An interdisciplinary synthesis of research on understanding and promoting well‐doing

Abstract

People's intentional pursuit of prosocial goals and values (i.e., well-doing) is critical to the flourishing of humanity in the long run. Understanding and promoting well-doing is a shared goal across many fields inside and outside of social and personality psychology. Several of these fields are (partially) disconnected from each other and could benefit from more integration of existing knowledge, interdisciplinary collaboration, and cross-fertilization. To foster the transfer and integration of knowledge across these different fields, we provide a brief overview with pointers to some key articles from each field, highlight connections, and introduce an integrative model of the psychological mechanisms of well-doing. We identify some gaps in the current understanding of well-doing, such as the paucity of research on well-doing with large and long-lasting positive consequences. Building on this analysis, we identify opportunities for high-impact research on well-doing in social and personality psychology, such as understanding and promoting the effective pursuit of highly impactful altruistic goals.

Optimizing Performance, Well-Being and Well-Doing: A Leader Practice-Oriented Approach

“…This particular challenge highlights a difference between offering more complex academicoriented definitions rather than having practitioners in organizations define these areas. Given the emerging interest in wisdom as an important value to be operationalized in organizations, it seems especially important for organizational leaders to spend sufficient time looking at how they can best define well-doing, as part of being wise, in a way that is behavioral and also fits their operating environment (Kerns, 2020a;Lieder et al, 2022). Currently, I am working with leaders and their organizations to assist them in defining what they mean by value-added contributions, and being proactive and intentional.…”

How Effective Altruism Can Help Psychologists Maximize Their Impact

“…To this end, we need to create metrics allowing us to get a more objective assessment of how a project may fare by the ITN criteria. One related effort is the research-priorities project (Lieder et al, 2021) aimed at identifying important research questions on how to ensure the long-term flourishing of humanity (Lieder, 2021). The research-priorities project first solicited ideas from researchers.…”

Impacting Well-Doing at Work: A Practice-Oriented Leader Framework

“…For example, altruism is connected to one's tendency to be concerned about acting in ways that benefit others. Research which contributes in helping leaders set stretching altruistic goals and execute them is needed and would likely benefit practitioners who are striving to become effective well doers in their organizations (Lieder et al, 2022). Also, proactivity and intentionality are important areas which need to be explored more fully in regards to how they relate to well-doing at work (Parker et al, 2010).…”

“…This challenge also relates to the measurement challenge since there is a need for situational judgment type assessments that are sensitive to the circumstances that leaders face when striving to do good for the benefit of others (Stemler & Sternberg, 2006;Wright et al, 2021). This challenge also points up the need for increased interdisciplinary collaboration regarding well-doing (Lieder et al, 2022). Practitioners and applied oriented scholars have a role to play in helping identify profiles of authentic well-doers and those of individuals who do not seem to align with the dispositional and/or behavioral attributes for effective well-doing.…”