A close analysis of eight flourishing measures

ABSTRACT

Scholarly interest in flourishing has recently burgeoned, leading many scholars to develop measures of flourishing. We closely analyzed the content of eight systematically chosen, prominent inventories of flourishing, thriving, or rich well-being. Some instruments contain subscales, and some consist of lists of items. Therefore, we utilized a set of categories to compare the larger components of the eight inventories based primarily on the domains of the Psychological Well-Being Scales, one of the first modern measures of flourishing. Then we compare items across inventories in the most common components. Despite apparent structural similarity, we argue that flourishing instruments demonstrate significant variation at both the component and the item-levels. This indicates a lack of consensus among flourishing scholars as to what flourishing is, and this absence of consensus may lead to an unnecessarily fragmented research domain. We conclude by advocating for consensus building and addressing what a consensus on flourishing might require.

KEYWORDS:

• Flourishing
• thriving
• meaning
• relationships
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2024.2322468.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation .