Subjective temporal trajectories for subjective well-being

Abstract

Based on Diener's (Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.) tripartite model of subjective well-being (SWB), subjective evaluations of past, present, and anticipated future life satisfaction (LS), positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA) were evaluated in a cross-sectional undergraduate sample. Upward mean trends in subjective trajectories (past < present < future) were typical, on average, for each SWB component. As predicted, higher levels of present SWB were aligned with greater positive psychological, physical, and interpersonal functioning. In contrast, steeper upward subjective SWB trajectories were associated with greater distress and dysfunction. Of the three SWB components, unique links with indicators of functioning were most consistent for LS trajectories. We conclude that a temporally expanded conceptualization of SWB spanning subjective assessments of past, present, and anticipated future LS, PA, and NA provides a rich framework for studying the structure of SWB and the significance of how people perceive their well-being to be unfolding over time.

Keywords:

• subjective well-being
• temporal perspective
• life satisfaction
• positive affect
• negative affect

Acknowledgements

Funding for this study was provided by a research grant to the third author from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes

1. The data reported in this study were collected as part of an anticipated longitudinal study comprising multiple waves separated by one-year intervals. The temporal anchors (one year ago, one year from now) were chosen to allow for eventual comparisons between subjective trajectories and actual trajectories for SWB involving matching subjective temporal and actual timeframes (e.g., anticipated LS one year in the future vs. actual LS one year hence).

2. Constraining this loading to 1 to create a linear trajectory resulted in a significant decrement in model fit for the LS and NA models, and a marginally significant decrement in fit for the PA model; full details are available from the first author.

3. Imposing an additional constraint on the latent intercept factor mean across SWB components resulted in significant decrement in model fit, indicating that the mean levels of the latent intercept factors (reflecting levels of present SWB) differed significantly across LS, PA, and NA, consistent with results from the mean-level trends; see first author for details.

4. To estimate the number of participants characterized by inclining, stable, and declining subjective SWB trajectories, we computed raw subjective trajectory scores for LS, PA, and NA for each individual by subtracting the rating of past SWB from the corresponding rating of future SWB (e.g., past LS from future LS). For LS, 18% of respondents had declining trajectories, 27% had stable trajectories, and 55% had inclining trajectories. For PA, 22% of respondents had declining trajectories, 20% had stable trajectories and 58% had inclining trajectories. For reverse-scored NA, 29% of respondents had declining trajectories, 12% had stable trajectories, and 59% had inclining trajectories.