What’s in a face? Perhaps some elements of both eudaimonic and hedonic well-being

Abstract

The idea that eudaimonic well-being (EWB) should be distinguished from the more widespread notion of hedonic well-being (HWB), has stirred up disagreement among happiness researchers. Siding with EWB researchers, this study provides theoretical and empirical arguments supporting the distinctiveness and usefulness of a EWB dimension. A path model with data from Norwegian university students (N = 184) showed that, when requested to draw both a happy face and a sad face, indicators of HWB were associated with a preference for working with the happy rather than the sad face. Indicators of EWB were uncorrelated with this hedonic bias. Eudaimonic feeling states were associated with the level of creativity involved in the drawings, while hedonic feelings were not. Finally, participants who draw bigger faces also felt more pleasure during the act of drawing. Eudaimonic feelings were unrelated to the size of the drawing.

Keywords:

• hedonia
• eudaimonia
• functional well-being
• happiness
• satisfaction
• creativity
• bigger is better

Acknowledgement

We thank Daiva Pettersen for assistance in collecting data for this study.

Notes

1. In the English language, the term satisfaction may denote both a feeling state and an evaluative judgment (e.g. Desmet & Schifferstein, 2008; Ekman, 1994).