LECTURE 2 Happiness

Understanding Well-being: Hedonic and Eudaimonic Perspectives

• Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) are emotional components, where PA refers to pleasant emotions and NA to unpleasant emotions, measured by the PANAS scale.
• Ways to enhance subjective well-being include physical activity, positive emotions brainstorming, and happiness assignments.
• Eudaimonic theories focus on the worthiness of desires and the full development of potentials, with Aristotle highlighting the pursuit of excellence and virtue.
• Self-realization and eudaimonia are centered around meaningful living, self-truth, and self-responsibility, aiming to realize one's true potential.
• Waterman's Personal Expressiveness and Ryff and Singer's Psychological Well-being are key conceptualizations of well-being, emphasizing personal growth, purpose in life, and autonomy.
• Ryan and Deci's Self-determination theory (SDT) highlights three basic psychological needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy.
• Hedonic views focus on individual criteria for happiness, while eudaimonic views emphasize universally important experiences contributing to well-being for all humans.
• Measures of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being show substantial correlations, with positive emotions being markers of meaningful events.
• Eudaimonic approaches to well-being are potentially more important for positive psychological functioning than hedonic approaches.
• Hedonic happiness is rooted in hedonism and subjective well-being, while eudaimonic happiness is rooted in self-realization and higher meanings, measured through personal expressiveness, psychological well-being, and self-determination theory.
• Hedonic and eudaimonic happiness overlap, as eudaimonia is a sufficient but not necessary condition for hedonic happiness.
• The philosophical roots, definitions, and measures of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being highlight their distinctions and overlaps.

Understanding Well-being: Hedonic and Eudaimonic Perspectives

• Positive Affect (PA) and Negative Affect (NA) are emotional components, where PA refers to pleasant emotions and NA to unpleasant emotions, measured by the PANAS scale.
• Ways to enhance subjective well-being include physical activity, positive emotions brainstorming, and happiness assignments.
• Eudaimonic theories focus on the worthiness of desires and the full development of potentials, with Aristotle highlighting the pursuit of excellence and virtue.
• Self-realization and eudaimonia are centered around meaningful living, self-truth, and self-responsibility, aiming to realize one's true potential.
• Waterman's Personal Expressiveness and Ryff and Singer's Psychological Well-being are key conceptualizations of well-being, emphasizing personal growth, purpose in life, and autonomy.
• Ryan and Deci's Self-determination theory (SDT) highlights three basic psychological needs: competence, relatedness, and autonomy.
• Hedonic views focus on individual criteria for happiness, while eudaimonic views emphasize universally important experiences contributing to well-being for all humans.
• Measures of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being show substantial correlations, with positive emotions being markers of meaningful events.
• Eudaimonic approaches to well-being are potentially more important for positive psychological functioning than hedonic approaches.
• Hedonic happiness is rooted in hedonism and subjective well-being, while eudaimonic happiness is rooted in self-realization and higher meanings, measured through personal expressiveness, psychological well-being, and self-determination theory.
• Hedonic and eudaimonic happiness overlap, as eudaimonia is a sufficient but not necessary condition for hedonic happiness.
• The philosophical roots, definitions, and measures of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being highlight their distinctions and overlaps.