful activities may deplete sparkle in the short term while contributing to depth over longer time horizons. Rather than introducing a new well-being taxonomy, the framework reorganises existing constructs into a dynamic, resource-based account that foregrounds trade-offs, recovery, and sustainability as central features of wellbeing. The paper situates the model within established hedonic, eudaimonic, self-regulatory, and recovery literatures, clarifies points of conceptual overlap and distinction, and specifies falsifiable predictions suitable for intensive longitudinal research designs. Implications for well-being theory, measurement, and the design of sustainable well-being interventions are discussed. By offering a temporally explicit account of how fulfilment and energetic cost interact, the Sparkle–Depth Dynamic Model provides a foundation for more realistic and sustainable approaches to understanding happiness and well-being over time.
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