Authors
William Tov, Huey Woon Lee
Publication date
2016/10
Journal
Journal of personality and social psychology
Volume
111
Issue
4
Pages
585
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Description
Contrasts between eudaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being often compare meaning and happiness. Less work has examined the extent to which meaning and satisfaction can be distinguished. Across 5 diary studies (N= 923) and a large cross-sectional survey (N= 1,471), we examined the affective profile of meaning and satisfaction in everyday life. Using response surface methodology, both judgments were modeled as a joint function of positive (PA) and negative (NA) affect. Affective discrepancy (preponderance of PA over NA) was more strongly associated with satisfaction than meaning. In general, meaning correlated less with affect than satisfaction, but the 2 judgments differ more in their correlation with NA than PA. This implies that people are sometimes able to derive meaning (but not necessarily satisfaction) from negative experiences. We content-coded the events reported by participants for goal …
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