1. Connections And Conversations
April 5th 2014
Eranda Jayawickreme, Assistant
Professor, Psychology
What Puts The “Well” In
Well-Being?

2. Why Are People Satisfied with Their
Lives?
Two accounts
◦ Bottom-up approaches
◦ “Getting what you want”
◦ Situations, Events, Context
◦ Top-down approaches
◦ “Wanting what you have”
◦ Personality, Genetics, Stability

3. Bottom-Up or Top-Down?
Initial popularity of Bottom-Up models
Shift towards Top-Down model
◦ Set-Point theory
But is it all top-down?
◦ Does my marriage matter?
◦ What can I do to change?

4. MIDUS I (1995) & II (2005)
Jayawickreme, Karlen, Johnson, McSwiggan & Fleeson, in preparation
DATA WITHHELD UNTIL PUBLICATION

5. A Combination
◦ Bottom-up processes matter
◦ Affording change
◦ “What is to be done?”
◦ But thank goodness for top-down processes
◦ Responding to ethnopolitical warfare
◦ Coping and meaning-making
◦ Beliefs about growth

6. What Puts the “Well” in Well-Being?

7. What I Do
The Good Life
◦ Happiness
(Jayawickreme & Seligman, 2012; Jayawickreme, Pawelski & Seligman, 2008; Forgeard,
Jayawickreme, Kern & Seligman, 2011)
◦ Meaning
(Jayawickreme & Blackie, 2014; Blackie, Jayawickreme, Forgeard & Jayawickreme, 2014;
Roepke, Jayawickreme, & Riffle 2013)
◦ Morality
(Jayawickreme, Meindl, Helzer, Furr & Fleeson, 2014; Jayawickreme & Chemero, 2008;
Jayawickreme & DiStefano, 2012)

8. What Puts the “Well”
in Well-Being at Wake
Forest?

9. Acknowledgements
Sara Dahill-Brown, Assistant Professor, Politics & Int’l Affairs
Wiiliam Fleeson, Ollen R. Nalley Professor, Psychology
Christian Miller, Asssociate Professor, Philosophy
Penny Rue, PhD, Vice-President for Student Life
Andy Chan, Vice-President, Personal and Career Development
Phil Handwerk, Director, Office of Institutional Research
Others

10. Our proposed model
Student Well-Being
Emotional Well-
Being
Subjective Well-
Being
Meaning/Purpose
Relational Well-
Being
Belongingness
Commitment to
Others
Intellectual Well-
Being
Grit/Perseverance
Physical Well-Being
Physical Vitality