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Handbook of Well-Being

Book · January 2018

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University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign University of Virginia
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Introduction by the Editors
By Ed Diener, University of Virginia and University of Utah, The Gallup Organization; Shigehiro Oishi,
University of Virginia; Louis Tay, Purdue University

Citation:
Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Tay, L. (2018). Introduction by the editors. In E. Diener, S. Oishi, & L. Tay
(Eds.), Handbook of well-being. Salt Lake City, UT: DEF Publishers. DOI:nobascholar.com

Abstract:
Keywords: Subjective well-being; happiness; life satisfaction; well-being

It is a pleasure to bring to you the eHandbook of Subjective Well-Being, the science of when and
why people experience and evaluate their lives in positive ways, including aspects such as positive feelings,
life satisfaction, and optimism. There are chapters in this eHandbook on the philosophy and history of
well-being, as well as reviews of empirical research on the ways to assess well-being, the circumstances
that predict it, the outcomes that it produces, the societal policies that enhance it, and many other social,
biological, and cultural processes that help us understand why some people are happy and satisfied with
their lives, while others are not. There are also chapters on theories of well-being, such as the baseline or
set-point models.
We believe that Open publication is the wave of the future (Jhangiani & Biswas-Diener, 2017).
Therefore, we are presenting the handbook in an electronic format so that it is widely available to everyone
around the world. The handbook is entirely open and free – anyone can read and use it without cost. This is
important to us as we desire to lower knowledge barriers for individuals and communities, especially
because it provides access to students, educators, and scholars who do not have substantial financial
resources. We are not certain if this is the first free and open handbook in the behavioral sciences, but
hopefully it will not be the last. In the past the prohibitive price of many handbooks have made them
available only to scholars or institutions in wealthy nations, and this is unfortunate. We believe scientific
scholarship should be available to all.
The field of subjective well-being has grown at rapid pace over the last several decades, and many
discoveries have been made. When Ed Diener began his research within the field in 1981 there were about
130 studies published that year on the topic, as shown using a Google Scholar search on “subjective well-
being.” Eighteen years later when Shigehiro Oishi earned his Ph.D. in 2000 there were 1,640 publications
that year on the topic, and when Louis Tay was awarded a Ph.D. in 2011 there were 10,400 publications
about subjective well-being. Finally, in 2016 there were 18,300 publications – in that single year alone! In
other words, during the time that Diener has been studying the topic, scholarship on subjective well-being
has grown over 100-fold!
It is not merely the number of published studies that has grown, but there have been enormous leaps
forward in our understanding. In the 1980s, there were questions about the reliability and validity of
subjective well-being assessments, and the components that underlie it. One notable advance is our
understanding and measurement of well-being. We now know a great deal about the validity of self-report
measures, as well as the core evaluative and affective components that make up subjective well-being.
Further, scholars have a much greater understanding of the processes by which people report their
subjective well-being, and various biases or artifacts that may influence these reports. In 1982 many studies
were focused on demographic factors such as income, sex, and age that were correlated with subjective
well-being. By 2016 we understood much more about temperament and other internal factors that influence
happiness, as well as some of the outcomes in behavior that subjective well-being helps produce (e.g.,
income, performance, physical health, longevity).

1
 In the 1980s, researchers assumed that people adapt to almost any life event, and that different life
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events only have a short-term effect on subjective well-being. A number of large-scale longitudinal studies
later showed that that is not the case. By now we know what kinds of life events affect our subjective well-
being, how much, and for roughly how long. In the 1980s researchers believed that economic growth
would not increase the happiness of a given nation. Now we know when economic growth tends to increase
the happiness of a given nation. Additionally, we know much more about the biology of subjective well-
being, and an enormous amount more about culture and well-being, a field that was almost nonexistent in
1982.
With the advent of positive psychology, we are also beginning to examine practices and
interventions that can raise subjective well-being. Given the broad interest in subjective well-being in
multiple fields like psychology, economics, political science, and sociology, there have been important
developments made toward understanding how societies differ in well-being. This understanding led to the
development of national accounts of well-being – societies using well-being measures to help inform policy
deliberations. This advance changes the focus of governments away from a narrow emphasis on economic
development to a broader view which sees government policies as designed to raise human well-being.
We were fortunate to have so many leading scholars of subjective well-being and related topics
contribute to this volume. We might be slightly biased but most of the chapters in this eHandbook are truly
superb. Not only do they provide a broad coverage of a large number of areas, but many of the chapters
present new ways of thinking about these areas. Below is a brief overview of each of the sections in this
volume:
In Section 1 we begin the volume with chapters on philosophical, historical, and religious thinking on well-
being through the ages. Next, we cover the methods and measures used in the scientific study of well-
being.
Section 2 is devoted to theories of well-being such as the top-down theory, activity theory, goal theory,
self-determination theory, and evolutionary theory.
Section 3 covers the personality, genetics, hormones, and neuroscience of well-being. Then, demographic
factors such as age, gender, race, religion, and marital status are discussed.
Section 4 is devoted to how domains of life – such as work, finance, close relationships, and leisure – are
related to overall subjective well-being.
Section 5 covers the various outcomes of subjective well-being, ranging from work outcomes, to cognitive
outcomes, to health, and finally relationship outcomes.
Section 6 covers interventions to increase subjective well-being.
Finally, Section 7 is devoted to cultural, geographical, and historical variations in subjective well-being.
This eHandbook presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of subjective well-being –
and it is freely available to all!
The editors would like to extend their thanks to several individuals who have been critical to the
success of the handbook. First, our gratitude is immense toward Chris Wiese, Keya Biswas-Diener, and
Danielle Geerling, who organized and kept the entire venture on track. Their hard work and organizational
skills were wonderful, and the book would not have been possible without them. Second, we extend our
thanks to the Diener Education Fund, a charitable organization devoted to education that in part made this
project possible. In particular we express deep gratitude to Mary Alice and Frank Diener. Not only did
their help make this eHandbook possible, but their lives stood as shining examples of the way to pursue
well-being!

References

Jhangiani, R. S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (Eds.) (2017). Open: The philosophy and practices that are
revolutionizing psychological science and education. London: Ubiquity Press.

2018 Ed Diener. Copyright Creative Commons: Attribution, noncommercial, no derivatives