World Health Organization (WHO) defines health not only as “the absence of disease and infirmity; but as a complete well-being on physical, mental and social aspects”. Mental health studies have approached mental health as the absence of psychiatric diseases such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia. Nowadays, this approach became insufficient and mental health was attempted to be explaine...

This paper is part of an effort, undertaken by the staff of the Tellus Institute and their collaborators, to address the issue of a Great Transition (GT). A GT is one of many possible futures for humanity. Whether a GT occurs is, to a great extent, a matter of choice. “Push” (necessity, avoidance of risk/harm) and “pull” (pursuit of attractive options) will guide our collective decision. Well-b...

This study aimed to investigate the different dimensions of well-being (namely, work engagement, job satisfaction, and psychological stress) and possible predictors such as personality and perceived organizational support. A cross-sectional survey design was used, with a sample of 490 ambulance personnel in the United Kingdom. Significant correlations were found between the dimensions of job sa...

THE QUESTION TO BE ASKED in this paper is the following: is there an objective element of well-being, completely independent of anyone’s desires, interests and preferences? Some authors claim that belief in the existence of such an element figures prominently in our moral practices. For instance, Scanlon (1975, p. 658) writes the following: “it seems clear that the criteria of well-being that w...

We know much about caregiving women compared with caregiving men and caregiving spouses compared with caregiving adult children. We know less about the intersections of relationship and gender. This article explores this intersection through the well-being (burden and self-esteem) of caregivers to family members with dementia. Throughout British Columbia, Canada, 873 caregivers were interviewed...

Happiness research has dealt with a great number of determinants of well-being but has neglected the effect of war. Wars drastically reduce people’s happiness. The large psychic costs of soldiers, the suffering of civilians, and the material destruction are well documented. An important issue for happiness research is how to calculate the forgone well-being of the people killed in war. Wars may...

Abundant evidence highlights the important role of personality traits, age, and social relationships in the experience of subjective well-being. Experiential factors influence well-being, and evidence shows that specific forms of training, such as physical exercise and mindfulness meditation, can produce strong and enduring beneficial effects on well-being. These factors also shape the structur...

Pervasive Well-being Technology

This paper is mainly methodological. It is concerned with the different ways me may analyse personal life course data. Personal life courses are defined by a succession of events regarding living arrangement, familial life, education, professional career, health, etc. We may focus on one of these events — leaving home, marriage, first job, divorce, becoming disabled — and examine how the hazard...