Determinants of Well-Being: An experimental Study Among Adolescents

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being in adolescents with respect to interpretation and memory for stimuli outside and inside autobiographical memory and affective personalities. A total of 70 male and 65 female high-school students with an age mean of 17.00 years (S.D. = .88) participated in the experiment. Well-being was measured as Subjective Well-Being (SWB) and Psychological Well-Being (PWB). Interpretation and memory was measured with recognition of words in a short story and recall of life events. Affective personalities were developed through PANAS. The results show self-acceptance and environmental mastery as the eudaimonic predictors of SWB. Adolescents with high levels of well-being remembered more positive life events and used mixed strategies to discriminate memory for words. Adolescents with high levels of well-being showed a positive priming effect and those with low levels a negative priming effect. Finally, Self-actualizing and self-destructive individuals emerged as the happy and unhappy personalities for both perspectives.