Doing the Right Thing: Measuring Well-Being for Public Policy

Abstract

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-line-height-alt: 1.1pt;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 10pt;" lang="EN-GB">Many experts now recognize that income is not a measure that alone captures the wellbeing of individuals, and governments around the world are starting to rethink the ways in which they measure the welfare of their citizens. Wellbeing is best understood as a multifaceted phenomenon that can be assessed by measuring a wide array of subjective and objective constructs. This review summarizes the state of research on the various domains of wellbeing measured by psychologists and social scientists, and provides an overview of the main theoretical perspectives that integrate these domains. Among these theoretical perspectives, we highlight Well-being Theory, which decomposes the wellbeing construct into five domains: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment (PERMA). We conclude by formulating recommendations for future research on the measurement of wellbeing. These recommendations include the need to combine both objective and subjective indicators, and the use of a <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dashboard approach</em> to measurement. This approach conveys the multifaceted nature of wellbeing and will help policy-makers and citizens understand which domains of wellbeing should constitute priorities for public policy. </span></p&gt

The relationships between character strengths and life fulfillment in the view of lay-people in Argentina

“…In order to determine the extent to which strengths of character are essential to living a good life, this study was conducted from laypeople's point of view. This intersection between character strengths and well-being is also present in Seligman's recent theory of wellbeing, known under the acronym of PERMA, which proposes that human strengths are vehicles for achieving positive emotions, engage ment (flow), enriching relation ships, mean ing in life, and accomplishment of personal goals (Forgeard, Jayawickreme, Kern, & Seligman, 2011;Seligman, 2011). Peterson and Seligman (2004) proposed a scientific methodology for the study of positive traits and a classification of character strengths and virtues that is currently used by researchers worldwide.…”

“…In a most recent work, Seligman's (2011) developed a theory of well-being, named PERMA, that adds two more elements, relation ships and accomplishment, to the previous concepts of pleasure, engagement, and meaning (Forgeard et al, 2011). In this PERMA model, Seligman posits that is well-being, and not happiness the main topic of Positive Psychol ogy and considers it as a construct that can be assessed by self-report measures.…”

Succeeding Alone and Together - University Students’ Perceptions of Caring Online Teaching

“…Engagement means well-being that one experiences in moments of deep interest or absorption in one's activities (Kern et al, 2015), such as flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008). Building positive relationships as the element of well-being is one of the core prerequisites of well-being (Seligman, 2011): social support, being cared, appreciated, and loved by others is important to everyone in all cultures (Forgeard, Jayawickreme, Kern, & Seligman, 2011). Meaning refers to a sense of purpose in life (Kern et al, 2015) that is, to a great extent, based on one's awareness of strengths and ability to use them (e.g., Littman-Ovadia & Steger, 2010;Peterson, Ruch, Beermann, Park, & Seligman, 2007).…”

Measuring flourishing: The impact of operational definitions on the prevalence of high levels of wellbeing

“…We begin with a historical review of the psychometric assessments, providing details on each of the researchers' theoretical and conceptual definitions of flourishing, methodologies for categorical diagnosis, and extant evidence of scale reliability and validity. As the theoretical evidence-base for each component indicator of flourishing has been reviewed elsewhere (for example, see Forgeard et al, 2011;Michaelson et al, 2009) this is not the purpose of our investigation; our focus is on comparing the way the components are combined, and categorical definitions of flourishing operationalized, as well as reviewing the research supporting them. Part two investigates the impact of operational definitions on the prevalence of flourishing in New Zealand.…”