Examining building blocks of well-being beyond PERMA and self-report bias

ABSTRACT

Recent debates in the Journal of Positive Psychology about the nature and usefulness of PERMA have created confusion about its contribution toward the understanding and prediction of well-being. This empirical study was designed to clarify several issues that have emerged in these recent articles. Using a multi-trait multi-method (MTMM) research design with 220 knowledable co-worker pairs (N = 440), it was found that the 5 PERMA building blocks of well-being (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) and 4 additional potential building blocks of well-being (physical health, mindset, environment, and economic security) significantly predicted SWB above and beyond self-report and mono-method bias. This is one of the first empirical studies to test the PERMA building blocks of well-being beyond the sole use of self-reports, and illustrates that the building blocks can be strong predictors of well-being in some populations.

KEYWORDS:

• PERMA
• well-being
• self-report bias
• mono-method bias
• positive organizational psychology

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to sincerely thank colleague Mashi Rahmani, Ph.D. for his continuous support of our flourishing and social justice research program.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.