Bottom-up Spillover

Bottom-up spillover is the spillover of affect from subordinate life domains to superordinate ones, specifically from life domains such as leisure, family, job, and health to overall life. That is, feelings within a given life domain within the overall hierarchy of life experiences spill vertically from bottom to top.

The bottom-up spillover strategy is graphically shown in Figures 1 and 2. The first half of the figure (Figure 1) shows a person (let’s call him Trevor) who is moderately satisfied with life (overall life satisfaction is represented by a gradient-red represents dissastifcation, yellow represents neither satisfaction nor dissatisfaction, and green represents satisfaction). The second half of the figure (Figure 2) shows that this moderate level of overall satisfaction has changed. Now, Trevor is experiencing a high level of life satisfaction (the overall life satisfaction box is now green). Why? The increase in overall life satisfaction is due to the bottom-up spillover. This spillover is coming from two life domains: family and work. That is, positive affect travels from the life domains of family and work and spills over to the most superordinate domain of overall life. Doing so enhances Trevor’s subjective well-being (moving from moderate to high satisfaction with overall life). Note that Trevor is not happy with his leisure life, but he did not let his negative feelings in that area spill over into his overall life. Doing so implies that Trevor has control over bottom-up spillover. He can control the gates. He can allow positive affect to influence one’s feelings about overall life, and, by the same token, prevent negative affect from spilling over.

A similar principle applies at lower levels of the domain hierarchy. Note that there are two major family events: family event 1 (his daughter graduating from college) and family event 2 (his son’s wife is expecting a baby). These are represented as boxes underneath the family life box. Both sets of family events have generated positive feelings (represented by the green shade in the two boxes). More technically, the representation of these positive feelings takes the form of cognitions (beliefs about their positive feelings related to family events). Trevor’s positive feelings may have been generated consciously through a cognitive evaluation of these events or subconsciously through positive emotions such as joy, affection, and pride. Ultimately, the sources of positive and negative affect derive from the satisfaction of human developmental needs (biological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization). The positive affect associated with these family sub-domains can spill over into the family life domain. Thus, Trevor is happy in his family life mostly because of his awareness of the feelings associated with these two sets of family events.

Now, let us look at the work domain. In the top portion of the figure (Figure 1), we see that Trevor starts out being moderately satisfied in his work domain. In the bottom portion of the figure (Figure 2), we see that his satisfaction in his work life has increased. How? He increased his satisfaction in his work life by allowing the positive affect associated with work event 2 (specifically, getting a significant raise) to spill over, while preventing the negative affect associated with work event 1 (specifically, not getting the promotion he was vying for) from spilling over. Thus, he was able to contain negative feelings in one of the two work subdomains while allowing them to spill over into the other. Doing so is a bottom-up spillover strategy designed to enhance subjective well-being.

Let’s use another example related to personal finance. The spillover of affect from a life domain (e.g., financial life, capturing feelings of well-being related to personal income, standard of living, and material possessions) and overall life (or happiness) can be conceptualized using the satisfaction hierarchy model. The basic premise is that overall life satisfaction is functionally related to satisfaction with all domains and sub- domains. Life satisfaction (satisfaction in the most superordinate domain) is influenced by one's feelings in salient and subordinate life domains; thus, the greater the satisfaction with the major life domains (such as finances, health, work, family, and leisure), the greater the satisfaction with life in general. Now, satisfaction with a given life domain is determined by satisfaction with one’s concerns in that domain. For example, satisfaction with the financial life domain is likely to be determined by satisfaction with the monetary value of one's house, car, furniture, clothing, savings, jewellery, accessories, etc. A person's evaluation of these dimensions of the financial domain can be viewed as satisfaction/dissatisfaction with life conditions or concerns within the financial domain. The hierarchy model of life satisfaction thus argues that overall life satisfaction is determined by satisfaction with the major life domains. Satisfaction with a given life domain is determined by satisfaction with the life conditions/concerns within that domain.

Before	After

We can translate the preceding discussion into a psychological principle called Bottom-Up Spillover, and it can be captured as follows:

The Bottom-Up Spillover Principle: Subjective well-being can be increased by allowing positive life domains to spill over positive affect onto the most superordinate domain (overall life). Positive affect accumulates across life domains as a direct function of the satisfaction of human developmental needs.

This principle implies that one has control over how one feels about life at large. This means you can influence your subjective well-being by choosing which life domains to draw from and which to shut off. The basic premise is to draw from life domains that contain positive feelings rather than negative ones.

Going back to Trevor, he feels moderately satisfied with his life. He managed to increase his overall life satisfaction by allowing positive feelings from family life (his daughter graduating from college and his son’s wife expecting a baby), as well as the raise he received at work to spill over. By the same token, he was able to disallow the negative feelings about not getting the promotion he aspired to at work from influencing his overall life satisfaction.

Yes, bottom-up spillover can enhance your overall life satisfaction – your happiness.

Top-down Spillover

Top-down spillover is the influence of affect from overall life on affect embedded in various life domains. That is, affect flows from a superordinate domain to subordinate domains.

The process of top-down spillover is shown in Figures 1 and 2. Let us go through the process and use an example to further illustrate the process. Let’s focus on a person we’ll call Wanita. The before part of the figure shows the domain hierarchy before the top-down process, and the after part shows the outcome of top-down spillover. The before part (Figure 1) shows shows Wanita satisfied with her family life (represented by the green fill-in). The events and concerns within the family domain are positive too (represented by green fill-in). For example, events related to her relationship with her husband have been quite positive. Also, she has two children, ages 7 and 12. Both children are doing great in every way. They are doing well in school, are healthy and well-behaved, and, most importantly, Wanita feels close to her kids.

Regarding her work life, the figure shows a yellow fill-in, indicating that Wanita is somewhat dissatisfied. Note that there are two sets of work events subsumed under the work domain, one negative (red) and the other is positive (green). Perhaps Wanita is happy with the people at work. She has a good relationship with her boss and all her other colleagues. However, she feels dissatisfied with her pay and benefits. Her last raise was several years ago, and it was not much to speak of. The reason given was “the firm is in a mature market and is barely breaking even. The business is not making a profit.” She realizes she can significantly increase her income if she quits and joins another company in a growth market.

Regarding her leisure life, note that the color is more saturated than those for her work and family life. This represents how important that life domain is to the person in question. In this case, it indicates that Wanita considers her leisure life very important, more important than her family and work life. Note that the leisure life box is colored red representing negative affect. This means that Wanita feels quite dissatisfied with her leisure life. The leisure events within the leisure life domain are also shown with a red fill-in, indicating negative affect. Wanita has two passions: aerobic exercise and foreign travel. She injured her knee a year ago, and this injury put her out of commission. She can no longer enjoy her passion for aerobics. Money is tight, family expenses are high with two growing kids, and she has not received a decent raise for quite some time. Therefore, she no longer indulges herself (with her husband) in going overseas on their summer vacations. Her husband's income has not increased significantly either. Hence, her two passions in life have been in a “state of oblivion.” Furthermore, note that she is satisfied with life overall (indicated by the white fill-in-the-box for overall life). She is a happy person; she has a positive outlook on life and always sees the good in people and things. Perhaps this happiness was brought about by having had wonderful parents who gave her unconditional love and taught her how to appreciate life to the fullest.

Now, let us look at the after part of the figure, which describes and illustrates the process of top-down spillover (see Figure 2). Wanita allows her overall satisfaction with life to spill over, influencing her dissatisfaction in the leisure domain and, to a lesser extent, her work domain. She may do this by being optimistic, for example, by saying, “Things are likely to turn around at work, and eventually I will get a significant pay increase.” In the leisure domain, she may also rationalize by telling herself that the lack of travel is only a temporary setback. That's when things get better at work: the family will be able to afford to travel in Europe this summer. In the meantime, domestic travel must be restricted, and that's not a bad thing. Regarding aerobics, she may view this as a temporary setback and appreciate the time off to allow her knee to heal. The time off from aerobics allowed her to spend more time with the kids, bringing them even closer than before.

Note that this top-down spillover, shown in Figure 2, flows back up to influence life satisfaction. That is, although the top-down spillover effect does not address how it affects life satisfaction, one can readily extrapolate its strategic use to enhance subjective well-being. Specifically, the top-down spillover principle posits that positive affect is induced in the most superordinate domain (life overall) and then influences affect in the various subdomains, which in turn influences satisfaction within those domains.

Before	After

People are endowed (by their genetic/biological makeup and/or early childhood socialization) with a certain amount of happiness that they carry from one situation to another. This metric for happiness is "haps." Some people are endowed with, let us say, 20 haps, some 35 haps, and some, perhaps 5 haps. Those characterized as having more "haps" are called "happy people," and those with fewer "haps" are called "unhappy." People experience events, and these events generate positive and negative affect. Life events add a few haps to a person's repertoire of haps (the person's set point of happiness), thereby enhancing subjective well-being in that situation. These additional increases in subjective well-being are not permanent additions to the person's overall happiness repertoire (the person's set point of happiness). These increases in subjective well-being reflect only a temporary "boost." In the absence of other positive or negative experiences, the person returns to his set point. These positive events are emotional uplifts. Conversely, there are hassles. These are negative events that temporarily reduce a person's overall happiness repertoire.

The point here is that people have a set point for happiness, an overall bank of positive and negative affect that represents a person's level of subjective well-being. One can add to or take away from this bank, but these additions and subtractions are usually temporary and reflect how the person feels overall in a given instance or situation. Suppose a teenager, we will call Mark, has a happiness endowment of, let's say, +20 haps. He goes to school and sees his girlfriend flirting with a guy. He feels bad. These negative feelings amount to, let's say, -5 haps. Therefore, at the time he experienced the negative affect (seeing his girlfriend flirting), his subjective well-being amounted to +15 haps, i.e., +20 haps from his endowment and -5 haps from the negative affect generated from that situation. After a couple of days, assuming no incidents occur that make him feel particularly good or bad, he returns to his set point of +20. In other words, his subjective well-being was measured at +20 two days after the flirting incident. This set point of happiness, this natural endowment or repertoire of happiness, is quite similar to the top-down spillover effect.

Much research on subjective well-being suggests that happy people (compared to unhappy people) tend to perceive themselves more positively, and this positive self- regard biases their perceptions of outcomes in specific domains. This bias may partly explain the experience of satisfaction across various life domains. This influence of overall happiness on affect experienced in specific life domains is what we call here top- down spillover. For example, a longitudinal study has shown that the pattern of influence between job and life satisfaction is mutual. That is, job satisfaction influences life satisfaction (bottom-up spillover), and that life satisfaction reciprocally influences job satisfaction (top-down spillover).

We can translate this discussion into a psychological principle. This principle can be captured as follows:

The Principle of Top-Down Spillover: Subjective well-being can be increased by allowing positive affect from overall life to flow into important life domains. This should increase positive affect (or decrease negative affect) in these life domains. Positive affect is generated directly by the satisfaction of human developmental needs.

The principle of top-down spillover underscores the importance of child-rearing and early socialization for subjective well-being. If parents do their best to raise a child who is positive and has a high level of subjective well-being, this child will have an enormous advantage. The high level of subjective well-being should empower the child in every way. High levels of subjective well-being will be used throughout life to further influence affect in the various life domains.

I like to think of the top-down spillover using the analogy of the “rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” This is an unfortunate reality for the poor, but it also shows that the rich have a head start on making money. It is easier to make money when you have money than if you are starting out from scratch. The same applies to subjective well-being. If you start out with high levels of subjective well-being, you are likely to get more of it. If you start out low, then the tide is against you. You have to swim against the tide, and possibly, if you get tired, you drown.

That is not to say that those who are “dispositionally unhappy” cannot do much to improve the quality of their lives. The additional modules on the website are replete with personal strategies. The obvious recommendation is to learn to use these strategies.

Factors Affecting Top-down Spillover

I believe the research literature has identified two factors that influence the top- down spillover process. These are personality and extreme levels of subjective well- being.

Personality

Much research suggests that extraversion is positively correlated with subjective well-being. For example, a study found that extraversion predicted happiness 17 years later. This is typical of the aggregate research findings on that topic. To further illustrate this research, consider a study that found extraversion to be positively related to life satisfaction and positive affect. Conversely, neuroticism is linked with negative affect, whereas extraversion is linked with positive affect. Neurotics and extraverts have a temperamental disposition to experience negative and positive affect, respectively.

Other personality traits have been linked with subjective well-being. These include self-esteem, optimism, expectancy of control, Pollyannaism, and a genetic predisposition to happiness.

The Personality Principle of Top-down Spillover: Top-down spillover of positive affect from overall life to various life domains is likely to occur more readily for people who are extraverts, optimistic, have high self-esteem, have high expectancies of control, have the Pollyanna syndrome, and/or have a genetic predisposition to happiness. Conversely, top-down spillover of negative affect from overall life to various life domains is likely to occur more readily for people who are introverted, pessimistic, have low self-esteem, have low expectancies of control, lack the Pollyanna syndrome, or have a genetic predisposition to be unhappy.

The personality principle tells us that if you are the kind of person who is either an extrovert, an optimist, has high self-esteem, has high expectancies of control, has the Pollyanna syndrome, and/or has a genetic predisposition to be happy, then you can take advantage of this by allowing positive affect to spillover in the various life domains. Doing so will enrich the life domains with positive affect. However, if you are an introvert, a pessimist, have low self-esteem, have low expectancies of control, do not have the Pollyanna syndrome, and/or do not have a genetic predisposition to be happy, then beware. Again, BEWARE! This is because you may tend to create havoc in your life by allowing top-down spillover of negative affect. This tendency will infect your life domains with negative affect, and you will feel bad about your life most of the time.

Preventing top-down spillover of negative affect is very difficult but possible. It can be achieved by applying many of the personal strategies discussed on the website's modules and/or through psychotherapy. The focus of psychotherapy is to teach the client to use cognitive, affective, and behavior strategies to block the flow of top-down negative affect. Since I am not a clinical psychologist, I am not in a position to give expert advice on psychotherapeutic techniques to use. I would assume different psychotherapeutic approaches could have their own “bag of tricks.”

The Happy and the Depressed

People who are high or low on subjective well-being are more likely to experience a top-down spillover than those who are less extreme. This is because these people experience much positive or negative affect, and such intense feelings are likely to be “contagious.”

There is much evidence supporting the assertion that depression may cause the individual to experience negative affect across a variety of life domains. That is, clinical depression leads to failure to feel pleasure when engaged in normally pleasant events. The converse holds for very happy people. Consider the study that examined the relation between the best life domain and life satisfaction, and between the worst domain and life satisfaction. Two types of measures were used -- global life satisfaction and domain satisfaction ratings. The study found that happy people were more likely to weigh positive domains when judging their life satisfaction, and conversely to weigh negative domains relatively less. In contrast, unhappy people were more likely to give greater weight to their worst domain.

The Happy and the Depressed Principle of Top-down Spillover: Top-down spillover of positive affect from overall life to various life domains is likely to occur more readily for people who are happy. Conversely, top-down spillover of negative affect from overall life to various life domains is likely to occur more readily for people who are clinically depressed.

What advice can we deduce from the happy-and-depressed principle? The same advice discussed under personality. That is, those who are already happy take advantage of this “overflow” of happiness. Use it as a shield in situations where truly negative events occur. This shield acts like a “cushion.” It softens the painful blows of life. For those who are clinically depressed, the advice is to get professional help. This is because depression works against attempts to enjoy life and experience happiness. Remember, top-down spillover of negative affect is dangerous. Realize the danger and get help.

Horizontal Spillover

Horizontal spillover refers to the effect of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of one domain on a neighbouring domain. For example, work satisfaction or dissatisfaction spills over into the family domain, thus affecting satisfaction or dissatisfaction with family life.

There is much evidence in the quality-of-life literature to suggest that affect in one life domain does indeed influence affect in another domain that is not superordinate or subordinate to it but is on the same plane in the overall hierarchy of life domains and concerns. For example, we may address spillover between the financial and family domains, the family and work domains, and so on. The family, work, and financial domains are considered subordinate to the most superordinate domain: life overall. Within the family, financial, and work domains, we may have sub-subdomains referred to as life events.

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate how horizontal spillover works. The before part of the figure (Figure 1) shows the domain hierarchy without spillover in any direction (top- down, horizontal, or bottom-up). The after figure (Figure 2) shows how horizontal spillover occurs. Note the spillover is from the family life domain to the work domain. No spillover is evident from the leisure domain to the work domain.

Normatively speaking, one can argue that spillover can be induced from positive life domains to less positive ones to increase overall life satisfaction or decrease life dissatisfaction. Spillover of negative affect is dysfunctional or maladaptive. Positive spillover is adaptive when we consider that the ultimate goal is to enhance the positive valence of important life domains. This is because increasing positive affect in important life domains enhances subjective well-being by allowing bottom-up spillover from those domains to overall life.

Before	After

Consider this story. John is a middle-aged stockbroker. His wife thinks he is going through a midlife crisis. He is unhappy with his career and complains that he has invested so much of his life in a career he has no passion for. The teaching profession fascinated him throughout his childhood. He admired his teachers and wanted to grow up to become a teacher.

Back in college, he befriended several fraternity housemates who were all business majors. All they talked about was business and the stock market. He also met his future wife in college. Her name was Samantha, and she was a marketing major. He always thought that she was the ultimate consumer. She had a taste for fine clothes, fine dining, and travelling to exotic places. Samantha was mesmerised by the prospect of mingling with the rich and famous. She wanted to marry a successful businessman who could provide her with an extravagant lifestyle. John fell in love with her and sought her love and respect. She had a passion for life, and he sipped and drank from her cup of life. Thus, his interest in business and finance piqued, and he decided to major in finance. He married her and became increasingly motivated to fulfil her dream of joining the economic elite and mingling with high society.

Right out of college, he worked as a loan officer at a bank for a few years, then moved to a large brokerage house in New York. Samantha became a housewife and a homemaker. They tried to have kids, but they had no luck in that department. She thought about adopting but decided against it. This is mostly because Samantha could not see herself raising a child that was not “hers.” Nevertheless, she was very content with her role as a homemaker. She wanted to live in style. John went along with her vision for life. He remembers the day he came home and told Samantha about the prospect of taking a high-salary position at a large brokerage house in New York. Samantha was absolutely delighted. She thought that moving to New York was a great move. She did not mind the move at all. Leaving friends and family behind was a small price to pay. He felt wonderful the first year when the family moved to New York. He worked hard to realize Samantha’s dream, and he felt quite happy knowing he had his wife’s love, respect, and approval.

But then things got rough. The pressure of making money was onerous. His colleagues at work were like sharks. He felt that they were constantly stabbing one another in the back. The culture at the office was “everyone is looking out for number one.” The goal was to sell as much as possible because of the high commissions they were making on new and large accounts. Life at work had become very stressful. His job demanded more time, and he spent less time with his family. Most importantly, his social life dwindled to a halt. He felt he had no friends and no social life to speak of. The few social get-togethers were job-related.

John is now middle-aged and is questioning whether he chose the right career. Did he embark on the wrong path in life? He wanted to become a teacher. That was his passion. Now he finds himself alienated from his job, family, colleagues, neighbors, and community. Life now seems meaningless. His marriage to Samantha has reached a boiling point. Arguments lately have been quite heated. He blames Samantha for “selling his soul to the devil.” He feels angry and embittered. He has been thinking of divorce.

Recently, he ran into an associate from work, Tom. Tom was a college administrator of an executive MBA program. They started a conversation that made John excited about the prospect of becoming an adjunct faculty member in that program, teaching a course or two in finance. After a couple of days, he called Tom to explore the possibility of teaching a night course in the executive MBA program. Lo and behold, Tom responded positively. It just happened that he was looking for someone with the experience and background John has in financial management. Thus, John became an adjunct faculty member teaching a night class in financial management. He now feels much better about life. He has a more positive outlook on things. The stress at work is much more tolerable. Even his relationship with his wife seems to be getting better. His childhood passion to become a teacher is slowly but surely being realized. Although he did not quit his job at the brokerage house, night teaching seems to have made a significant difference in John’s subjective well-being.

What has happened to John is an example of quality-of-life research known as horizontal spillover. We can think of his nighttime teaching as essentially a “hobby.” It is leisure in one sense. The positive emotions he experiences in his leisure time are spilling over into his work life, making his job less stressful. His satisfaction with teaching is also spilling over to his family life, making his relationship with his wife more bearable. At least now, he is not thinking of divorce, and he and his wife are not arguing.

Hopefully, by now, the reader has a good understanding of horizontal spillover and how it can enhance subjective well-being. We can formulate a principle that captures how people can use this strategy to enhance their own subjective well-being as follows:

The Horizontal-Spillover Principle: Subjective well-being can be enhanced by inducing positive affect in a particular life domain, thereby spilling over to neighbouring important domains. Doing so increases the positive valence of the neighbouring domains (or decreases negative valence). This, in turn, should enhance subjective well-being through a bottom-up spillover of positive affect from the neighbouring domain to overall life.

Based on the horizontal-spillover principle, the obvious recommendation is to do your best to increase positive affect in one area of life likely to affect other areas. Increasing satisfaction in that area will play an important role not only in directly enhancing overall life satisfaction (through bottom-up spillover) but also indirectly through spillover from other areas (horizontal spillover). The obvious way to do this is to engage in life events in that domain that are likely to generate positive affect. These positive feelings should, in turn, spill over to the life domain and further up the domain hierarchy to life overall.

Decreasing dissatisfaction should also work the same way. By reducing negative feelings within the domain that spill over into neighbouring domains, one can decrease overall life dissatisfaction, both directly and indirectly. This can be done in one of two ways. First, one can engage in life events that are expected to yield positive emotional outcomes. Experiencing positive life events within an overall negative domain should help reduce the domain's negativity, and diminishing the domain's overall negativity should affect life less adversely. Second, one can erect a psychological wall around the negative domain less permeable (or more impermeable). In other words, doing so helps compartmentalize the negative feelings in that domain, reducing spillage into neighbouring domains and life overall.

How can people compartmentalize the negative feelings in a domain to prevent spillage? Consider the following example. Susan is unhappy at work. She believes that her boss is discriminating against her because she is a woman, and her chance for a good promotion was lost to a male colleague. She believes that she deserves that promotion because she is more qualified than her male colleague. She comes home, and her bad feelings about work are adversely affecting her home life. She takes it out on her husband and children. This is horizontal spillover from work life to family life. The resultant outcome is that her subjective well-being plummets. How can she prevent this situation by containing her feelings at work — by building "walls" to compartmentalize negative affect? Many people do, but some do it better than others. Here are some things that Susan could do. She could convince herself that she will not talk about work with her husband or with her children. She should not bring work home either. She should allow nothing from work to come into the house, perhaps not even her briefcase. She should discourage her officemates from calling her at home to discuss any work-related matters. She should make a point of not socializing with people at work outside the office. At home and in other settings, she should engage fully and become more emotionally involved in other areas of her life — at least until the negative feelings in her work life decrease in intensity and frequency. This is not as difficult as some might think. Right?

Factors Affecting Horizontal Spillover

In this section, several mechanisms are described to help you better understand the conditions under which horizontal spillover is likely to occur. These conditions include overlap, high involvement, skills and abilities, and cultural norms and pressures.

Overlap

Horizontal spillover may occur when an individual is highly involved in two life domains (e.g., work and family). High involvement in the two domains (in which affect in one domain spillovers into the other) may occur when there is significant overlap between the two life domains in terms of time, place, people, and activities.

For example, suppose we have a family in which the husband and wife are professors at the same university, in the same department, and collaborate on joint research projects. In this case, their family life overlaps significantly with their work life. They share the same activities, colleagues, and workplace, among other things. This overlap between the two life domains is a major determinant of affect spillover (positive or negative) from one domain to the next.

Now, suppose the husband, a professor, was denied promotion at the university. He is likely to feel quite dissatisfied in his work life because of this significant negative event. Will this dissatisfaction spill over into his family life? Perhaps! This may be due to the association of his wife and family life with aspects of his work life.

The same principle applies to positive affect. If he gets his promotion, he is likely to feel quite happy with his work life, which, in turn, is likely to spill over into his family life.

The Overlap Principle of Horizontal Spillover: Horizontal spillover is likely to occur when an individual is highly involved in two life domains that overlap in time, place, people, and/or activities.

What can one learn from the overlap principle that can enhance subjective well- being? Pay close attention to areas of your life that overlap considerably. Make sure you are satisfied in these areas of your life. If you are satisfied with the overlap, use it to your advantage. Reinforce the overlap by engaging in life events across the overlapping domains to increase positive affect and reduce negative affect. This overlap serves to magnify the positive feelings and facilitate spillage to overall life.

Conversely, if dissatisfaction exceeds satisfaction across the two overlapping domains, one strategy is to reduce the overlap. Doing so helps reduce the attenuation caused by overlap. Not doing so may cost a great deal in overall life satisfaction.

Personality Traits

Horizontal spillover can occur more frequently when a person has a personality trait that promotes high involvement across both domains. An example of a personality trait that induces a high level of emotional involvement in one or more life domains is the Type A personality. Type A personality is described as the kind of person who is always on the go. This person juggles too many things at once. He thrives on a life full of stress. This personality type is related to a higher incidence of coronary heart disease. People with such a personality are more likely to experience spillover across many areas of their lives — work, leisure, family, health, social, etc.

Of course, Type A personality is about stress. There are other personality traits that may induce a high level of emotional involvement but reflect positive emotions. A good example is the autotelic personality. The autotelic personality is the kind of person who is usually totally absorbed in what he or she does. This kind of person experiences flow more than others. Autotelic people derive intrinsic satisfaction from the things they do. They are not motivated by extrinsic sources of satisfaction. For example, a worker is highly engaged in his work and excels at it. He is involved in the job not because it pays well, but because he finds it challenging. He finds pleasure in mastering the job- related tasks. He is highly involved in his work life. He approaches his leisure life with the same level of intensity. He likes to master every game he plays and every sport he engages in. He finds pleasure in learning the rules of the game and beating his challengers. Because of his high level of involvement in both leisure and work, this person is likely to experience horizontal spillover between the work and leisure domains. Feelings (positive or negative) from either work or leisure life are likely to spill over into the other.

The point is that horizontal spillover occurs between two life domains when a person, by virtue of their personality, becomes emotionally engaged in both. Because of their personality, this high level of involvement in the two domains precipitates spillover.

The Personality Principle of Horizontal Spillover: Horizontal spillover between two life domains is more likely when the individual has a personality trait that makes them emotionally involved in both domains.

Based on the personality principle of horizontal spillover, the advice is to assess your personality and the extent to which it makes you experience life events in certain areas with high intensity. For example, are you a Type A person? If so, do your best to feel satisfied in the life domains you consider most important. If you do not, because of your high level of emotional involvement in life, you are likely to feel overwhelmed by stress, which, in turn, will spill over into feelings of unhappiness. In contrast, if you are an autotelic person, then the high intensity is in your favour. Capture the intensity you experience in one area of life and let it spill over into others. You can do so by applying the same level of intensity to other areas of your life.

Skills and Abilities

Another condition that may increase the likelihood of horizontal spillover involves skills and abilities. For example, negotiations and bargaining skills learned at work are applied to the consumer domain. Thus, the person becomes a better bargain hunter in buying consumer goods as a direct result of learning those skills from work. Social skills learned in family life can transfer to the workplace, enhancing an individual’s management skills. And so on.

Note that the previous discussion of overlap focused on overlapping situations and roles. Here, we have a semblance of "overlap" as well, but the nature of the overlap concerns skills and abilities.

The Skills Principle of Horizontal Spillover: Horizontal spillover is likely to occur when an individual applies skills learned in one life domain to another.

The skills principle of horizontal spillover advises us to leverage skills from one domain and actively transfer them to other domains. Of course, this principle applies only if those skills are at least partly responsible for goal attainment and resulting satisfaction.

Cultural Pressure

Cultural pressure is a concept that signals the extent to which society socializes people to either segregate life domains or conjoin them. Many people segregate the various domains in their lives. Western culture encourages us to segregate work from other areas of our lives. That is, we tend to segment our feelings within one domain from those in another. To further illustrate, a cross-cultural study comparing Japanese and U.S. workers found that American workers are more likely to segment their work domain from other non-work domains. In contrast, Japanese workers do not separate their work-related experiences from other aspects of their lives.

In other words, horizontal spillover can be predicted when cultural pressure in one life domain induces a person to become highly involved in another. For example, corporate executives who are highly involved in their work life may become equally involved in social activities. Their job requires them to socialize with colleagues outside of work to foster collegiality. Many corporate executives pride themselves on negotiating their finest deals in social settings (e.g., on the golf course).

The Cultural Pressures Principle of Horizontal Spillover: Horizontal spillover between two life domains is likely to occur if an individual feels cultural pressure from one domain (a high-involvement domain) to engage in the other.

What advice does the cultural-pressure principle offer? If cultural pressure dictates high involvement in two life domains, the individual should realize that feelings from one domain are likely to spill over into the other. So, try your best to experience satisfaction in at least one of those neighbouring domains. Those positive feelings are likely to spill over to the neighbouring domain, and in turn, both domains will contribute positively to your subjective well-being.

Compensation

People are motivated to optimise their subjective well-being. To do so, they manipulate the salience of life domains. When they feel dissatisfied in one life domain, they downplay the importance of that domain and overstate the importance of other life domains in which they have experienced satisfaction. Doing so prevents the overall loss of satisfaction, thus reducing the possibility of sliding into depression. Therefore, experiencing satisfaction in one life domain “compensates” for the lack of satisfaction in another.

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the compensation process graphically. The before part of the figure shows a person (let’s call him Scott) very dissatisfied with his leisure life (denoted by the red shading in the leisure life box), somewhat dissatisfied with his work life (denoted by the yellow colour in the work life box), and satisfied with his family life (denoted by green in the family life box). Also, note that the color saturation of the leisure box is larger than the size of either work or family. This indicates the importance of that domain relative to others. In this case, the leisure domain is more important than either the work or family domain.

The after portion of the figure shows the compensation process and outcome. In the case shown in the figure, Scott compensated by changing their valuation of the leisure domain to the least important and the family domain to the most important. He shifted salience from a domain with much negative affect to one with much positive affect. Doing so minimises the negative affect spillover from the leisure domain on overall life, thus decreasing life dissatisfaction. Similarly, the increasing salience of the family domain increases positive affect in overall life through bottom-up spillover. This person feels much better about his life because he obtains fulfilment from his family, a need not considered strong in the past, now considered very strong because of the shift in life priorities.

Before	After

The Compensation Principle: Increasing the salience of a domain having more positive than negative affect can enhance subjective well-being. Conversely, decreasing the salience of a domain having more negative than positive affect can enhance subjective well-being.

In sum, changing priorities in life is the essence of the compensation intervention. The idea here is to rearrange your priorities by assigning lower importance to areas you are not doing well in and higher importance to positive domains. For example, a person who decides to work on friendships even though the main reason why he was feeling unhappy was that he did not have a love life. Instead of focusing on his love life, he decided to channel his energy into friendship because he knew he could make friends easily. Making friends is a guaranteed success and is likely to enhance his quality of life. Finding a romantic partner is risky and is likely to cause more displeasure than pleasure. Therefore, good friendships can compensate for a poor love life.

Based on the compensation principle, the advice is to compensate when you are failing in one area of your life. Do so by finding another area of your life in which you think you may find peace and joy. Once you make that decision, treat the part of your life that failed as less important. Conversely, treat the area you chose to invest more time and energy in as more important.

When Should You Engage in Compensation

Certain conditions make the compensation effect more likely. Examples include repeated failures, low versus high status, personal crises, public conditions, fixed sum of resources, and needs.

Repeated Failure

Compensation is most appropriate when a person repeatedly fails across domains. To cope with this failure, he de-emphasises the goals in the failure domain and refocuses on other goals in other domains. In other words, when a person dreads failure in a specific domain, he may convince himself that the goal is less important (or less desirable) than he originally thought. When people engage in actions that produce negative consequences, they try to justify them by arguing that the consequences are not as severe as some may claim. Conversely, when people engage in actions that produce positive consequences, they seek to enhance those actions by magnifying the positive consequences. Doing so protects and enhances the person's self-esteem.

The Repeated Failure Principle of Compensation: Compensation between two life domains is more likely to occur when failure is repeatedly experienced in one domain. Repeated failure leads the individual to downplay the importance of the failure domain and to compensate by increasing the salience of a success domain. Doing so enhances subjective well-being.

Based on the repeated failure principle, the advice you can take away is to compensate in life domains in which you suffer repeated setbacks. Do not let these setbacks get you down. Instead, shift your focus to another domain in which you have a history of success. Play up the importance of the success domain and play down the significance of the failure domain. For example, if you are not doing well at work (you have not received decent raises or promotions over the past few years and feel like you are stagnating), you may not be able to rely on your work to play a significant role in finding joy and happiness in life. Face up to that fact and shift your mental energy. Convince yourself that life is not about work. You work to simply earn a living, and this is the best you can expect out of work. Concentrate on another life domain that has given you joy and satisfaction in the past. Perhaps you have volunteered at church as a guidance counsellor for teenagers. You have felt great because many of the teens you have counselled have come back and thanked you for your guidance in their hour of need. Perhaps this is where you need to channel your energies. Perhaps the church is very important in your life, and your involvement in church activities should be at least maintained, if not increased. Compensating, thus, can enhance your quality of life.

Low versus High Status

Consider research in sociology on self-esteem among Black people. The research indicates that Black people have slightly higher self-esteem than White people. Several sociologists suggested an explanation: value selectivity. Specifically, a minority individual devalues the domain in which he has low status and places greater value on the domain that allows him to have high status. Thus, doing so allows Black people to have more positive self-evaluations than whites.

For example, a black woman may perceive leaders in her community who advocate togetherness, solidarity, and justice as people who demand respect and hold social status. She decides to strive to become a community leader. Doing so allows her to evaluate herself more positively than before. This personal striving results in greater self-esteem and an enhanced sense of subjective well-being.

The Low-versus-High-Status Principle of Compensation: Compensation between two life domains is likely to occur when the person recognizes that he has high status in one domain but low status in another. Recognition of low status in one domain leads the individual to downplay that domain and compensate by increasing the salience of the high-status domain.

The status principle prompts us to take stock of our lives. Which domains do we feel good about because we are treated with status and respect by others, and which domains do we not? We should downplay the importance of areas of our lives where we feel we are not treated with respect. We should do the converse in those areas in which people treat us with respect and think highly of us.

Consider Tim’s story as an example. Tim is an investment broker. He is a telemarketer—he gets on the phone, contacts prospective investors, and tries to sell them stock. Many of the people he contacts treat him like dirt. Hardly anyone thinks highly of telemarketers trying to sell stocks on the phone. He knows he does not get much respect from his customers or prospective customers, and even from his own colleagues at the brokerage firm. Nevertheless, Tim manages to make quite a bit of money. Tim is married and has two young children. His wife is a homemaker. She thinks highly of Tim. He is a good family man and “he brings home the bacon,” plenty of “bacon.” His two children think Dad is great, Superman, and their ultimate hero. To enhance the quality of his life, Tim realizes that his brokerage job is just a job. It is not a career. His passion is his family. What is most important is family. He channels whatever time he has away from work into family life. Doing so enhances his quality of life.

Personal Crisis

Personality-clinical psychologists have addressed issues related to adaptive change in response to personal crises. They have argued that people may cope with personal crises by decreasing the importance or desirability of the goals and expectations that were dominant before the crises. This is a cognitive intervention that may reduce the negative affect associated with the crisis.

The Personal Crisis Principle of Compensation: Compensation between two life domains is likely to occur when the person experiences a crisis in one domain. To deal with the crisis, the person downplays the importance of that domain and compensates by increasing the salience of another.

The personal crisis principle advises us to compensate when we face a personal crisis. Suppose a family has a devastating car accident in which the children perish, and no one survives except the mother. She grieves for her family, but eventually she remarries and has two kids. But this time, she does not become a homemaker. She channels her life passion into her work, not her family. She did this as an intervention to ensure that her future subjective well-being could be maintained. She cannot afford to invest much of her life and passion in her family again. It is too risky. All of it can “go down the tubes in a flash.” She is not making that mistake again. This change helps her handle her personal crisis as best she can, and it works for her. She can cling to life and derive more satisfaction from work than from her family.

Public Versus Private Conditions

There is a theory in personality psychology called compensatory self-inflation that suggests people may compensate for failure in one domain by reducing the relative salience of that domain and increasing the salience of success domains. This tendency is more evident in public than in private conditions. That is, people try to look good to others. When they fail at an important event, they explain it to those who witnessed it by downplaying its importance. On the other hand, if they succeed, they carry on by highlighting the importance of that event to others. This compensatory self-inflation is less evident when these life events are experienced privately—when they are not witnessed by others.

The Public Condition Principle of Compensation: Compensation between two life domains is more likely to occur when a person experiences failure in one domain publicly (when significant others know about the failure). To cope with public humiliation, a person downplays the importance of that domain and compensates by increasing the salience of another.

The public condition principleprompts us to use compensation as an effective means of dealing with public humiliation when we experience failure and everyone (including our significant others) knows about it. An eight-year-old child invests much of her energy in playing the piano and doing gymnastics as extracurricular activities. She has a recital, which was well attended by her parents, classmates, friends, and other family members, including her two brothers, several cousins, two aunts and uncles, and her grandmother. She blew it at the recital. Although her parents, aunts, uncles, and grandmother were polite about saying she did well, her two brothers told her flat-out that she did horribly. Her cousins did not say much. Deep down, she knows she blew it, and she must face up to it. What is she to do? She decides to stop playing the piano. She derogates piano playing and the people who play piano. She calls them stupid. Gymnastics now is for the heroines and heroes. She loves gymnastics. This was her way of dealing with the loss of self-esteem after the public humiliation following that recital. She compensated by denigrating piano playing and emphasising gymnastics. Doing so allowed her to maintain her self-esteem and restore subjective well-being.

Fixed Sum of Resources

Another condition that may lead people to compensate across life domains is resource availability. People have limited resources, such as time and energy. If they fail in one area (e.g., work), they may decide to focus their energy elsewhere (e.g., family). These resources, once spent, can further accentuate the compensation effect. That is, the compensation effect becomes more evident when compensation entails the expenditure of personal resources. Since personal resources (e.g., time, energy, and money) are usually limited, people allocate them to domains where they are likely to derive satisfaction.

For example, consider two college students who declared their major in cinematography, one rich and one poor. The rich student has more financial resources than the poor person. This is the first semester in the junior year. They took a class in filmmaking. All students were required to finance their filmmaking efforts in that class. The rich student asked her parents for funding, and it was provided to her with no ifs and buts. The poor student had to work extra hours to raise the money for the filmmaking project. Both students received a failing grade in the class. The poor student decides to change her major. In contrast, the rich student decided to stick it out. What happened, psychologically speaking? We can explain this situation using the fixed-sum-of-resources principle of compensation. The poor student drops out because her resources are quite limited. Indeed, she has exhausted her limited resources in this class and has failed it. She cannot afford to continue with a major that would require her to expend additional resources she does not have. Consequently, she becomes highly motivated to resolve this situation without causing undue emotional harm. She compensates by playing down the value of careers in cinematography. The rich student is less motivated to compensate because she has more resources. She can afford to try other cinematography classes. Therefore, she hangs on to her major in cinematography -- at least temporarily.

The Fixed-Sum-of-Resources Principle of Compensation: Compensation between two life domains is likely to occur when satisfaction derived from these domains requires significant resources that cannot be provided.

Based on the principle of the fixed sum of resources, one recommendation to enhance subjective well-being is to realise that spending more resources (time, energy, and/or money) in one domain usually comes at the expense of another. Do not try to extend yourself in one area of your life without knowing full well that something must give in another area. This is particularly important when both areas of your life require significant resources.

Needs

Compensation is easier if the new, more salient domain meets the same needs as the less salient domain. For example, suppose that a person, call her Linda, has trouble with her marriage. For the last several years, her relationship with her husband has been at an all-time low. Her husband, Tom, used to be her close friend and confidant. She misses the friendship, the companionship, and the laughter. She believes that her marriage cannot be salvaged. This is because Linda strongly suspects that he has a mistress. Sooner or later, he will come to her asking for a divorce. Linda decided to get more involved with her church. She became involved in the church choir and consolidated her friendship with two choir members, Janice and Maggie. Now she socialises regularly with Janice and Maggie outside of church. She feels she has made good friends. She now enjoys her time with them, and her sense of humour has returned because of Janice and Maggie. She is still married to Tom, but they hardly interact anymore. They have finally discussed divorce, and he is planning to move out of the house soon. She does not feel bad about the divorce because that part of her life is no longer important. Her life at church, in the church choir, and with her friends compensated for the dissatisfaction she felt with her marriage to Tom. Note that Linda compensated well, as the needs she could not satisfy in her marital life were effectively met in her church life.

The Needs Principle of Compensation: Compensation can be facilitated if the new salient domain satisfies the same needs as the less salient domain.

Based on the needs principle, we recommend that you compensate, but make sure the new areas of your life you choose to invest more time and energy in satisfy the same needs as the area you want to make less important. So do some thinking about which areas of your life you would like to invest yourself in to compensate for the one area in which you are failing. Select wisely based on your understanding of the needs you seek to satisfy in the area in which you failed. Test out your new passion. Does your new passion serve you well by satisfying the needs you longed to satisfy in the failed area?

Re-Evaluation Based on Personal History

One could evaluate oneself in ways to increase positive affect (or decrease negative affect) in a particular life domain. This strategy enhances subjective well- being. This strategy focuses on changing affect in a particular life domain by manipulating expectancies or standards of comparison when evaluating one’s current state of affairs in that domain. In this module, I will show you how subjective well-being can be positively influenced by a variety of self-evaluation principles, using personal history as a standard of comparison. These principles include adaptation-level, range- frequency, adaptation over time, and sensitisation.

Re-evaluation based on personal history is a strategy to enhance subjective well- being. It is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 shows a person (I call Jay) who is satisfied with his family life, somewhat dissatisfied with his work life, and very dissatisfied with his leisure life. Figure 2 shows the effect of using the re-evaluation strategy. Here, Jay focused on the leisure domain and changed how he felt about his leisure life. He did so by manipulating the standards of comparison within that domain and re-evaluating it using new standards.

For example, suppose that the reason for feeling very dissatisfied with leisure was due to the type of leisure events he experienced over the last few months. Upon his wife’s insistence, he spent his summer vacation with his family at his in-laws. His relationship with his in-laws has been strained for a long time. His wife thought that spending time with her parents would make things better. Therefore, he felt that his last vacation was a waste; that he did not really have a vacation per se. He now re- evaluates his leisure life by comparing what happened during the last visit with what happened during all the previous visits over the years. He realizes that the most recent vacation was actually more pleasant than past visits. This time, Jay managed to get along with his in-laws, and his time with his family wasn't bad after all (again, compared to previous visits). Jay’s in-laws did their best to be pleasant and hospitable. Everybody was on his or her best behavior. This type of evaluation made him feel better about his vacation and, by extension, about his leisure life. He no longer feels bad about missing out but feels good about spending vacation time with his immediate and extended family. Note that the strategy here was merely an attempt to re-evaluate events in his leisure domain by relying on expectations based on personal history, which induced a positive self-evaluation.

Before	After

The Personal History Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction results when a life event or outcome is evaluated to equal or exceed one’s expectations of that outcome based on what the person has grown accustomed to in the past. The better the outcome compared to what the person is accustomed to, the greater the satisfaction. Dissatisfaction results when the outcome is evaluated to fall short of what the person has been accustomed to in the past. The greater the discrepancy from what the person has been accustomed to, the greater the dissatisfaction.

The advice delivered by the personal history principle is simple. If you believe that you have made incremental progress here and there in one or more of your life domains, then you should evaluate your achievements in light of your past. Doing so will likely lead to positive self-evaluations, and you will feel satisfied with your accomplishments. This is because you see current achievements as delivering something better than the past.

Factors Affecting Re-evaluation Based on Personal History

In this section, I will attempt to describe a variety of factors that affect how this type of re-evaluation works in different situations and over time.

Adaptation Level

There is a popular concept in motivational psychology called adaptation level (AL). AL is the level of a stimulus that elicits no response (the level that is hedonically neutral). AL is determined by an average of past stimulus levels. For example, a person develops an expectation of what pizza tastes like from past experiences eating it. Every time he eats a pizza, his expectation level of what pizza tastes like changes as a direct function of the new experience, averaged with all other past experiences. Of course, more recent experiences with eating pizza play a greater role in a person’s expectation of what pizza tastes like than less recent ones. Therefore, the cognitive calculus may be a weighted average rather than a simple average.

Using a more macro-level example, consider the following person (let’s call her Sara) evaluating her standard of living. Sara has been accustomed to a high standard of living because her parents and relatives were quite affluent. In other words, her past experiences dictate that her AL with respect to the standard of living is high. But let us say that, in recent years, she has had several financial setbacks, which have led her to live modestly. Thus, we would expect her AL relative to the standard of living to decrease as a direct function of the recent financial setbacks.

Furthermore, Sara’s hedonic state at any given time is directly determined by the difference between the current stimulus level and her adaptation level. If the hedonic level of the current stimulus exceeds that of the AL, Sara experiences satisfaction. Conversely, if the hedonic level of the current stimulus falls below the AL, Sara experiences dissatisfaction. Additionally, the degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction can be predicted from the degree of discrepancy between the hedonic level of the current stimulus and the AL. For example, if Sara eats a pizza that tastes better than what she is accustomed to, she is likely to evaluate it positively and therefore experience satisfaction. If it tastes worse than what he is accustomed to eating, she is likely to judge the pizza as “bad” and thus experience dissatisfaction. The degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction she experiences depends on the discrepancy between the current pizza's taste and her AL. Specifically, if the pizza was better than she expected, she should feel very satisfied. If the pizza were as good as she expected, she might feel satisfied. In contrast, if the pizza fell short of her expectations, she might be dissatisfied.

Here is another example dealing with income. Suppose a company executive rewards and punishes employees through merit raises. One can predict an employee's satisfaction or dissatisfaction by computing the simple difference between their last pay and their new pay. Employees who made more money in relation to their last pay are likely to feel more satisfied than those who made less money, and their degree of satisfaction is likely to be proportional to the magnitude of the difference between their current pay and their last pay.

Social science researchers noted that civilian prisoners adapt well to prison life, but some of those who are approaching release time become quite agitated. One explanation is that they anticipate life outside prison and compare it to what they grew accustomed to in prison. That is, the experience of life in prison became their level of adaptation. For some, life outside prison is full of uncertainties and possible adversities.

The Adaptation-Level Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction experienced in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by comparing perceived events in that domain to referents having hedonic values lower than the hedonic value of the perceived events.

What is the moral of this principle? Your happiness is relative. Relative to what? If you compare your life circumstances right now against the two or three greatest moments in your life, you will assuredly feel unhappy because those greatest moments can’t be duplicated. In contrast, if you compare today’s experiences against tough days you’ve had, you have all the reason in the world to appreciate today’s experiences.

In the book The Pursuit of Happiness, an illustration from a psychologist illustrates the point about re-evaluation. Here is the illustration.

… further illustrates with a Jewish fable about a farmer who seeks a rabbi's counsel because his wife nags him, his children fight, and his surroundings are in chaos. The good rabbi tells him to go home and move the chickens into the house. "Into the house!" cries the farmer. "But what good will that do?" Nevertheless, he complies and two days later returns, more frantic than before.

"Now my wife nags me, the children fight, and the chickens are everywhere, laying eggs, dropping feathers, and eating our food. What am I to do?" The rabbi tells him to go home and bring the cow into the house. "The cow!" cries the distraught man. "That can only worsen things!" Again, the rabbi insists; the man complies, and then returns a few days later, more harried than ever. "Nothing is helping. The chickens are into everything, and the cow is knocking over the furniture. Rabbi, you have made things worse." The rabbi sends the frantic man home to bring in the horse as well. The next day, the man returns in despair. "Everything is knocked over. There is no room for my family. Our lives are in shambles. What shall we do?" Now the rabbi instructs, "Go home and take out the horse and cow and chickens." The man does so and returns the next day, smiling. "Rabbi, our lives are now so calm and peaceful. With the animals gone, we are a family again. How can I thank you? The rabbi smiles.

Range-Frequency

Recent research has shown that evaluations are influenced by factors other than the mean stimulus level (see the discussion above). This research refined the original principle, and this stream of research became known as the contextual theory of happiness. The theory holds that satisfaction in a given domain is determined by a summation of momentary pleasures and pains. The period may be a moment, a day, or a longer period in one's life. Therefore, domain satisfaction of any period is a conceptual summation of these separate hedonic values, positive and negative, divided by the duration of that period. Each hedonic value is determined by a judgment of a stimulus in a context. The hedonic value reflected in that judgment is a direct function of the average of two factors, namely range and frequency of the stimulus in relation to a history of relevant stimuli.

Here is an illustration. Consider the work situation of a door-to-door salesman (let’s call him Harry) who earns commissions. After each day, Harry assesses how much commission he earned and, as a result, feels happy or unhappy. The average of these feelings of happiness and unhappiness determines his overall satisfaction with his work life (assuming that pay is the most important aspect of his job).

What determines his daily feelings of happiness or unhappiness? His judgment of the amount of commission he made that day in relation to the range and frequency of past commissions. Suppose his most recent 10 days of selling resulted in the following distribution of commissions: $35, $55, $20, $50, $60, $50, $30, $60, $55, and $45. Let us say that the salesman makes $50 in commission. How happy or unhappy will he feel having made $50? According to the contextual theory of happiness, the resulting feeling of satisfaction is the average of two values: range and frequency. Regarding the range value, the person calculates the location of the $50 commission within the range of commissions for the last 10 days. Because $50 is three-quarters of the way between $20 (the lowest commission in this context) and $60 (the highest), the hedonic value should be 0.75 (the scale is 0 to 1.0). With respect to the frequency value, the person calculates the proportion of commissions in the context that fall below $50 (and counts one-half of those tied to $50). The resulting value is 0.44. Taking the average of the range and frequency values ([0.75 + 0.44] / 2) yields an overall value of 0.60 (scale is 0 to 1.0). This value, when linearly transformed to a scale from -500 (very, very dissatisfying) to +500 (very, very satisfying), yields a score of +100, which corresponds to a semantic rating category such as "slightly satisfying."

Now assume a history of the following feelings of satisfaction related to the last 10 days: +50, +100, +500, +300, -200, -300, +400, -50, +350, and +50. The cumulative average should be +135. This cumulative average (which corresponds to the semantic category "slightly satisfying") reflects the overall level of satisfaction within Harry’s work domain.

Of course, this is a great oversimplification of Harry's overall satisfaction in his work domain. This is because we are considering only the pay commission dimension of his job, excluding other work dimensions. However, other work dimensions can be treated similarly, and cumulative average satisfaction values can be derived accordingly. Thus, overall satisfaction in the work life domain can be extrapolated as a weighted average across the many dimensions of work that generate hedonic values.

To reiterate, the hedonic value of an experience depends on how it is coded relative to the range of experiences it is compared to, as well as on its position in the frequency distribution of those experiences. Thus, positively skewed distributions are detrimental to momentary happiness, whereas negatively skewed ones are conducive to it.

The Range-Frequency Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction of a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by comparing perceived events in that domain to referents having hedonic values lower than the hedonic value of the current events in terms of not only the frequency of past outcomes but also the range of outcomes.

In sum, people can develop strategies to maximize their happiness in specific life domains, based on the principle of range and frequency. For example, in any life domain, such as work, we should stop the upward climb toward higher and higher levels of achievement at that step where the best of the context is experienced relatively often, whatever that best might be. This, of course, suggests that success and happiness may not go hand in hand.

Furthermore, one needs to work hard in every domain to ensure that happiness now does not come at the expense of happiness in the future or in other life domains. For example, the salesman is perhaps better off not working too hard, because doing so shifts the context upward, i.e., it becomes increasingly difficult to earn frequent commissions at the upper end of the range, and thus to sustain positive feelings about his pay. However, doing so may jeopardize future promotions, perhaps because his supervisor expects him to continue working hard. Not getting that promotion may affect other areas of his life — perhaps his marriage and his friendships with colleagues and associates.

Adaptation over Time

People adapt emotionally to events. When an event is experienced for the first time, people react strongly. Over time, the emotional intensity associated with the event diminishes. That is, people adapt toward neutrality. The novelty of new events wears off, and so do the feelings associated with them.

People adapt their expectations to life events. Hence, a particular positive (negative) life event may initially elicit strong satisfaction (dissatisfaction) in a particular domain; however, in time, the same positive (negative) life event experienced at another point in time generates lower levels of satisfaction (dissatisfaction). This is because people’s expectations shift with the life event, i.e., they adapt. As people age, they become more adaptive. That is, they have accumulated so much experience with life events that their expectations become increasingly aligned with reality. Therefore, they are less likely to experience extreme levels of satisfaction (dissatisfaction) compared to younger people.

Research has shown that lottery winners were not significantly happier than a control group, and that people with a spinal cord injury were not as unhappy as expected. This phenomenon is referred to as the hedonic treadmill. This concept refers to the fact that people tend to adapt to changing circumstances to the point of affective neutrality. In economic terms, the hedonic mill holds that comforts differ from pleasures in that comforts are mostly affectively neutral. They are neutral because of adaptation. People in modern societies strive to meet their consumption expectations, which have, over time, become "neutral." Therefore, the best people can feel is a neutral kind of satisfaction (what we may call "comfort"), not elation or a high level of satisfaction (what we may call "joy").

The Adaptation-over-time Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction resulting from a life event judged much better than what one has been accustomed to decreases toward neutrality over time. Conversely, dissatisfaction resulting from an event judged much worse than one is accustomed to decreases toward neutrality over time.

The adaptation-over-time principle tells us that intense pleasures and intense pains move toward neutrality over time. That is, feelings of pain and suffering, as well as joy, become less and less intense over time. As the saying goes, “time heals wounds.” Conversely, intense pleasures and joys lose their strength over time.

How can we use this principle to enhance the quality of our lives? If we feel dissatisfied, let time diffuse it. Let time take its course. But if one feels satisfaction, one should not let time reduce the intensity of the pleasurable feelings. The challenge is to find ways to prevent time from diminishing the positive feelings that follow an evaluation of a life event. Find ways to preserve the memory of these positive feelings. Keep the memory of these positive feelings alive. Keep referring back to these pleasurable feelings. Keep them at the forefront of your consciousness. Keep an album, a journal, and other souvenirs and memorabilia to remind you of these good feelings.

Sensitization

Not all hedonic stimuli lose their affective intensity over time through adaptation. The hedonic intensity of some stimuli increases over time, a phenomenon referred to as sensitization. For example, in the early stages of a marriage, little irritating habits (e.g., smoking, using inappropriate language in certain situations, being tardy for meetings) may be easily tolerated by the newlyweds. However, over time, the hedonic intensity of these irritants increases significantly. In other words, instead of the married couple adapting to each other's different habits, these minor irritations become major ones. People become “allergic” to these irritants, resulting in major arguments, break-ups, and ultimately divorces. This is the sensitization effect at work.

The same sensitization effect applies to hedonically positive stimuli as well. For example, research has shown that successive experiences with marijuana, high-quality wine, food, and culture serve to increase the hedonic intensity of these stimuli. Here is an explanation based on the popular phenomenon known as mere exposure theory, which posits that repeated exposure to a hedonic stimulus increases preference for it due to greater familiarity. The more people become familiar with a stimulus, the more they appreciate it. Thus, its hedonic value increases over time.

So sensitization conflicts with our understanding of adaptation. How do we explain this conflict? The extent to which people adapt or become sensitized to a particular hedonically laden stimulus is dependent on whether the stimulus is “simple” or “complex.” Sensitization occurs with complex stimuli, not simple ones. High-quality wines, cheeses, exotic cuisine, opera, and the fine arts are examples of complex stimuli. Repeated exposure to complex stimuli increases their positive hedonic value because people develop an appreciation for them. Unfortunately, this explanation may account for sensitization to positive hedonic stimuli but not to negative ones.

Here is another explanation that can account for both positive and negative stimuli. An initially slightly negative stimulus may induce a depressed mood. A depressed mood may cue negative thoughts, which intensify the depressed mood, which in turn induces further negative thoughts, and so on. The result is that an initially mildly negative stimulus becomes very negative over time. The same can be said for positive stimuli, too.

The Sensitization-over-time Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain increases with repeated exposure to the same stimuli associated with the life event that initially induced the positive feelings, provided the exposure is experienced in a positive mood. Conversely, dissatisfaction in a life domain increases with repeated exposure to the same stimuli associated with the life event that initially induced the negative feelings, provided that the exposure is experienced in a negative mood.

The sensitization principle reiterates what most parents believe about children and cultural events. They feel justified in dragging their children to the symphony, the opera, or any other cultural event. Even though their children are unlikely to enjoy the event, they will eventually cultivate a taste for it. Or at least this is what most parents hope will happen. Well, the sensitization principle tells us that it depends. It depends on the person's mood at the time the child initially experiences the event. So, the advice is to cultivate your pleasures, but make sure you are in a good mood when you first try the exotic stimulus or event. Don’t slam the door on things you initially think are not enjoyable (e.g., classical music, opera, the theatre, fine dining, educational events, fine arts, political conversation, poetry, a Shakespearean play). These leisure activities can enrich your life once you become more familiar with them. Many of the things that are enjoyable in life are usually cultivated over time. But again, make sure that you experience them while you are in a good mood.

The same principle tells us to beware of the sensitization caveats. Minor irritants can become major sources of stress over time. How should we stop the minor irritants from becoming “allergic irritants” in our lives? To prevent negative life events from becoming catastrophes, stop the sensitization effect by doing the following. First, anticipate the event before it occurs. Find out when the event occurs and what situational context it occurs in. Second, before the event begins, make sure you are in a pleasant mood. Surround yourself with environmental cues that induce a good mood. For example, start listening to music you enjoy, sip a good cup of coffee, read something you think you might enjoy, or get on the phone and socialize with a good friend. Third, allow yourself to experience the negative event while you are in a good mood. Experiencing the event while you are in a good mood prevents the event from snowballing into a major irritant. Actually, this situation may lead you to experience the event less negatively.

Re-evaluation Based on Self-concept

You can re-evaluate your life circumstances to increase positive affect (or decrease negative affect) in a particular life domain, and ultimately in how you feel about life overall. In this module, I will describe a strategy that focuses on manipulating expectancies based on your self-concept. Specifically, I will describe how people enhance their subjective well-being through re-evaluations of their ideal self, social self, deserved self, minimum tolerable self, predicted self, competent self, and aspired self. I will also address self-concept integration and its impact on subjective well-being.

The re-evaluation strategy based on the self-concept is illustrated in Figures 1 and 2. Note that essentially the same figure shown in the previous module is used here to illustrate the strategy I call re-evaluation based on self-concept. This is because the only difference in this strategy is the use of a different standard of comparison when re- evaluating circumstances in a life domain. In the previous module, the standard of comparison was expectancies based on personal history; in this module, it is expectancies based on the self-concept. Figure 1 shows the same person (as in Jay) who is satisfied with his family life, somewhat dissatisfied with his work life, and very dissatisfied with his leisure life. Figure 2 shows the effect of using the re-evaluation strategy. Here, Jay focused on the leisure domain and changed how he felt about his leisure life. He did so by replacing the standard of comparisons within that domain with a self-concept standard in a way to induce satisfaction -- more on this shortly.

As we described in the previous module, Jay feels very dissatisfied with his leisure life because he spent his summer vacation with his family at his in-laws'. He does not get along with his in-laws, but he did it to please his wife. He now re-evaluates his leisure life by comparing the image of himself as presented to his in-laws with his social self. His social self dictates that he wants his in-laws to see him as a caring person who does not hold any grudges. He feels this is precisely the image he managed to uphold during the visit to his in-laws. This evaluation made him feel good about the vacation. He gained his in-laws' approval by presenting himself in ways that matched his social self.

Before	After

The Self-concept Principle of Re-evaluation: People feel satisfied about themselves when they compare themselves against self-expectations and discover that their actual self is better or equal to what they expect of themselves. Conversely, they feel dissatisfied with themselves when they compare themselves to their expectations and find they have performed less than expected. Positive self-evaluations boost subjective well-being, while negative self-evaluations reduce subjective well-being.

The self-concept principle advocates that we should evaluate ourselves positively. Positive self-evaluations can play a major role in boosting our subjective well-being. Negative self-evaluations adversely influence our perceived quality of life. How do we manage to evaluate ourselves positively? By choosing the right self- referent or self-expectancies. This is what we will discuss in the sections below.

Factors Affecting Re-evaluations Based on the Self-concept

Personality psychologists have long recognized that the self-concept is not a unidimensional construct. The self-concept is multidimensional, in that a person's mind may contain multiple selves. The self-concept is divided into psychological life domains. Thus, a person may have a self-concept regarding education, family, health, work, friends, and romantic relationships, among others. In other words, a person's psychological world is divided into life domains, and within each domain, they hold certain self-related beliefs and values. In addition to segmenting life experiences into life domains, people also have a self-concept of their overall life, a global domain that captures one's emotional state as a function of one's global feelings about one's major successes and failures in life.

People engage in self-evaluations within all life domains. That is, they evaluate themselves within a specific life domain. For example, a person may evaluate their actual job achievements to date against their ideal image of what they want to achieve. Thus, self-evaluation can be viewed as a process of comparing the actual self with the ideal self within a given life domain. Positive self-evaluations result in satisfaction, whereas negative self-evaluations reflect dissatisfaction. Therefore, satisfaction with a particular life domain comes in part from self-evaluations within that domain. Specifically, positive self-evaluations produce feelings of satisfaction, whereas negative self-evaluations generate feelings of dissatisfaction.

In the quality-of-life literature, my colleagues and I argued that evaluations of one’s overall life may be made against different standards of comparison. For example, one can evaluate one's life in relation to friends, relatives, associates, people in similar positions, and so on. One can evaluate one’s life against one’s life ideal goals, or perhaps against one’s conception of what he or she deserves from life. Perhaps the self-evaluation may be based on what one feels that he or she could have accomplished, realizing his or her personal strengths and weaknesses, and so on. As such, we developed the Congruity Life Satisfaction measure using different comparison standards and conducted several studies to demonstrate its validity. We showed that positive self-evaluations, using a variety of comparison standards, explain a significant amount of variance in overall life satisfaction.

Building on this research, I will distinguish among several forms of standards of comparison. These are the ideal self, ideal social self, deserved self, minimum tolerable self, past self, predicted self, competent self, and aspired self.

The Ideal Self

Personality psychologists have long asserted that people have an image of themselves in relation to certain life domains, namely, an actual self-image. For example, in the context of material life, a person may see themselves as "poor." In contrast to the actual self, people have a desired image of who they want to become or aspire to be. This is known as the ideal self-image. In the context of the material world, a person may want to become "rich." The concepts of actual and ideal self are well known to personality psychologists, as reflected by the huge literature on self-concept and self-esteem. Psychologists have traditionally defined the self-esteem motive as the tendency to adjust one's perception of the self (actual self) toward one's aspired-to images or standards (ideal self).

Here is an example to help illustrate. We have a man, let us call him Tom, who has an ideal self-image of being "filthy rich." The image of him rubbing elbows with the economic elite is a childhood wish. Before we go further, I would like to make a distinction between the ideal self and the achievement self (the aspired self and the competent self). We will address the achievement self in a later section. However, it will suffice to say that the achievement self is not necessarily the ideal self. The achievement self is the image a person strives to attain by engaging in achievement- related tasks for the specific purpose of achieving it. An ideal self-image, on the other hand, is simply a "wish" image, in the same manner that children express their magical wishes — wishes are not necessarily grounded in reality.

One can argue that experiencing positive self-evaluation and an ideal self-image is very unlikely. Can you imagine not only having to realize one's dream of becoming rich but also perhaps exceeding the wish? What would be better than being rich? I guess "filthy rich" would be better than rich. Evaluating oneself better than one’s ideal image of “filthy rich” is very unlikely. A positive disconfirmation experience, if and when it occurs (although very unlikely), is likely to produce feelings of great satisfaction, elation, and joy. Imagine Tom winning a multi-million-dollar lottery and now thinking of himself as not simply rich, but "filthy rich." He is likely to feel ecstatic. A confirmation experience is also likely to bring about high satisfaction and joy, but perhaps not as much compared to a positive disconfirmation experience. Although one would expect dissatisfaction from negative disconfirmation, this may not be the case when the ideal self-image is involved. It is hard to imagine that people experience much dissatisfaction with ideal expectations. Can you imagine he would feel really bad because he did not strike it rich? Not likely! This is because ideal expectations are not realistic and reflect a "wish list." The point of all of this is to help you understand that subjective well-being is influenced by self-evaluations involving an ideal self-image.

Here is some work that provides suggestive evidence of positive and negative self-evaluations based on the ideal self.

People do not find themselves in situations in which they evaluate themselves against their ideal self. They pursue these situations. Thus, they choose restaurants, housing, cars, and other goods and services based on how well the product-user image aligns with their ideal self-images. Hence, people anticipate how they will evaluate themselves, given their actions and circumstances, against their ideal self. If the anticipated self-evaluations are positive, they become motivated to act and use these goods and services.

Much research in the quality-of-life research literature has shown that self- esteem is one of the strongest predictors of subjective well-being. Specifically, research indicates that self-satisfaction is strongly correlated with life satisfaction. How can one explain this relationship? Self-esteem is largely based on self-evaluations in which the actual self is compared with the ideal self. Recall that domain satisfaction is partly determined by comparing the actual self with other self-concepts, such as the ideal self and the social self (we will explain the social self shortly). These self-evaluations feed directly into self-esteem. Positive self-evaluations enhance self-esteem, whereas negative self-evaluations deflate self-esteem.

The Ideal Self Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by evaluating specific events in that domain against an ideal self that is likely to generate positive self- evaluations. Positive self-evaluations are experienced when there is a low discrepancy between the actual and ideal self.

The ideal self-principle argues that we should be careful how we use our ideal self in evaluating our everyday actions and outcomes. Self-evaluations with the ideal self are, in most cases, likely to generate negative affect. This is because, in most cases, the actual self falls short of the ideal. Remember, the greater these discrepancies, the greater the dissatisfaction. And in most cases, most people have inflated ideal self-images, images of themselves that are difficult and unrealistic to attain. Hence, the message is to get to know yourself. Get to know what ideal images you have of yourself. If these ideal self-images are too inflated, avoid using them as a standard for self-evaluation. This is because you may evaluate yourself to fall short. But on the other hand, if you anticipate that your actual self may come close to your ideal, then you should evaluate yourself against your ideal self. Positive self- evaluations should ensue. These feelings, in turn, should contribute significantly and positively to your subjective well-being.

To reiterate, if you anticipate that your actual self falls quite short of your ideal self, then try to evaluate your actual self against other standards. What other standards can one use, the reader might ask? Perhaps the answer lies in the social self, the deserved self, the minimally tolerable self, the competent self, or the aspired self. These will be discussed below.

The Social Self

The social self is part of the self-concept that focuses on the public self. People have beliefs about how they like others to see them. They behave in ways to impress others. They are motivated to gain their significant others' approval and avoid their disapproval.

The social self differs significantly from one culture to another. For example, in North America, the social self that generates social approval from others is one with self-esteem, willing to express it, and to participate in mutually approving relationships. Having and being willing to express self-esteem are typically manifested in culturally shared images, ideals, norms, and practices associated with self-efficacy, control, personal choice, and initiative. Participating in mutually beneficial relationships is typically characterized by social exchange, trust, fairness, and decency. In contrast, in East Asian cultures, the social self that generates social approval differs from that in North America. Specifically, what generates social approval in East Asia is a self who is self-critical, willing to express such attitudes, and willing to participate in mutually sympathetic relationships. These relationships, in turn, are manifested through self- control, effort, social roles, filial piety, community values, warmth, empathy, perspective- taking, and balance (Ying and Yang).

Consider the following example. Oliver has grown up in the shadow of his father, who is quite eccentric. His father is very demanding of everyone in the family, including Oliver. Much of Oliver's life has been devoted to pleasing his father. He feels that he cannot gain his father's approval. Oliver is now in college. Of course, he went to college to please his father. It was unthinkable for him to do otherwise. Now he is looking back and evaluating his life. Let us suppose that Oliver experienced a positive disconfirmation of his social self-image. He wants his father to see him as successful. His father recently met Oliver and told him how proud he is of his son. His father was so forthcoming with his praise and flattery. This was unexpected. How do you think Oliver feels? Such a positive disconfirmation is likely to produce feelings of high satisfaction.

Now, suppose instead of his father being so forthcoming with praise and flattery, he was simply subdued in his expression of his approval of his son doing well in college. A confirmation experience, in this instance, is likely to bring about a modest amount of satisfaction -- perhaps not as much compared to a positive disconfirmation experience.

Now imagine a situation involving negative disconfirmation. His father was expected on campus but did not arrive. Oliver calls him and learns that his father completely forgot about the planned campus visit. And worse, his father scolds Oliver for being away from his family and abandoning his family responsibilities because he is in college. Oliver is likely to feel a great deal of dissatisfaction.

The Social Self Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by evaluating specific events in that domain against a social self that is likely to generate positive self- evaluations. Positive self-evaluations are experienced when there is a low discrepancy between the actual and social self.

What advice does the social-self principle provide us? Compare your accomplishments with the expectations that others have of you, if and only if these expectations are reasonable to meet. Not all others (those who matter to you) have the same expectations for your achievements. For example, your brother and sister may have more realistic expectations than your parents. This is typical of most families. Parents tend to invest in their children. They invest themselves emotionally, financially, and in every other way. Because of their vested interest, they tend to expect a lot more from their children. If you are having a hard time living up to your parents' expectations, but you meet the expectations of your brother or sister, then evaluate your accomplishments against the expectations of your brother or sister, not your parents. Doing so is likely to make you feel better about your life.

The Deserved Self

The deserved self refers to expectations about oneself that reflect one's sense of equity. One may feel that she deserves to live in comfort and luxury; another may feel he deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Consider the following scenario. Katherine is a middle-level manager in an insurance firm. She works very hard and takes her job seriously. She feels she is as good as most other middle-level managers in the company. Recently, she read a confidential company memorandum that had been leaked to middle management. The salaries of all middle-level managers were reported in this document. She noted that she makes significantly more than most other middle-level managers. How is she likely to feel about her work life after seeing this report? She is likely to feel pretty good! This is a positive disconfirmation experience.

Now, let us change things a little and consider the scenario in which she finds out that she is making about the same as most other middle-level managers. In other words, her actual situation matches her deserved self. This is a confirmation experience with deserved expectations. She is likely to feel satisfied in her work life. A confirmation experience is also likely to bring about only moderate satisfaction, lower than that of a positive disconfirmation experience. In contrast, if she finds out she earns significantly less than most middle-level managers at her company, she is likely to feel dissatisfied. She feels she deserves to make at least as much as most other middle- level managers. That is, she feels dissatisfied in her work domain because she experiences negative disconfirmation relative to her deserved self.

Suggestive evidence for this type of social judgment and its effect on satisfaction comes from many studies conducted in an organizational context. For example, one study computed a "deserved income expectation" based on demographic factors such as age, education, years on the job, and hours worked. The study found a negative relationship between job satisfaction and the discrepancy between deserved and actual income.

The Deserved-Self Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction decreased) by re-evaluating specific events in that domain against a deserved self, which is likely to generate positive self- evaluations. Positive self-evaluations are experienced when there is a low discrepancy between the actual and deserved self.

The deserved-self principle recommends that we evaluate ourselves against our sense of what we deserve when two conditions are present: (1) our sense of what we deserve is reasonable and low, comparatively speaking, and (2) the outcome is likely to meet or exceed what we think we deserve. Otherwise, making self-evaluations using deserved expectations is likely to make us feel worse about life. So be careful when making these self-evaluations. Self-evaluations that match our expectations, whether deserved or ideal, can cause significant harm to our psyche and subjective well-being. The reason is that, in most cases, our deserved self-image (just as our ideal self-image) is likely inflated and difficult to meet. Many of us feel underpaid, underappreciated, and not loved enough because we think we deserve better. Although it is nice to think of ourselves as deserving more, doing so comes at the expense of our subjective well- being.

The Minimum-Needs Self

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction with minimum-needs expectations tend to follow a slightly different pattern than those for deserved expectations. Consider the case of Melinda. Melinda is a single mother caring for two teenagers. She works full-time in a local bank as a bank teller. She budgets carefully to make sure her monthly income lasts until the end of the month. She figures she needs at least $2,000/month to get by. Her job as a bank teller provides her with $1,500/month (net). She learns that another job has opened up as a manager of a small clothing store, and her friend, who knows the owner, recommended Melinda. The job pays $2,200 net per month. She jumps at the opportunity, and she gets the job. How is she likely to feel about her work/personal finances domain? She may feel somewhat satisfied, perhaps relieved. Her experience can be characterized as a positive disconfirmation with minimum needs expectations. How about a new job that pays $2,000/month net? How will she feel? The prediction is “barely satisfied”. This, of course, is a confirmation experience based on minimum needs expectations. What happens if she remains in her old job? She is likely to experience moderate to high dissatisfaction. This is negative disconfirmation. Studies have also shown that income-related discrepancies in “having” versus “need” are significant predictors of subjective well-being.

The Minimum-Needs Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction decreased) by re-evaluating specific events in that domain against a minimum-needs self, which is likely to generate positive self-evaluations.

The minimum-needs principle begs more attention. This is because positive self- evaluations are more likely with minimum-needs expectations than expectations related to the ideal self, social self, and deserved self. Minimum-needs expectations are usually low, comparatively speaking. Therefore, it is easier to meet these expectations, which in turn lead to positive self-evaluations. So, figure out your minimum needs and don't hesitate to compare life events and outcomes against them. In fact, the advice is to compare your actual self with your minimum-needs self as often as you can. It is quite likely that you will feel better about your life as a result.

The Predicted Self

People can experience either positive or negative self-evaluations with predictive expectations. Predictive expectations are beliefs that reflect an anticipated or future self based on past experience.

Consider the case of Tony. Tony went to medical school. His career aspiration has been to become a surgeon since childhood. Both of his parents are surgeons. They expected Tony to follow in their footsteps and become a surgeon too. Their expectations of him became so internalized that he always expected to become a surgeon one day too. Tony is now in his forties. He looks back at his life and evaluates himself. He thinks of himself as a renowned surgeon. In other words, he exceeded his parents' (and his own) expectations for his career accomplishments. He feels very good about his career (high satisfaction). This is a state of positive disconfirmation.

Research has shown that discrepancies between "have-predicted possessions" are significant predictors of subjective well-being. Additionally, studies have shown that large “actual-future self” discrepancies result in negative self-evaluations (i.e., chronically unfulfilled hopes, feelings of despondency, and feeling discouraged and hopeless).

The Predicted Self Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by re-evaluating specific events in that domain against a predicted self that is likely to generate positive self- evaluations.

The principle of the predicted self prompts us to evaluate ourselves against our notion of our future self when the probability of reaching it is high. In most cases, people have a good sense of what outcomes they expect in their lives. If these predictions are used as a self-reference when evaluating the events and outcomes in their lives, they are likely to feel good about themselves. However, this could occur only if the person perceives that they are making progress toward the predicted self. Thus, this principle, like the minimum-needs principle, promises to deliver quality of life when used often. So go ahead and use it and use it often. You may feel better about your life doing it.

The Competent Self

Research has shown that large discrepancies between the actual self and the competent self (also called the “can self”) lead to negative self-evaluations. These negative feelings can be characterized as “feelings of weakness,” “lacking proficiency, potency, and vigour,” and “feeling ineffective.” That is, this happens when one's perceived level of competence falls short of one's ideal.

Furthermore, research has indicated that expectancies of control relate to subjective well-being. The typical finding is that those with expectancies of control report greater subjective well-being than those with low expectancies. High-expectancy individuals tend to expect success and therefore work harder to achieve their goals. Therefore, this finding suggests that people with high expectancies of control evaluate their actual self in relation to their competent self. This is because these people are likely to work hard and reduce any discrepancy they may perceive between their actual self and their competent self. Thus, moving toward one's achievement-related goals is likely to induce positive self-evaluations, which, in turn, should enhance subjective well-being.

Here is a question that can further illustrate the power of expectancies of control. Answer this question: Who is happier, stay-at-home moms or moms who work outside the home? Evidence suggests that both groups experience happiness when they feel competent in what they do.

The Competent Self Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by re-evaluating specific events in that domain against a competent self that is likely to generate positive self-evaluations when goals related to the competent self are attained (or at least progress towards the attainment of these achievement-related goals).

The message we can take away from this principle is that positive self- evaluations based on one’s ability can go a long way toward enhancing our subjective well-being.

The Aspired Self

Research has shown that subjective well-being can be predicted by the extent to which we perceive progress toward meeting our life goals (i.e., life aspirations). Data also suggest that subjective well-being is significantly influenced by how realistically our aspirations are set and how congruent they are with our personal resources. In other words, it is not the level of aspiration that matters much but the extent to which these aspirations are realized. When people set high, unrealistic aspirations, they are unlikely to be realized. Therefore, people who set their goals unrealistically high (incongruent with their personal resources) are likely to experience low levels of subjective well- being.

The Aspired Self-Principle of Re-evaluation: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by re-evaluating specific events in that domain against an aspired self that is likely to generate positive self- evaluations.

Self-concept Integration

Note that we described how satisfaction can be experienced in a given life domain through self-evaluations using various self-concept standards, such as the ideal self, the social self, the deserved self, and the competent self. What happens when these self-evaluations conflict with one another -- one self-evaluation involving one type of self-concept standard generates satisfaction, but a different self-evaluation results in dissatisfaction? This situation is referred to as self-concept differentiation or a fragmentation of the self-concept. The situation in which different self-evaluations involving different self-concept standards generate similar positive self-evaluations is referred to as self-concept integration.

How is the person’s subjective well-being affected by self-concept differentiation? Research suggests that self-concept differentiation is associated with poor emotional adjustment, whereas self-concept integration is associated with healthy adjustment. Self-concept differentiation causes confusion, ambiguity, uncertainty about self and goals, identity confusion, indecision, distractibility, and rebelliousness. Self-concept integration, on the other hand, is strongly related to subjective well-being. As such, the integration strategy is to adjust the levels of different self-referents to ensure that their use generates positive self-evaluation. For example, tone down the ideal and deserved selves to promote higher levels of positive self-evaluations. Adjust the predicted self and the competent self to reality so that the actual self is least discrepant. Doing so helps achieve self-concept integration.

The Principle of Self-concept Integration: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction decreased) by ensuring that self-evaluations are conducted using self-concept standards likely to yield consistently positive self- evaluations.

The principle of self-concept integration is difficult to implement, but it is nevertheless important. It calls for consistency in positive self-evaluations using different self-referents. The advice, then, is to make self-evaluations consistently over time, using only those self-referents that generate satisfaction. Self-evaluations using self-referents that could generate dissatisfaction should be avoided whenever possible. This is one way to ensure consistency. Another way is to reassess the self-referents responsible for negative self-evaluations and replace them. For example, if you believe that your expectations based on your ideal and deserved self are constantly getting you into trouble (i.e., causing significant dissatisfaction), perhaps you need to revisit those self-referents. Are your deserved expectations realistic? Perhaps not! Then tone them down. Are your ideal expectations sky-high? Then bring them down to earth.

Re-evaluation Based on Social Comparison

In this module, the focus will be on manipulating expectancies based on social comparisons. The goal is to increase positive affect (or decrease negative affect) in a particular life domain. I will describe how this strategy works and explain how people experience subjective well-being guided by three motives: self-enhancement, self- improvement, and self-identification.

See an illustration of this strategy in Figures 1 and 2. Note that essentially the same figure shown in the previous two modules is used here to illustrate the strategy we call re-evaluation based on social comparison. This is because the only difference in this strategy is the use of significant others as a different standard for re-evaluating the life domain. In the previous two modules, the standard of comparison was based on expectancies derived from personal history and the self-concept. In this module, the standard of comparison is the expectations of significant others. This type of evaluation is commonly known in social psychology as social comparison.

We will use Jay’s leisure life as described in the last two chapters. The before part of the figure (Figure 1) shows Jay satisfied with his family life, somewhat dissatisfied with his work life, and very dissatisfied with his leisure life. The after part shows the effect of using a social comparison strategy. Remember that Jay feels very dissatisfied with his leisure life. This is because he had to spend his summer vacation with his in- laws. He does not get along with his in-laws, but he did it to please his wife. He now re-evaluates his leisure life by comparing his last vacation at his in-laws' with his neighbor’s last vacation. His neighbors are Tim and Caroline, a nice couple in their 60’s with no children. Tim and Caroline went on a cruise to Alaska last August. This was supposed to be their 30-year wedding anniversary. They were looking forward to a wonderful vacation. But the vacation turned into a disaster. The cruise ship ran into an iceberg, which damaged part of the ship. It was almost like the Titanic. People had to be evacuated from the ship by raft boats. Tim suffered a stroke while he was being evacuated. Now he is recovering from that stroke. The damage was severe, the doctor told his wife, Caroline. The end result was that the vacation was an utter disaster. So, Jay compares his family vacation with Tim’s and Caroline’s. He feels somewhat blessed that his vacation was uneventful. At least there were no disasters, and he and his family enjoyed themselves a little, despite the in-laws.

Before	After

Much research on subjective well-being suggests that social comparison plays an important role. For example, much research has focused on the role of the comparison gap between oneself and others among college students and on its effect on life satisfaction and happiness. The social comparison measure was based on asking students how they compared to other students. The main finding of the research is that the social comparison gap was one of the strongest correlates of life satisfaction and happiness. Upward social comparison (comparison of oneself with another who is better off) tends to generate dissatisfaction, whereas downward comparison (comparison of oneself with another who is worse off) generates satisfaction. Similarly, the research revealed a significant social comparison effect in a variety of life domains. The social comparison effect was a significant predictor of satisfaction with health, religion, education, and recreation in every nation studied.

We can translate this discussion into the following psychological principle:

The Principle of Social Comparison: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (and dissatisfaction can be decreased) by evaluating life events in that domain to similar others (e.g., relative and friends, neighbors, professional associates and colleagues, people of the same age, same sex, same race or ethnic background, same handicap, same home place, and same social class). Upward comparisons generate negative affect, while downward comparisons produce positive affect.

Based on the principle of social comparison, the following advice is in order: Feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction may be determined by how we compare ourselves to others. When we compare ourselves to those who are better off, we feel bad. When we compare ourselves to those who are worse off, we feel grateful. So, the advice is: Don’t compare yourself to others if you can help it. But if you do, compare yourself with others who are less fortunate. Doing so should make you feel comfortable with who you are and what you have.

Factors Affecting Re-evaluation Based on Social Comparison

There are many sources of standards of comparison used to evaluate one’s happiness. These include comparisons with relatives and friends, associates or colleagues in similar professional positions, people of the same age, gender, and ethnicity, and people who share a disability or handicap.

Why do people compare their lives to those of others? People compare themselves to similar others because doing so helps them get to know themselves better. People gain more knowledge about themselves in relation to others who are “just like themselves.” Thus, a student compares his grade on the last test with his classmates' grades. Doing so allows the student to assess his skills and competencies in relation to his peer group. This motive has been referred to by many social psychologists as the self-assessment motive – sometimes we refer to this motive as the “need for self-knowledge.” Thus, we compare ourselves to others to know more about how we stand in relation to others. Furthermore, the self-assessment motive conjoins with other motives to influence subjective well-being. These other motives are self- enhancement, self-improvement, and self-identification. We will discuss the QOL research in relation to these three motivational states.

Self-enhancement

Besides the self-assessment motive, a second motive in social comparison is the need for self-enhancement. A downward comparison is comparing one’s own life to that of another person or group who is less fortunate. Thus, a downward comparison enhances self-esteem because the outcome elicits positive affect that reflects positive self-evaluation. Conversely, an upward comparison is the opposite: comparing one’s own life to that of another person or group who is more fortunate. Thus, an upward comparison deflates self-esteem because the outcome elicits negative affect that reflects negative self-evaluation.

Here are examples of study findings illustrating the effects of downward social comparison on subjective well-being. A classic study of need deprivation among soldiers in World War II found that a unit's morale tended to be low when its circumstances were significantly worse than those of a comparable unit. People in poor countries tend to compare themselves only to other people “next door.” In other words, people in poor countries do not compare themselves with people in rich countries. Empirical evidence suggests that people in poor countries are as happy as people in rich countries. This is because people compare themselves with others in their own countries, not in other countries. Research shows that socio-economic status is related to subjective well-being. One plausible explanation is that people with higher socioeconomic status may engage in downward social comparisons. This type of social judgement may be responsible for positive self-evaluations and satisfaction in important life domains, which in turn play a significant role in enhancing subjective well-being. Studies in social psychology have shown that people select friends in self-serving ways. Specifically, they choose to befriend those with inferior abilities on tasks relevant to their own abilities.

The Self-enhancement Principle of Re-evaluation: People compare positive events in their lives with those of others who have experienced similar but negative events. This downward social comparison generates satisfaction, which in turn enhances subjective well-being. Downward social comparison serves to satisfy the self-enhancement motive by inducing positive self-evaluations. Conversely, upward social comparison generates dissatisfaction, deflating the self-enhancement motive and, in turn, reducing subjective well-being.

Here is advice that comes in the form of a story from the Orient. This story is told by Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist who blends Western and Eastern thinking.

Kisagotami was a young woman whose first child died suddenly somewhere around his first birthday. Desperate in her love for the child, Kisagotami went from house to house in her village, clasping the dead child to her breast and asking for medicine to revive her son. Most of her neighbors shrank from the sight of her and called her mad, but one man, seeing her inability to accept the reality of her son’s death, directed her to Buddha by promising her that only he had the medicine she sought. Kisagotami went to Buddha and pleaded with him for medicine. “I know of some,” he promised. “But I will need a handful of mustard seed from a house where no child, husband, parent, or servant has died.” Slowly, Kisagotami came to see that hers was not a unique predicament. She put the body of her child down in a forest and returned to Buddah. “I have not brought the mustard seed,” she told him. “The people of the village told me, the living are few, but the dead are many.” Buddah replied, “You thought that you alone had lost a son; the law of death is that among all living creatures there is no permanence.” . . . The Buddah helped Kisagotami find happiness not by bringing her dead child back to life, but by changing her view of herself.

Self-improvement

A third motive is to set life goals to improve oneself and ultimately enhance self- esteem. This motive is called the self-improvement motive. People engage in downward or upward comparisons. An upward comparison is self-deflating because it leads to dissatisfaction. Here, the person compares himself to someone or a group who is more fortunate. Although the resulting emotion is dissatisfaction with life, people still engage in upward comparisons to set future goals. For example, a low-income person compares himself with a high-income person. By doing so, the low-income person sets his sights on working hard to earn more income so that he can become like the high- income person, i.e., a role model.

Some studies have failed to provide evidence for the self-enhancement effect due to at least two confounds: inspiration and identification. The inspiration confound (or what is referred to here as the “self-improvement motive”) is best exemplified by cancer patients who find solace in comparisons with those much sicker than themselves but look to those doing better than themselves for models of hope and recovery A peer's success can be a source of either envy and self-doubt or inspiration and motivation, and a peer's misfortune may make one feel either fortunate to have escaped such a fate or afraid that a similar fate awaits. Moreover, research has shown that people compare themselves to those of higher status. This is because people prefer to compare themselves with an aspirational group rather than a non-aspirational one. Identifying oneself with an aspirational group gives the person a sense of purpose in life. They would like to belong to that referent group. This aspirational group membership serves as a life goal. Pursuing and progressing toward this goal enhances one's sense of subjective well-being.

The Self-improvement Principle of Re-evaluation: People compare negative events in their lives with those of others who have experienced similar events and ended up with a positive outcome. This upward social comparison generates satisfaction, which in turn enhances subjective well-being. Upward social comparison serves to satisfy the self-improvement motive by allowing the person to predict a positive future for their own condition based on the significant other's positive condition.

The self-improvement principle offers sound advice to people who have faced predicaments in their lives. Whatever the predicament (e.g., cancer, divorce, death of a loved one, lay off at work), compare yourself with others who have had a similar predicament but managed to overcome it and experience a happy ending. Comparing yourself with these kinds of people gives you hope that your predicament will pass and life will be better. Hope helps enhance your quality of life.

Self-identification

With respect to self-identification, this motive is best illustrated by a person comparing his poor sports performance to that of his home team. On the one hand, he may feel dissatisfied with his performance compared to his home team; however, he may take pride in identifying with his home team's success. This phenomenon is referred to in social psychology as "basking in reflected glory."

One can think that this phenomenon is also a form of social comparison. What people do is "put themselves in other people's shoes" and experience the pleasure or joy that others experience. For example, a person hears that his colleague at work received a promotion and a healthy raise. He feels good knowing that his colleague has been promoted and is making more money, perhaps much more than he does. These feelings may arise directly from thinking about himself in his colleague's position and "basking in his glory." Or perhaps his colleague is incorporated in his expanded sense of self. Thus, he compares his expanded sense of self (i.e., his colleague as part of himself) with that of less fortunate others and, in doing so, feels good about his "expanded self." One can easily argue that the identification confound is a reflection of the “self-enhancement motive.”

The Self-Identification Principle of Re-evaluation: People compare negative events in their lives with those of others who have experienced similar events and ended positively. This upward social comparison generates satisfaction, which in turn enhances subjective well-being. Upward social comparison serves to satisfy the self-identification motive by allowing the person to identify with those others who have experienced positive events. This self-identification with positive others induces positive self-evaluations, which, in turn, enhance subjective well-being.

The principle of self-identification urges us to identify with successful referent groups. Doing so allows us to experience positive affect. For example, if your home football team is on a winning streak, feel good about that. Bask in the glory of your team. Feel proud of the team. Talk about your home team's success with others, especially those who also identify with it. This type of self-identification should improve your quality of life.

Integration of Social Comparison Judgments

Note that throughout this module, we discussed how people make social comparisons that may conflict with one another. For example, making a downward social comparison may enhance subjective well-being by satisfying the need for self- enhancement. However, doing so may undermine the motivation for self-improvement and therefore decrease subjective well-being. In contrast, making upward social comparisons may decrease subjective well-being due to the frustration of the need for self-enhancement. The same upward comparison may enhance subjective well-being by helping the person meet needs for self-identification and self-improvement.

Can social comparison judgments be made in ways that consistently generate subjective well-being? This can be achieved by engaging in upward social comparisons that satisfy both the needs for self-identification and self-improvement, with little decrement in subjective well-being from failing to satisfy the need for self-enhancement. But at the same time, the person can compensate for any decline in subjective well- being from failing to satisfy the need for self-enhancement by engaging in related downward social comparisons.

Consider the following example. Tiffany is a physiological psychologist who has been conducting important research on Alzheimer's disease. Her research has received significant attention, and she feels well recognized by her peers in the scientific community. Her aspirational group is the highly renowned and distinguished scientists in her field. She compares her distinguished research to the credentials of highly successful people in her profession, and she feels good because she identifies with them. She is well accomplished but has not yet earned the highest honors and distinctions she hopes to earn. Hence, there is room for improvement. She is proud to be a physiological scientist. She feels proud to be part of an elite group of scientists making important breakthroughs and helping discover ways to control and possibly cure Alzheimer's. Hence, her subjective well-being is enhanced through satisfying both needs for self-identification and self-improvement. She compares herself with her graduate students, who are trying hard to become what she already is. This is a downward comparison adding to her sense of subjective well-being. In this situation, subjective well-being is maximized by satisfying the three needs (self-enhancement, self-improvement, and self-identification) conjointly.

The Principle of Integrated Social Comparisons: Domain satisfaction and subjective well-being could be increased by making social comparison judgments that satisfy the needs of self-enhancement, self-identification, and self- improvement, conjointly.

The principle of integrated social comparisons is important. This is because it highlights the irony involved in making social comparison judgments. A person engages in one type of social comparison that can result in both positive and negative affect. The goal is to make judgments that increase more TOTAL positive affect and decrease TOTAL negative affect. To do so, the advice is to engage in a social comparison with a status group (an aspirational group). You should be able to identify with the people in that group and may feel inclined to emulate the most successful among them. Doing so satisfies the needs for self-identification and self-improvement. Then find people within the same reference group who look up to you and aspire to become like you. This can be a good source of self-enhancement. Making social comparison judgments that satisfy the three needs of self-enhancement, self-identification, and self-improvement can go a long way to enhance satisfaction in specific life domains and your subjective well-being.

Goal Selection - Valence

First, let us, for a moment, try to understand how goal selection is used as a strategy to increase overall life satisfaction or reduce dissatisfaction. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate this process. The before part of the figure shows a person, let us call her Maggie, feeling happy with her family life (the box is green fill-in), somewhat dissatisfied with her work life (the box is a yellow fill-in), and very dissatisfied with her leisure life (the box is a red fill-in). Maggie takes action in her leisure domain to reduce negative affect and possibly generate positive affect. Doing so is likely to spill over into the most superordinate domain, namely, overall life, and enhance subjective well-being. This action is represented in the boxes underneath the leisure domain box and subsumed within the leisure domain. Note that these boxes are green, i.e., their valence is positive. For example, Maggie discovers a passion in handicraft such as pottery and basket weaving. She now attends a night class (two nights per week) in handicrafts and feels very artistic and creative doing so. She is also beginning to thoroughly enjoy aerobic exercise. She exercises three nights a week. She gets a great workout; she loves the instructor, the music, and the people at that fitness centre. Moreover, she feels good about staying in shape and losing weight. These two actions in the leisure domain have completely changed the valence, shifting it from negative to positive. The positive affect from the leisure domain, in turn, spills over to the most superordinate domain of overall life, thus increasing life satisfaction. However, the key to understanding the focal point of this exercise is goal selection. Maggie has selected goals that made a difference in her leisure life. Selecting the right goals that can make a difference is the focus here.

Before	After

We can translate this discussion into a psychological principle that can be stated as follows:

The Goal Selection Principle: Subjective well-being can be enhanced by being highly selective in pursuing the kind of goals in which goal attainment is likely to induce strong positive emotions (e.g., joy, affection, pride).

This goal-selection principle urges people to be careful and selective in choosing the goals they pursue in life. There are some goals in life not worth pursuing. This is because their attainment does not contribute to one's subjective well-being. They may simply bring comfort. Tibor Scitovsky, a renowned economist, has attracted considerable attention for his book The Joyless Economy (1976). His main thesis is that Americans (and people from highly developed economies) have increasingly experienced comfort and decreasingly experienced joy. This is partly because we increasingly choose goals related to the good life and material comfort. These goals lack the capacity to generate feelings of joy, pride, and affection. The best they can do (when they are attained) is to decrease one’s level of discomfort. In the sections below, we will explore the factors to consider when deciding to pursue certain goals in life. How can a person know which goals to pursue to experience happiness in life?

Factors Affecting the Selection of Goals that Bring Joy and Happiness

Goal selection is quite important in enhancing subjective well-being. Selecting goals that are likely to generate a high dose of positive affect when attained is crucial to one’s quality of life. So how can we judge the extent to which a goal is likely to contribute significantly to subjective well-being when attained? Research in subjective well-being has demonstrated the effect of several factors. These include goal meaningfulness, intrinsic versus extrinsic goals, high- versus low-level goals, goals related to basic versus growth needs, and approaching desired states versus avoiding undesired states.

Goal Meaningfulness

Studies of older Americans have found that one of the best predictors of happiness is the extent to which people have meaningful goals. The goals define their purpose in life. Goals that reflect a sense of purpose in life play an important role in subjective well-being, and attaining them is likely to yield substantial gains in quality of life.

For example, once people retire, they lose their sense of worth, and their life satisfaction plummets. This is because their work-related goals are closely connected to their identities. To maintain their sense of identity and hold on to meaningful work- related goals, many retired people choose to volunteer their time for good causes. There is voluminous research on volunteering. Most studies show that volunteering contributes to happiness by increasing a sense of purpose in life.

The Meaningfulness Principle of Goal Selection: Selecting meaningful goals in important life domains yields substantial satisfaction upon attainment. This satisfaction is likely to contribute significantly to subjective well-being.

Based on the principle of goal meaningfulness, one should realize that it is very important to select goals that are meaningful. To enhance your satisfaction with life, re- examine your daily habits, routine chores, and structured activities. Ask yourself why you engage in those activities. Behind every activity is a personal goal. We do not do things for the “heck of it”; we engage in activities because these activities help us achieve certain goals. What are these goals? Try to articulate them. You can identify your goals by first focusing on the important areas of your life, such as work, family, social, leisure, community, and health. Within each domain, identify your structured activities — the tasks and chores you take on regularly. Make a list of them and identify the personal goals related to each. Then go down that list of goals. Question yourself about these goals. Are these goals meaningful to your life at large? Answering this question will help you identify personal goals you find meaningful. Hold on to these goals. Find additional structured activities that align with these goals. Goals you find less meaningful should prompt you to action. Either reduce or eliminate the structured activities related to your less meaningful goals. In essence, reorganize your life activities based on a “meaningfulness” type of goal assessment.

Here is an exercise to help identify meaningful goals in important life domains. The exercise is called the ideal obituary technique. This technique allows a person to write their own obituary, focusing on how they would like to be remembered in death. The goals outlined in an ideal obituary can help identify meaningful goals for those who seem to be floundering without real direction in life.

Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Goals

Social psychologists and quality-of-life researchers have long distinguished between intrinsic and extrinsic goals. Examples of intrinsic goals include maintaining good social relationships with loved ones, making a significant contribution to the community, helping others in need, personal growth, and maintaining good health, among others. In contrast, examples of extrinsic goals include making money, controlling people, and attaining social recognition. Intrinsic goals tend to contribute more to subjective well-being than extrinsic ones.

In sum, intrinsic goals are likely to be more satisfying than extrinsic goals. This is because intrinsic goals tend to be more closely tied to growth needs (and therefore attaining them contributes to satisfaction), whereas extrinsic goals are more closely tied to basic needs (and therefore attaining them helps reduce potential dissatisfaction).

The Intrinsicness Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction can be decreased) by selecting intrinsic goals over extrinsic ones in important life domains. Achieving intrinsic goals elicits more positive affect in that domain than extrinsic goals.

The message pertaining to the principle of goal intrinsicness is loud and clear. Choose goals that are more intrinsic and less extrinsic. For example, if you are in a job strictly for the money, then you are “barking up the wrong tree.” Investing yourself in an extrinsic goal, such as making money, can do only so much to bring you joy and happiness. You must go beyond the extrinsic goals. Make sure that your job gives you meaning in life, too. You should wake up in the morning and feel like going to work. This should be because your work makes a difference in your life or someone else’s. Do you have a relationship with a significant other? Are you with your significant other or spouse because of love, passion, companionship, and commitment? These are intrinsic goals. These are the kind of goals that bring true joy in life. If you are maintaining your relationship with your significant other for extrinsic goals such as financial security, power, or status, then you are “barking up the wrong tree.” Give up these extrinsic goals and replace them with intrinsic ones, if you can.

High- versus low-level Goals

Goals can be structured hierarchically. Some goals are abstract, others are concrete, and still others are in between. An abstract goal can only be implemented by transforming these goals into concrete goals. That is, abstract goals are strategic, and concrete goals are tactical or operational. Strategic goals must be operationalized into tactical goals for implementation.

For example, a goal such as learning French can be achieved by systematically and methodically working toward a hierarchy of subordinate goals. Thus, a low-level goal such as memorising a list of 20 vocabulary words feeds into higher-level goals, such as practising the use of these words in different situations, which, in turn, become increasingly instrumental to learning French. Although achieving any goal in the hierarchy provides some satisfaction, it is experienced more intensely with higher-level goals than with lower-level ones.

The High-Level Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction reduced) by selecting more high-level than low-level goals in important life domains. Achieving high-level goals elicits more positive affect in that domain than low-level goals.

The principle of high-level goals is very important. Are you familiar with the ecologist’s distinction between the “forest” and the “trees”? One’s sense of ecology can come from understanding the natural dynamics of the forest, not the trees. But the dynamics of the “trees” make up the forest. An ecologist can easily become so engrossed with the study of trees that he may fail to see the forest. The trees are equated with low-level goals, whereas the forest is equated with high-level goals.

Let us use an example we can all relate to. Karen and Gabe are parents with a 16-year-old daughter. They are both conscientious parents, but their parenting styles differ. They are conscientious because they both try hard to achieve family harmony and well-being. That is, family harmony and well-being are high-level goals for both Karen and Gabe. Karen can stay focused on the "forest" without getting lost in the "trees." Gabe, on the other hand, has trouble staying focused on the "forest." The daughter, like most 16-year-olds, can be mindless at times. For example, she often forgets to report in when she is late beyond her curfew. Gabe has been quick to punish his daughter, thinking that good parenting requires consistent action. To teach his daughter responsibility, he has to ground her for a few days. This punishment will ensure learning and a future sense of responsibility. Gabe has grounded his daughter on many occasions for her mindless behavior. Karen disagrees with Gabe’s rush to punishment. She thinks that although repeated punishment is likely to quell this behavior, it will adversely affect the maintenance of the higher-level goal, i.e., family harmony and well-being. She opts to respond in a way that quells the misbehaviour (decreases the future tendency to not report after hours) without jeopardizing family harmony and well-being. She has a heart-to-heart chat with her daughter. She tells her daughter that she and her father worry too much when she does not report in after hours. The strategy is to foster a sense of responsibility by having her daughter experience guilt and remorse. This low-level goal is not in conflict with the high-level goal of preserving family harmony and well-being. Repeated grounding is likely to create the impression (in the mind of the daughter) that the parents do not trust her. This image of herself as untrustworthy is likely to be at odds with family harmony and well-being. Achieving the high-level goal of family harmony and well-being is likely to contribute more to well-being than achieving the low-level goal of quelling the daughter’s misbehaviour. The best a low-level goal can generate is feelings of relief, i.e., a reduction in dissatisfaction. So, the moral of this story is to stay focused on higher-level goals and do your best to achieve them through lower-level goals that do not conflict with them. Connecting low-level goals to higher ones is indeed a challenge we must overcome to ensure a positive state of subjective well-being.

Goals Related to Basic versus Growth Needs

Much research suggests that subjective well-being consists of two dimensions that are somewhat independent of each other: positive and negative affect. The factors affecting satisfaction (positive affect) may differ from those affecting dissatisfaction (negative affect). We call the factors that affect positive affect “growth factors,” whereas those that affect negative affect are “hygiene factors.” For example, job satisfaction may be influenced by growth factors such as recognition and responsibility. That is, the presence of recognition and responsibility at work contributes to greater job satisfaction. Conversely, the absence of these conditions does not contribute to dissatisfaction. In contrast, job dissatisfaction is affected by hygiene factors such as wages and physical working conditions. That is, the presence of these conditions does not contribute to satisfaction; their absence does. Hygiene factors are related to lower-order (or basic) needs such as biological and safety needs (a la Maslow). In contrast, growth factors are associated with higher-order needs such as social, esteem, and self-actualization needs (again, à la Maslow). For example, factors affecting job dissatisfaction, such as wages and physical safety, are indeed directly related to lower-order needs of sustenance and physical safety, whereas factors such as recognition and responsibility are directly related to higher-order needs.

In sum, research findings validate the notion that negative affect (i.e., dissatisfaction) can be induced by failure to meet lower-order needs such as biological and safety needs. Meeting biological and safety needs does not contribute much to positive affect (i.e., satisfaction).

The Growth Needs Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased by selecting goals that satisfy higher-order needs (such as social, esteem, and self-actualization) in important life domains. Dissatisfaction can be reduced by selecting goals that address basic needs (e.g., biological and safety needs).

What is the message behind the growth needs principle? Enhancing overall life satisfaction is a two-edged sword. We must enhance satisfaction and reduce dissatisfaction. Research suggests that we can better enhance overall life satisfaction by recognizing that the sources of dissatisfaction are likely to differ from those of satisfaction. We need to acknowledge the independence of positive affect from negative affect. Sources of dissatisfaction with life may lie in lower-order needs, such as health, family, housing, and finances. Activities within these domains are unlikely to significantly enhance positive affect; however, they can play an important role in reducing negative affect. In contrast, life domains such as leisure and recreation, social, work, cultural, educational, and aesthetics, can play an important role in increasing positive affect. Therefore, we need to participate in a variety of life domains, some of which can reduce negative affect, while others can enhance positive affect. Doing so helps maintain a high level of quality of life.

Approach of Desired States versus Avoidance of Undesired States

Research in social psychology and quality-of-life studies has demonstrated that pursuing and achieving goals produces higher levels of subjective well-being than avoiding undesired goals. For example, a person may experience greater well-being by working to make friends than by avoiding loneliness. Perhaps this is because avoiding loneliness primarily reduces negative affect, whereas making friends primarily generates positive affect. Here is another example: passive avoidance of problems between couples significantly reduces contentment. To maintain happiness, difficulties must be faced rather than avoided.

This notion of goal approach or attainment is the converse of avoidance in research on coping. Avoidance is a coping strategy that reduces dissatisfaction in a particular life domain. For example, a student may avoid enrolling in a difficult course to avoid experiencing failure and dissatisfaction in the academic domain. But it should be noted that while most coping strategies reduce negative affect in a particular life domain, they also reduce the likelihood of positive affect. This avoidant coping style reduces the incidence of negative life events. This outcome helps reduce overall negativity in quality of life. By the same token, an avoidant coping style also reduces the number of positive life events and, therefore, the positive quality of life. Thus, a person who adopts an avoidant coping style may have an okay life (a good "negative life quality") but also a poor "positive life quality."

The Approach Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction reduced) by taking action to approach and attain a desirable state rather than to avoid an undesirable one in important life domains.

The goal approach principle urges people to become engaged in life. Participate in life by pursuing goals that can lead to positive affect. Do not walk away from life by avoiding what scares you. Do not let the things that scare you overwhelm your life. If you cannot help it, the next best thing is to limit avoidance behavior to the one thing that scares you. Do not let this one thing generalize into an avoidant tendency that makes you avoid most things in life. Life’s pleasures can only be experienced with the attainment of pleasurable things, not the avoidance of things that can be the source of displeasure. Avoidant tendencies can help you reduce dissatisfaction with life, but they cannot make you happy with life.

Goals Related to Intensity versus Frequency of Positive Affect

Should a person select to pursue a leisure goal that provides frequent but small doses of satisfaction or a leisure goal that is less frequent but provides large doses of satisfaction? Research has shown that intense and frequent positive experiences are associated with subjective well-being because they are readily recalled when people are asked to evaluate their lives. However, frequent positive experiences are demonstrably more related to long-term well-being than intense ones.

The Frequency Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be enhanced by selecting goals in important life domains that allow the person to experience positive affect repeatedly, in small doses, rather than infrequently and in large doses.

The frequency principle teaches us to be careful in how we seek pleasurable experiences in life. Instead of Bungee jumping, parachute diving, or going on a safari, we should engage in many small but daily pleasures. Examples, sip a nice cup of coffee in the morning while reading the paper listening to classical music, watch your favourite show on prime-time television every night or so, go to your neighbourhood theatre every weekend with your significant other and munch on some popcorn while watching the show, have a nice romantic dinner and make love every chance you get, go to a nice exotic restaurant and socialize with friends as often as you can, and so on. Get the picture? Small doses of frequent pleasures are much better than large doses of non-frequent pleasures.

Goals Related to Cultural Norms

Research in quality-of-life studies has shown that personal values (e.g., power, achievement, hedonism, security) moderate the extent to which domain satisfaction contributes to overall life satisfaction. Both culture and the developmental stage (i.e., age) influence personal values. For example, life satisfaction is more strongly related to personal achievements and self-esteem in individualist cultures than in collective cultures. That is, pursuing achievement and self-esteem goals can lead to high levels of subjective well-being in cultures that value them. These cultures are individualistic rather than collectivistic. In sum, domain satisfaction contributes most strongly to subjective well-being when it is consistent with cultural norms and values.

Here are other examples that further demonstrate the moderating effect of culture in the most generic sense. For example, let us look at the cultural differences between men and women. Past research has shown that marital status and happiness are related: married people are happier than unmarried people, and this relationship is moderated by gender. More specifically, married women are happier than married men are and unmarried people in general. Why? Perhaps because the cultural norm is that women should find happiness in the home, whereas men find fulfilment at work. This norm confers status and prestige on married women. Women are socialized to value marriage more than men are. They are more concerned with their appearance and with fears about aging, driven by pressure to attract a man for marriage. Women’s identities are more tied to family identities than men's. This is commonly referred to in the gender socialisation literature as a "hierarchy of gender identities."

Here is another example related to cultural norms. There is much evidence relating employment to subjective well-being. Specifically, employment significantly affects the subjective well-being of men and women alike. That is, unemployed people report lower levels of subjective well-being than employed people. The exception is the homemaker’s segment of the population. There is no significant difference between homemakers’ subjective well-being and the subjective well-being of the employed. One explanation is that culture endows men with the norm that a man’s identity is directly connected with their jobs. “Who they are” is reflected in the jobs they hold. Hence, the work domain is most salient among life domains. This is not the case for homemakers. They choose to define themselves by their family. Hence, the family domain is likely to be the most salient among other life domains. Unemployment among men has a devastating effect on subjective well-being because their self-evaluations, using a variety of self-concept and social comparison referents, generate dissatisfaction in the work domain, which in turn spills over into overall life.

The Cultural Norms Principle of Goal Selection: Selecting goals consistent with cultural norms in important life domains can enhance subjective well-being because achieving those goals brings about social recognition and, therefore, heightened satisfaction. Achieving goals that are inconsistent with cultural norms, on the other hand, may not be as rewarding due to a lack of social recognition.

The cultural norm principle advises us to be aware of how consistent our goals are with cultural norms and how closely our identities are linked to them. A woman who defines herself as a homemaker and a mother in a manner consistent with the community's prevailing norms is unlikely to experience much joy and happiness outside the home. This is because her home life is the most important part of her life and overrides all other life domains. Such identities and strong cultural norms are found in many Muslim countries. The same cultural norms are changing in many Judeo- Christian countries, especially those in the West. Women in those countries no longer define themselves as homemakers only; they are homemakers and career women, some are career women, period; and some are homemakers, period. The cultural norms of the West have changed to allow women to have multiple identities and to choose among them. So, the message is to select personal goals that do not conflict with your community's cultural norms. Goals that are consistent with cultural norms are likely to be more valued and considered more important. Therefore, achieving goals consistent with cultural norms is likely to be more satisfying than those inconsistent with them.

Goals Related to Deprived Needs

Research has shown that economic deprivation is a strong factor influencing materialism (the tendency to value money and material possessions). Poor people who attain wealth become so happy. This is because economic deprivation heightens the need intensity for money and material possessions. This argument can be extended to non-economic needs as well. That is, need deprivation heightens the intensity of any need. In turn, the life domains and subdomains in which this need can be met become more important. As a result, satisfying the deprived need generates a great deal of satisfaction in those important life domains. This satisfaction, in turn, contributes significantly to life satisfaction.

People who are starving for love feel that happiness is being in love. When they finally fall in love, they feel like they are in heaven. Those who are sick think that being healthy is the most important condition for overall well-being. When they eventually get cured, they become happy. When people are constantly hungry, they may think that food and nutrition are the most important things in life. When they finally get to eat well, they become highly satisfied. People who are existentially hopeless are likely to regard meaning or purpose as the most important thing in life. When they finally find meaning in their life events, they also find happiness.

The Need Deprivation Principle of Goal Selection: Selecting goals that reflect deprived needs in important life domains can enhance subjective well-being. The attainment of these goals induces intense positive affect because of heightened involvement in those life domains through which these needs are met.

The need deprivation principle advises us to reflect on and identify needs we believe we have not met, even though we still feel motivated to meet them. How is your need for esteem? Do you feel the need to be recognized for your achievements and successes at work? Then select those work-related goals (e.g., work hard at a task you know is directly related to some award) that may help you attain such goals. Attainment of such goals will bring you much pleasure in life.

Achievement versus Non-Achievement-Related Goals

Personal goals can be achievement- or non-achievement-oriented. For example, a person may set a goal of getting a job promotion and succeed. He feels very good about his work life, directly related to his goal of attaining a job promotion. In contrast, a person may feel that his community is indeed a beautiful place. He feels quite satisfied with his community, and these feelings spill over, thus enhancing his overall subjective well-being. In evaluating his work life, the person may have used his job-related achievement goals. The outcomes are perceived to be a direct result of his actions. But evaluating his community did not involve any achievement goals. He feels lucky to live in a beautiful town. The question is: which domain of satisfaction is likely to be more fulfilling, work life or community life? One can easily argue that satisfaction in life domains where people feel they control their own destiny is likely to be more intense and meaningful than satisfaction in domains where people feel little control.

The Achievement Principle in Goal Selection: Selecting achievement-oriented goals rather than non-achievement goals in important life domains can enhance subjective well-being. The attainment of these goals elicits intense positive affect due to heightened involvement in domains related to achievement goals.

The advice from the achievement principle is clear. Select goals that you can call your own. Select goals that make you feel proud when they come to fruition. A person whose life goal is to live in sunny Southern California does not have a challenging goal. There may be little achievement involved in attaining this goal besides moving there. Well, perhaps this may be an achievement goal to some! Compare this situation to attending graduate school and completing a Master’s degree in your field of specialisation. Now that is an achievement goal! Obtaining a Master's degree is much more fulfilling than moving to sunny Southern California. Right?

Autonomy in Goal Setting

Subjective well-being is related to the extent to which personal goals are chosen autonomously. Research has shown that personal well-being can be enhanced when individuals can pursue their distinct goals autonomously. That is, goals that are essentially determined by others rather than by the individual are unlikely to be important. Thus, the subjective well-being experienced from goal attainment depends on whether the goal was selected autonomously or was pursued under pressure from others. Goals chosen freely and autonomously are more intrinsically satisfying than goals set by others.

Readers who are professors can relate to this case in point. As a professor at a large research university, I have chaired, co-chaired, and served on numerous doctoral dissertation committees. The temptation is great to simply give students ideas for their dissertation research and to help them conduct it closely. The reward for professors usually comes in the form of co-authorship of the resulting publication(s) based on the dissertation research. For many years, I had to fight off the temptation of doing this. I have developed an explicit policy about this. Doctoral students should take ownership of their own dissertations. They should not rely heavily on the mentoring and guidance from their dissertation chairperson and members of their dissertation committee. They should be the sole authors of their dissertation research. Doing so is extremely important in instilling in them a passion for research and the rewards that come from taking ownership of their research. Taking ownership of their research and succeeding does contribute significantly to their subjective well-being. Relinquishing that ownership to others diminishes the significance of the accomplishment. It diminishes the passion, pride, and joy they can derive from completing their dissertation. If doctoral students were to complete their dissertations without feeling passion for the research, then their professors who chaired their dissertation committees may have failed them. The professors may have failed their students because they are unlikely to make significant future research contributions to the discipline and may end up as “teachers” rather than “scholars.” Being a “teacher” is fine, of course. But if these students have the research talent and give up research because they did not develop a passion for it, that is most unfortunate. And the blame lies in part with the professors who failed to allow their students to take ownership of their dissertations in the first place. Over the many years I have been in academe, I have seen many “casualties.” I must admit that on some occasions I have contributed to this problem, and I am guilty as charged. However, I have become increasingly aware of the problem and made an effort over the years to address it. I hope professors who read this will heed this call to action.

The Autonomy Principle of Goal Selection: Selecting goals autonomously (i.e., without the interference or cajoling of others) in important life domains can enhance subjective well-being. The attainment of autonomous goals induces intense positive affect because of heightened involvement in the life domains associated with those goals.

We can all relate to the autonomy principle (some of us more than others). We often hear how parents force their children to do things they do not want to do. Parents force them to take unwanted hobbies. They cajole them into certain competitive sports they don’t enjoy. They convince them that going to college is "a must." There are no “if’s and but’s” about that. The result is that children often select goals “forcibly.” They may not feel happy when they accomplish goals chosen by their parents. They do not feel that these goals are their own. They do not take ownership of these goals. Therefore, little pride can be felt when these goals come to fruition. Consider the story of Tony. Tony felt little joy upon graduating from medical school. He comes from a family of doctors — his father, mother, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Heck, even his baby brother recently enrolled in a medical school. Imagine the social pressure! He did not have much of a choice. It is either this or getting disowned by his family.

So, the message to parents and to all of us who intrude on the lives of our loved ones: back off! Don't push too hard. Allow your loved ones to select their own goals. You can give them advice and support. That is the best you can do. Make sure that they take ownership of their own goals. Let them take “ownership” of their lives by choosing goals that reflect their interests and passions.

Flow

Research has shown that leisure is associated with subjective well-being. That is, there is indeed a strong relationship between the two constructs. Many scholars use the flow principle to explain how certain challenging leisure activities (e.g., competitive sports) contribute to subjective well-being more than passive leisure activities, such as watching television.

Specifically, there is much evidence suggesting that subjective well-being can be induced by a state of “flow.” Flow is a psychological state produced by the person’s perception that their skills match the challenges presented in a given situation. When skills are perceived as greater than challenges, a person is likely to feel bored. When the challenge in a situation is perceived as greater than one’s own skills, the person is likely to feel anxious. When both challenges and skills are perceived as low, the person is likely to feel apathetic.

The Flow Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be enhanced by selecting goals in important life domains requiring a certain level of skill, matching the person’s skill level. Doing so enhances positive affect, which in turn contributes to subjective well-being.

The flow principle recommends that we choose our goals in a way to match our skills. Goals unmatched to our skill levels are either not likely to be attained, or if attained, might not generate much satisfaction.

An offshoot of the flow principle is the principle of skilful winning. Anyone who has played competitive sports can attest to the “flow” of playing against a player of comparable skill. The competition is intense, and the victory is particularly sweet. Playing against a player (team) unmatched in skill can produce feelings of boredom (when the opposition’s skill level falls significantly below the party in question) and anxiety (when the opposition’s skill level is significantly higher). This example highlights the distinction between evaluating the situation before the event and after the event. The pleasure derived from a flow experience differs from that derived from achievement. In motivational psychology, there is a popular distinction among three types of pleasures related to need satisfaction: (a) activity pleasure, (b) achievement pleasure, and (c) effect pleasure. Achievement pleasure corresponds closely to the concept of flow. With respect to achievement pleasure, focus on the example of a player facing a competitor who is much more skilful than he is. It is very likely that he will feel quite anxious, but if he beats the competitor, he is likely to feel much happier than if that competitor has a comparable skill level. This is because such a situation may lead the person to form expectations based on his own skill level and that of his competitor. When a competitor is perceived as more skilled, the person predicts that the competitor will win. Winning, even when predicting a loss, generates intense positive affect.

The Skillful Winning Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be significantly boosted by winning competitive events in which skill levels are slightly below competitors'. Doing so generates considerable positive affect, which in turn contributes to subjective well-being.

To reiterate, the flow principle recommends choosing our goals to match our skills. The principle of skillful winning, on the other hand, recommends competing against parties with a record of skill and achievement slightly above yours (i.e., you are considered the “underdog”). The success of the underdog can be exhilarating and, in turn, significantly contribute to your subjective well-being.

Goal Selection - Expectancy

The “Goal Selection – Valence” module focused on selecting goals in important life domains with high valence. That is, attainment of goals with high valence is likely to produce strong feelings of accomplishment, contributing significantly to subjective well- being. In other words, in the preceding module, we discussed how people can select goals that can bring happiness to their lives. That is, the focus was on goals likely to elicit positive emotions upon attainment. In this module, we will discuss selecting the kind of goals that are likely to be attained and the factors that influence goal expectancy. To reiterate, this module focuses on selecting goals in important life domains with high expectancy. That is, select goals that have a strong likelihood of being met.

Let’s visit Figures 1 and 2. The before part of the figure shows Maggie, feeling happy with her family life (the box is green fill-in), somewhat dissatisfied with her work life (the box is a yellow fill-in), and very dissatisfied with her leisure life (the box is red fill-in). Maggie takes action in her leisure domain to reduce negative affect and possibly generate positive affect. Doing so is likely to spill over into the most superordinate domain, namely, overall life, and enhance subjective well-being. This action is represented in the boxes underneath the leisure domain box and subsumed within the leisure domain. Note that these boxes are green, i.e., their expectancy is high. For example, Maggie discovers a passion in handicraft such as pottery and basket weaving. She now attends a night class (twice a week) in handicrafts and feels very artistic and creative. She is also beginning to thoroughly enjoy aerobic exercise. She exercises three nights a week. She gets a great workout; she loves the instructor, the music, and the people at that fitness centre. Moreover, she feels good about staying in shape and losing weight. These two actions in the leisure domain were undertaken with strong expectations of goal achievement, specifically to shift the valence of leisure life from negative to positive. The positive feelings from the leisure domain, in turn, spill over to the most superordinate domain of overall life, thus increasing life satisfaction. However, the key to understanding the focal point of this exercise lies in the expectation regarding goal selection, beyond goal valence. Maggie has not only selected goals that have made a difference in her leisure life, but also has strong expectations that these goals are most likely to be attained through a selected course of action. Selecting the goals with high expectations for achievement is the focus here.

Let’s say she selects another goal with low expectancy for goal attainment. Instead of an aerobic exercise, she decides to train for a marathon. Maggie was a track runner in high school. That was a few years back. She enjoyed running back then, but she never competed in a track tournament. She is now a little out of shape. Nevertheless, she thinks that she would enjoy competing in a marathon. Deep down, she doesn’t think she can successfully compete, let alone finish the marathon. Here, she has selected a goal with low expectancy. In other words, her expectation of successfully completing a marathon is low. Goals with low expectancy are not likely to be met successfully. Hence, the effort is likely to end up in failure, which in turn would decrease rather than increase her subjective well-being.

Before	After

The Expectancy Principle in Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be enhanced by being highly selective in choosing a course of action that is highly instrumental in goal attainment, which, in turn, is likely to induce strong positive emotions (e.g., joy, affection, pride).

Factors Affecting the Selection of Goals Likely to be Attained

In this section, we will discuss selecting the kind of goals that are likely to be attained. Factors that affect goal completion include setting goals to adapt to changes, feedforward, goal-motive congruence, goal-cultural value congruence, goal-resources congruence, goal-skills congruence, and goal realism.

Setting Goals to Adapt to Changes

A study I read recently involved attorneys who had undergone a distinct career transition. Their careers became less important, and their families became more important. Those who recognized the change and reorganized their goals accordingly reported significantly higher levels of life satisfaction than those who failed to recognize it and failed to adapt their goals. As such, we can weave a psychological principle based on this research as follows:

The Adaptation Principle of Goal Selection: Selecting goals that reflect changes in circumstances can reduce dissatisfaction within a life domain. New goals, consistent with the new circumstances, may also increase satisfaction in the long run. Doing so should enhance subjective well-being.

The adaptation principle urges us to be flexible. Our goals should be malleable. We must be ready to adjust our goals to reflect the realities of our changing circumstances. Take, for example, a college student in the U.S. who plays on the football team, whose life goal has been to do well so he can join a National Football League (NFL) team and play professionally. One day, he is injured. According to his doctors, the injury is likely to hamper his physical performance on the field. However, this player was not ready to give up football. He persisted, but his athletic performance declined; his chances of playing professional football gradually evaporated; and his academic standing in college was significantly undermined.

The advice from the adaptation principle is that, instead of clinging to his goal of becoming a professional player, he should face reality. The new reality dictated that becoming a professional football player is no longer possible. Hanging on to this goal is likely to create much unhappiness in his life. He should have changed that goal to meet his new life circumstances. He should have chosen a goal that better reflects his current and future physical condition. Perhaps, he could have focused on becoming a physical education teacher or coach.

Here is a piece of advice: People who cannot attain their goals become consumed with disappointment. You must let your goals evolve with your life circumstances. Update your goals over time as your priorities and resources change.

Feedforward

Research has shown that older people are more satisfied with their past and current lives but more anxious about what they anticipate will happen to them in the future. Life satisfaction is influenced not only by past events across various life domains but also by what people anticipate in the future. The extent to which people believe their goals will be met is an important factor in life satisfaction. If goals are projected to be unattainable, one way to address this challenge is to set attainable goals. This is what is called feedforward.

Feedback is based on past trial-and-error learning. In other words, people receive feedback on whether certain actions were successful in increasing positive affect (or decreasing negative affect), and they adjust their planned actions accordingly. Feedforward, on the other hand, is somewhat different. It is based on anticipating the future. The past may or may not be a guide. In other words, people tend to conjure up a mental situation to anticipate actual outcomes. A person decides which action to take based on the positive or negative feelings imagined because of a contemplated action. Thus, goal setting is heavily influenced by feedforward—anticipating consequences of alternative goals and task outcomes.

The Feedforward Principle of Goal Selection: Goals likely to be attained are selected by conjuring scenarios that visualize alternative ways to achieve them. Goals that are selected should reflect the person’s confidence in goal attainment.

The feedforward principle suggests that we need to put much thought into selecting our goals. Our goals should not be chosen whimsically. Our goals should not be selected impulsively based on what feels good at the moment. The feedforward principle urges us to consider each goal across key life domains and envision possible scenarios for achieving it. Can these goals be attained? If so, through what course of action? What are the likely consequences of the contemplated course of action? What about alternative courses of action? What are the likely consequences of those? Which is the course of action likely to generate consequences that are most positive and least negative? Thus, goals and actions designed to generate the most pleasure with the least pain should be selected. This is what is meant by using feedforward in goal selection.

Goal-Motive Congruence

Research has shown that subjective well-being depends not only on goal attainment but also on the extent to which realized goals are congruent or incongruent with personal motives. In other words, commitment to motive-incongruent goals reduces emotional well-being, and vice versa. A typical example is one most college professors are familiar with: the college student whose motives are not aligned with educational goals. Many students are strongly motivated by social and love (romantic) needs. These needs sometimes interfere with the setting and attainment of good grades. Partying late at night interferes with completing important homework assignments and attending morning classes. Thus, educational goals are said to be incongruent with the social and love needs of many college students. This goal-motive incongruence may cause students to perform poorly in college classes, preventing them from achieving their educational goals and earning decent grades. Failing to earn decent grades leads to dissatisfaction with their educational life.

The Motive Congruence Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction reduced) by selecting goals that align with needs. Doing so increases the likelihood of goal attainment, domain satisfaction, and subjective well-being.

What can we learn from the goal-motive congruence principle? Select goals that are consistent with your motives. Find out the motive underlying the goal you are trying to achieve. Is it motivated by biological, safety, social, or esteem needs? Is the need underlying the goal strong? If so, this is the kind of goal that is likely to be achieved. This is because competing goals are unlikely to be strong enough to override the focal goal.

Goal-Cultural Value Congruence

Much research shows that classical conditioning, instrumental learning, and imitation effects influence subjective well-being. For example, mothers teach their children how to behave in ways that conform to cultural norms. Such conformance leads the children to experience positive affect, and non-conformance leads to negative affect. Consider the following study, which found a linear increase in positive affect (and a proportional decrease in negative affect) with age among children aged 2.5 to 7.5 months. This is evidence of socialization effects on subjective well-being. By learning what is acceptable and unacceptable, children become increasingly successful in achieving goals. Goal attainment enables them to experience more positive than negative affect, thus making a systematic and incremental contribution to their subjective well-being.

Consider other research related to travel and tourism. Study findings indicate that satisfaction with travel predicted subjective well-being more in wealthy than in poor countries. The explanation is guided by the principle of goal-cultural value congruence. Specifically, goals related to leisure activities are more accepted in wealthy countries than in poor ones.

To reiterate, subjective well-being depends not only on goal attainment but also on the extent to which realized goals align with or diverge from cultural values. People who successfully attain personal goals valued by their culture or subculture are likely to experience higher levels of subjective well-being than those who attain goals that are incongruent with those of their culture or subculture.

The Cultural Value Congruence Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction reduced) by selecting goals consistent with cultural (and/or subcultural) values. Doing so increases the likelihood of goal attainment, domain satisfaction, and subjective well-being.

The goal-cultural value congruence principle advises us to select goals that are consistent with cultural norms. Goals consistent with cultural norms are likely to be achieved more easily than those inconsistent with them. If you belong to a cultural group you identify with, select your goals in a manner consistent with the norms of that group. You will encounter fewer obstacles on your way to achieving your goal, and you will feel better about yourself and your life afterward.

Goal-Resources Congruence

What do we mean by “resources”? The concept of “resources” as we use it here is not limited to financial resources. There are three dimensions of resources: (a) personal resources such as health, traits, strategies, and abilities, (b) social resources such as social networks and social support, and (c) material resources such as money, power, and status. Research shows that subjective well-being is not only dependent on goal attainment but also on the extent to which the realized goals are congruent or incongruent with one’s own personal resources. Those whose resources align with their goals are more likely to attain them and thus experience higher levels of subjective well- being than those whose resources do not.

For example, the quality-of-life literature provides substantial evidence of a positive relationship between income and subjective well-being. One of the most plausible explanations of this relationship is the goal-resource congruence principle. That is, goal attainment (a major source of satisfaction and therefore subjective well- being) is facilitated by the availability of resources – in this case, economic resources. Economic resources serve a wide array of needs. Richer people enjoy better food, housing, transport, education, and leisure. They have greater access to medicine and healthcare, which makes them healthier than poor people. They may have higher self- esteem because of their social class. Money is good for marriage and families because money helps meet a wide array of family needs.

Personal income does play a significant role in subjective well-being. Income plays an important role in enhancing environmental control, self-esteem, and optimism. That is, monetary resources help people exert control over their environment. Income helps people achieve their life goals. For example, if a person likes to socialize with his friends (because friendship is important in his life and he experiences great satisfaction in that domain), then financial means to help him socialize would facilitate goal attainment. Goal attainment provides the individual with feelings of optimism—perceptions that future goals can also be achieved. Hence, the lesson here about money is that money by itself does not buy happiness, but how one uses it to help attain important goals is key to happiness.

The Resources Congruence Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction reduced) by selecting goals that align with available resources. Doing so increases the likelihood of goal attainment, domain satisfaction, and subjective well-being.

The advice of the goal-resources congruence principle is simple and straightforward. Personal and financial resources can go a long way to help you accomplish your goals. If your resources are limited, select goals you can accomplish with what resources you have. Give up on or replace goals you cannot complete with the resources you have.

Goal Realism

People experience greater satisfaction when they strive to attain realistic, attainable goals than when they do not. In other words, people who are typically habituated to easy tasks tend to be happier when their goals are not set high, whereas those who tend to engage in difficult tasks tend to be happier when their goals are set higher. Thus, satisfaction is maximized when their characteristic striving (low versus high) matches the difficulty of their daily life tasks (easy versus difficult). Translation is in order. People perceive certain tasks as “easy” because they anticipate being able to complete them with the resources they have. In other words, they perceive these tasks as realistic and achievable. Conversely, when people think a task is difficult, they believe it is not realistic to complete it.

The Realism Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction reduced) by selecting realistic goals rather than unrealistic ones. Realistic goals are more likely to be attained, and therefore generate positive affect, than unrealistic goals. Doing so enhances domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

The goal realism principle recommends selecting goals we think have a good chance of being realized. Goals that are too difficult to achieve should be abandoned because they are likely to cause dissatisfaction with the task at hand and to reduce domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

Goal Conflict

Research has shown that life satisfaction is associated with the consistency of life goals. The greater the consistency among goals regarding career, education, family, and geography, the greater the life satisfaction. In other words, goal compatibility (i.e., consistency) or lack of conflict plays a major role in life satisfaction. Much evidence is consistent with this principle. Research has shown that goal conflict is associated with negative affect, neuroticism, depression, stress, psychosomatic complaints, and life dissatisfaction.

Specifically, people who attempt to pursue conflicting goals simultaneously are unlikely to attain them; hence, they may experience dissatisfaction with non-attainment. For example, a college student learns she is “on probation” because her grade point average (GPA) has fallen below 2.0. She becomes highly motivated to study more and exert more effort in her academic work. She also notes that her relationship with her boyfriend is crumbling. So, she vows to spend more time with her boyfriend, without changing anything else in her life to accommodate the extra time devoted to studying. The goal of raising her GPA by devoting more time and effort to studying conflicts directly with the goal of saving her relationship. She cannot do both simultaneously. The outcome is likely that she would fail to raise her GPA and save her relationship with her boyfriend.

The Conflict Principle of Goal Selection: Subjective well-being can be increased (or dissatisfaction can be decreased) by selecting goals in one or more life domains that do not conflict with one another. Doing so increases the likelihood of goal attainment, domain satisfaction, and subjective well-being.

Here is an interesting metaphor capturing this principle. Your car's four tires must be properly aligned; otherwise, the left tires will point in a different direction than the right tires, and the car won't work. Goals are just like that. They all must be pointed in the same direction. If your goals conflict, your life may not work.

Goal Implementation and Attainment

Figures 1 and 2 are designed to describe goal implementation and attainment in a graphic form. The before part of the figure shows Maggie’s situation, the person described in the previous module. Maggie is feeling happy with her family life (the box is green fill-in), somewhat dissatisfied with her work life (the box is a yellow fill-in), and very dissatisfied with her leisure life (the box is red fill-in). Maggie takes action in her leisure domain to reduce negative affect and possibly generate positive affect. In the previous module, it was noted that she selects two new leisure goals: handicrafts and aerobics. The question that we need to ask here is to what extent these two new goals are likely to be realized. What are the facilitators and inhibitors that may affect goal implementation and attainment? Goal attainment, of course, in the leisure domain is likely to completely change the valence from negative to positive.

Before	After

Satisfaction in any life domain can be viewed through the lens of goal consumption. People who set goals, take action in pursuit of these goals, and attain them feel satisfied. Failing to attain their goals leads to dissatisfaction. In other words, life satisfaction stems from goal attainment, and people who have developed effective strategies for achieving their goals tend to experience higher levels of subjective well- being than those with less effective strategies. Therefore, the primary determinant of domain satisfaction is goal attainment, which, in turn, satisfies activated needs.

The Principle of Goal Implementation and Attainment: Satisfaction in a life domain can be increased (or dissatisfaction can be decreased) by taking action to implement and achieve important goals set in that domain. Doing so contributes to domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

The message here is very clear. Satisfaction is only experienced when people take action to achieve their goals and enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Most parents get on their children’s cases for not doing important things. That is, most parents tend to encourage and cajole their children to set goals for themselves (e.g., in academics, sports, and other extracurricular activities) and to take steps to attain them. Boredom and laziness are the greatest enemies of subjective well-being. Children who are not socialized to use their time wisely become troubled. They get into trouble. They become easily alienated from their parents and society. Staying active and focused on accomplishing important goals is the key to a good life.

Factors Affecting Goal Attainment

In the following section, we will focus on identifying and describing factors that affect goal attainment and the satisfaction derived from it. These are recognition of goal attainment, goal concreteness, and progress toward goal attainment.

Recognition of Goal Attainment

It should be noted that it is not goal attainment that contributes to subjective well- being but the recognition of that attainment. In other words, satisfaction from goal attainment is experienced only when a person recognizes they have attained the goal. Research on highly educated professionals has shown that those who are less satisfied with life often fail to recognize their own accomplishments. Instead, they focus on goals yet to be attained and judge themselves accordingly. Therefore, goal attainment contributes to subjective well-being only when the person recognizes it. Goal attainment without the person's focal attention does little for domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

The Principle of Recognition of Goal Attainment: Focusing attention on one’s accomplishments in a life domain can increase satisfaction in that domain. A good sense of appreciation of one’s accomplishments can be a significant factor in enhancing domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

Supposedly, the Thanksgiving holiday (a U.S. holiday) is designed to do exactly that — help people focus on their accomplishments. They count their blessings for what they have, not for what they are missing in their lives. So, the advice we take from the principle of recognition of goal attainment is to count our blessings. Every once in a while, we should revisit a particular life domain and take stock of our accomplishments in it. Savor those accomplishments and take pride in them. Recognizing accomplishments is a big factor in our feelings of pride and happiness.

How about the following exercise? To increase your sense of well-being, make yourself aware of your Blessings or the things that you are thankful for in life, your Accomplishments or the things which you care about, and your Talents or the skills and abilities you possess in every part of life. Make yourself aware of these things by writing down as many as you can.

Another exercise is to log your successful experiences. This exercise involves keeping a daily record of experiences that reflect “success.” Thus, those who maintain a daily record of successful experiences are likely to recognize and celebrate their accomplishments.

Goal Concreteness

Although abstract goals are likely to be more meaningful, people do not know when they have attained these goals. They are hard to measure, and therefore, you do not know if and when the goal is achieved. In contrast, concrete goals are measurable goals. One can gauge how much progress one is making toward that goal. There is considerable research that supports what social psychologists call “concrete thinking.” Research has shown that perceptions that life is meaningful and therefore worthwhile increase significantly with concrete thinking. Concrete thinking is thinking in exact, measurable terms. Concrete thinking may be contrasted with “fuzzy thinking.” Concrete thinkers are very conscious of the measurable aspects of their abstract goals. Therefore, they can effectively gauge their progress toward their goals.

The Concreteness Principle of Goal Implementation and Attainment: Abstract goals translated concretely in measurable terms are likely to result in greater domain satisfaction than abstract goals that are non-measurable. This is because satisfaction can only be experienced when the person recognizes goal attainment. In other words, recognition of goal attainment is facilitated by goal concreteness, thus contributing to domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

You should note that the principle of goal concreteness is not in direct conflict with the principle of high-level goals, as discussed in the Goal Selection (Valence) module. On the one hand, we recommend selecting abstract goals (not concrete) because they are more value-laden; on the other hand, for goal implementation and attainment, we recommend translating your abstract goals into concrete terms so you can recognize and savour goal attainment. To reiterate, abstract and high-level goals can bring great joy once attained. But the attainment of these abstract, high-level goals will not be recognized unless they are translated into concrete, measurable terms. The principle suggests that if we set a high-level goal, we need to define it concretely. The high-level goal must be defined in measurable terms, so the person knows when it is attained. Therefore, the catch is measurement.

Remember the story of Karen and Gabe. Both are parents with an adolescent daughter. Both have a high-level goal of family harmony and well-being. How do they know when they experience family harmony and well-being? If they are to derive any satisfaction from this goal, they must know when their family is in harmony and functions well as a unit. When asked, Karen has a concrete way of defining family harmony and well-being. She says, “My family is in harmony when my husband and I go for several months without a major disagreement about how to discipline our daughter, and when our daughter does not rock the boat or misbehaves. In my mind, family well-being is when we spend enough time doing things together, we share our daily stories and feel connected to one another.” In Karen’s mind, her high-level goal of family harmony and well-being is concrete. She knows when the family is experiencing harmony and well-being at any given moment. This is what goal concreteness is all about!

Progress toward Goal Attainment

Research suggests people derive much pleasure from pursuing goals to meet their needs. The pleasure derived from making incremental progress towards need fulfilment is intense and possibly as intense as, or even more intense than, the pleasure derived from goal attainment per se.

Consider the study that found that the rate of progress toward one’s goals was a good predictor of affect intensity relative to the affect experienced during actual goal attainment. Therefore, satisfaction in a given domain can be influenced not only by goal attainment (or the realization of it) but also by perceptions of significant progress toward it. Specifically, the study found that students were as happy when they felt they were making progress toward their academic goals as when they had achieved them.

The Progress Principle of Goal Attainment: Action directed toward goal attainment within a life domain contributes to increases in satisfaction in that domain in two ways: (a) The action increases the likelihood of goal attainment, inducing positive affect in that domain, which in turn contributes to subjective well-being. (b) The action itself induces positive affect by prompting the anticipation of goal attainment, which in turn contributes to domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

The progress principle gives away strong advice. This advice is to take stock not only of fait-accompli events but also of your progress toward your goals. Recognize your progress and celebrate it. Pat yourself on the back for making progress toward important goals. Take pride in these accomplishments, even though the end goal has not been achieved. Savour your past accomplishments and see them as evidence of good progress toward your ultimate goals. Never think of these accomplishments as failures to attain the ultimate goal. They represent hope and anticipation of achieving the final goal.

Factors Affecting Goal Implementation

Much research suggests that goal attainment can be facilitated by increasing one’s commitment to the goal and by learning from trial and error, thereby enhancing the likelihood of task completion. We will describe these factors in some detail next.

Goal Commitment

Research has shown that satisfaction in particular life domains depends on goal commitment. That is, the person has to be committed to the set goal. He or she has to allocate resources and take systematic action to achieve the set goal. Stated more technically, the effect of goal achievement on domain satisfaction and subjective well- being is moderated by goal commitment. That is, goal attainment is facilitated when the person is committed to the goal and does what they can to achieve it. If people drop out midway through a task designed to achieve a goal, the result is task non-completion. The goal cannot be attained if the task is not completed, and thus, satisfaction cannot be experienced. This is, of course, a “no-brainer.”

Consider the study focusing on household chores. The study demonstrates the moderating effects of goal commitment. The study showed that regularity in household routines significantly improved daily personal satisfaction. In this case, routinized work reflects goal commitment and thus facilitates goal attainment. Yet another study has shown that the difference between people with happy personal relationships and those with unhappy ones lies not in personal conflicts but in commitment to goals. Agreements to resolve marital conflict must be followed through. Those who followed through on agreed-upon changes after marital counselling were more satisfied with their marriages than those who did not. Yet another study showed how personal goal strivings contribute to subjective well-being. The researchers focused on spiritual strivings and measured this construct by asking respondents to describe how they meet their religious goals. Examples of spiritual strivings include statements such as "praise God every day, whether my situation is good or bad," "spend time reading the Bible every morning," "volunteer my time and talent in my church," say my prayers daily," and " take a Sabbath." Higher levels of personal goal strivings mean greater goal commitment. This measure of spiritual strivings was positively and significantly correlated with measures of subjective well-being.

Speaking about religion and religiosity, Buddha once said, ". . . The thoughtless man, even if he can recite a large portion of the law, but is not a doer of it, has no share in the religious life. . . . . The follower of the law, even if he can recite only a small portion of it, . . . possesses true knowledge and serenity of mind; he . . . has indeed shared in the religious life.”

The Commitment Principle of Goal Implementation: Action reflecting goal commitment (e.g., persistent effort even in the face of failure) in a life domain contributes to subjective well-being by increasing the likelihood of goal attainment in that domain. Goal attainment is a major source of domain satisfaction and subjective well-being.

The goal commitment principle states that you cannot bring joy to your life by wishing for things alone. These wishes have to come true, and for them to come true, you have to pursue them and pursue them vigorously. In other words, you have to be committed to your goals. Without a strong commitment to your goals, they are unlikely to materialize. So, stick to your goals and do not give up in light of failure. Repeated attempts and hard work will get you there. And once you get there, you will see that it was worth it after all.

Feedback

Action designed to enhance positive affect in a life domain is based on feedback, i.e., past learning. The simple fact that people learn from their mistakes allows them to adjust their actions by selecting those more likely to produce positive feelings through trial and error. Most important is adapting goals to life circumstances. After repeated failure, people tend to adjust the goals to make them “more realistic.” This means that people learn strategies by trial and error. Unsuccessful strategies are abandoned, and new ones are implemented. This trial-and-error learning helps identify effective strategies that lead to goal attainment.

The Feedback Principle of Goal Implementation: Trial-and-error learning facilitates task completion and, therefore, the satisfaction that follows from goal attainment. Trial-and-error learning entails trying out different ways to accomplish the task; those that lead to task completion are identified and reinforced.

The trial-and-error learning principle is a fundamental principle in the psychology of learning. This principle recommends that we learn from our mistakes. Our mistakes can show us how to achieve our goals. Use this learning wisely to help you accomplish your important life goals in the future.

Re-Appraisal

This module describes re-appraisal as a strategy that people can use to enhance their subjective quality of life. I describe what reappraisal is and how the strategy can be implemented in at least four ways. These are active teaching, spirituality, emotional support, and passage of time.

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the re-appraisal process graphically. The before portion of the figure (Figure 1) shows a person who is moderately satisfied with his life. He is happy with his family life, moderately satisfied with his work life, and dissatisfied with his leisure life. He recalls mostly negative events in his family life, some positive and some negative in his work life, and mostly negative events in his leisure life. Figure 2 shows the re-appraisal process. He reappraised the negative events at work, which made him feel better about them. Now he feels much better about his work life, which, in turn, has contributed to increased overall satisfaction with life. The focal point of the reappraisal is to shed new meaning on the negative events at work (event 1). Suppose the person in question, let us call her Kathryn, is a medical researcher and a professor of medicine at a renowned medical school. Her research has focused on diabetes. She has conducted research showing that changes in lifestyle (diet, exercise, stress management, leisure activities, etc.) can reduce diabetes symptoms in older adults. She has published much of this research in diabetes-related medical specialty journals. However, she thinks that success and recognition for her research are likely to come from publications in the most renowned medical journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, rather than in medical speciality journals related to diabetes. She has tried to get her research published in these journals with no success. These journals typically publish research considered “pioneering” and “path-breaking,” which is not characteristic of her research. Therefore, she feels bad about this aspect of her work life.

She reappraises this particular set of events. She realizes that her publications in diabetes journals are likely to be more impactful than those in the most prestigious general medical journals. This is because physicians who specialize in treating diabetes are more likely to regularly subscribe to diabetes-related medical journals than to the most prestigious medical journals. Hence, her research is likely to reach the target audience more quickly and effectively. This reappraisal has made her feel much better about her work life, which, in turn, made her feel better about her life overall.

Before	After

Reappraisal is essentially an attitude change. Changing attitudes involves reinterpreting events and circumstances in one's life. For example, a man believes he failed in marriage and is therefore doomed to fail at finding a life partner. Such generalization is likely to cause a great deal of sadness and grief. Such misinterpretation can be corrected by a convincing argument that failing in one marriage does not doom him to failing in a future romantic relationship.

There is substantial research evidence suggesting that how people interpret their life circumstances is closely linked to how they feel about life. For example, clinical psychologists talk about coping and how happy people initiate thoughts and behavior that are adaptive and helpful in solving their problems. In contrast, unhappy people cope in more destructive ways. Happy people are more likely to see the bright side of things, pray, and tackle their problems head-on, whereas unhappy people are more likely to blame others and themselves and avoid working on their problems. Studies have also shown that one can enhance subjective well-being by being optimistic about one's future. In other words, thinking about the future in positive or negative terms influences subjective well-being. Again, research indicates that depressed people are more likely to believe that negative events are caused by global and stable causes, and that negative events are very likely to continue to happen to them. Depressed people think about the world in self-defeating ways. Again, this illustrates how negative thoughts can affect subjective well-being. Additionally, much research has shown that happy people are not more successful than unhappy people. Their life experiences are almost the same. What is different is how they view the world and appraise life events. Unhappy people tend to appraise their life events negatively, while happy people do the opposite. People with high subjective well-being are also more likely to perceive "neutral" events as positive. Thus, happy people may not only experience more positive events objectively but also perceive them more positively than unhappy people. The old adage of “some see the glass as half full while others see it as half empty” applies here. Happy people usually appraise their life events positively (they see the glass as half full). Unhappy people appraise events negatively (they see them as the glass being half empty). Happy people interpret defeat differently from unhappy people. Happy people usually explain it away. They attribute defeat to an isolated incident that indicates little about their ability. Unhappy people, on the other hand, take defeat quite personally. They focus on it, magnify, and dwell on it. Defeat colours their future vision too. They predict that they will fail in the future because of that defeat. Unhappy people see negative things not only in defeat but also in any world event. Unhappy people tend to infer “hidden agendas” in people’s actions. For example, if a person acts benevolently towards another, the unhappy person is likely to think the benevolent act is motivated by ulterior motives, such as personal gain. Happy people, on the other hand, see benevolence as motivated by care.

In sum, here is a principle capturing much of this discussion.

The Reappraisal Principle: Reinterpreting significant negative events can convert the negative affect associated with them into positive affect. This should reduce dissatisfaction in the area hosting these events. Conversely, reinterpreting significant positive events can enhance their positive valence, thereby increasing satisfaction in the domain in which they occur. Doing so should help enhance subjective well-being.

Here is a technique to help with attitude change: the stress diary. This technique helps you identify times when they are upset. You try to identify and articulate the feelings and thoughts related to the negative feelings. Keeping a diary helps you identify positive responses to negative thoughts. That is, develop realistic, positive counterarguments to negative thoughts. Try to assess the situation as objectively as possible. As such, counterarguments can be generated by examining the credibility of the evidence, discounting misinterpretations based on a lack of evidence, or pointing to evidence that supports a contrary interpretation. This is the essence of cognitive- behavioral therapy. Irrationality is thought that is illogical, biased, prejudiced, and highly personalized. Thus, unhappiness is the result of self-verbalizations determined, not by external circumstances or events, but by the perceptions of these events. Perceptions of events are shaped by how people interpret them. Interpretation is subject to those beliefs that are evoked from memory for the purpose of categorizing and giving meaning to that event. Certain beliefs used to interpret events can lead to irrational thinking. Here are examples of irrational beliefs.

• “It is essential that one be loved or approved by virtually everyone in his community.”
• “One must be perfectly competent, adequate, and achieving to consider oneself worthwhile.”
• “Some people are bad, wicked, or villainous and therefore should be blamed and punished.”
• “It is a terrible catastrophe when things are not as one wants them to be.”
• “Unhappiness is caused by outside circumstances, and the individual has no control over it.”
• “Dangerous or fearsome things are causes for great concern, and their possibility must be continually dwelt upon.”
• “It is easier to avoid certain difficulties and self-responsibilities than to face them.”
• “One should be dependent on others and must have someone stronger on whom to rely.”
• “Past experiences and events determine present behavior; the influence of the past cannot be eradicated.”
• “One should be quite upset over other people’s problems and disturbances.”
• “There is always a right or perfect solution to every problem, and it must be found, or the results will be catastrophic.”

These beliefs cause perceptual distortions and irrational thinking. Irrational thinking, in turn, leads to unhappiness. For example, let us focus on the last belief (“there is always a right or perfect solution to every problem, and it must be found or the results will be catastrophic”). This belief leads to irrational thinking because there is no perfect solution to any problem. Any problem can be solved through a variety of ways. The effectiveness of any solution depends heavily on the theoretical approach used to evaluate it. Insistence on finding the perfect solution leads people to judge effectiveness from one narrow perspective. Deviations from standards as specified from that narrow perspective might cause the individual to be extra critical of many events and outcomes. This negativity underlies negative affect across many life domains, which in turn adversely affects subjective well-being.

So how do we change irrational thinking? How can we become more rational? Rational-emotive therapy recommends doing this by learning to think rationally. Ridding oneself of the irrational beliefs that cause the misinterpretation does this. Thus, the first step is to identify the irrational belief that is causing you to appraise the event in a negative way. Second, replace the irrational belief with its rational counterpart.

Reappraisal Interventions

The literature on quality of life suggests that many strategies help people reappraise negative events. These include reappraisal through active teaching, spirituality, social support, and the passage of time.

Active Teaching

Rational-emotive therapy recommends reappraisal through active teaching. Ask a friend (or a life coach) to play the role of the teacher to help you become “re- educated.” Ask your friend (or life coach) to help you identify your irrational beliefs. Your friend (or life coach) can then explain why these beliefs are irrational and therefore dysfunctional. Doing so may bring your irrational beliefs to your attention in a forceful, direct way. Your friend (or life coach) could help you explain how these self-defeating verbalizations may be the cause of your unhappiness. In other words, your friend (or life coach) teaches you how to re-think, challenge, contradict, and re-verbalize these beliefs to make them more logical and rational. Finally, your friend (or life coach) should encourage, persuade, or perhaps cajole you to act in ways consistent with the newly formed rational beliefs.

The Teaching Principle of Re-appraisal: Re-interpreting significant negative events in rational terms can convert negative affect associated with these events into positive affect. This should reduce dissatisfaction within the domain that houses these events. A person (e.g., a friend or life coach) who assumes the role of teacher can facilitate this reinterpretation. Doing so should enhance subjective well-being.

Based on the teaching-appraisal principle, we can reappraise negative events to increase our happiness. To do so, we need to seek help from a trusted friend or life coach who can help us challenge the beliefs that lead us to perceive certain events negatively. This person should become our mentor. Again, the key here is trust. We need to select a person we consider credible because we need to believe what they say is true. Hence, trust and credibility are very important. This person should mentor us in how we see the world, particularly in how we interpret the events that trouble us. Our mentor should challenge our irrational beliefs and teach us to think differently, more rationally, logically, and positively.

Spirituality

Spirituality refers to a system of beliefs and actions that reflects an appreciation of "a greater whole" (beyond our self-centeredness). The greater whole can be a belief in God in the religious sense (and actions to abide by the word of God) or merely beliefs and actions reflecting one's true self, which is a small part of "nature," "the planet," "the community," and/or "family." In other words, spirituality motivates the person to focus away from the self and toward a "greater whole."

Consider the study that found that among those who were struck by the HIV virus, some coped better than others. Those who coped better seemed to interpret the affliction spiritually, and therefore, they find purpose and meaning in this occurrence. Doing so reduced the potential negative impact on subjective well-being. Research on the effect of religion on life satisfaction shows that people with strong spiritual beliefs tend to be more satisfied with their lives than those without. This finding cuts across all religious affiliations. A study on crime and victimization shows that those who believed there is justice in this world reported higher levels of life satisfaction than those who did not. The subjects were either crime victims or knew of someone close to them who was a crime victim.

The Spiritual Principle of Reappraisal: Reinterpreting significant negative events in spiritual terms can transform the negative affect associated with these events into positive affect. This should reduce dissatisfaction within the domain that houses these events. Conversely, reinterpreting significant positive events in spiritual terms may enhance their positive valence, thereby increasing satisfaction. Doing so should enhance subjective well-being.

In sum, faith can show us the way in a world in which bad things happen. It can teach us that much of what we see is so complex that we cannot understand why and how it occurred.

Social Support

A study investigated how employees reappraise work stressors and how this reappraisal affects subjective well-being. Specifically, subjective well-being was influenced by problem- and emotion-focused reappraisals. Emotion-focused reappraisal involves attempts to reduce emotional distress associated with a stressful situation through social support. Simply put, the employee reappraises the work stressor by discussing it with others to obtain emotional support.

Consider this experimental study with a group of women who expressed dissatisfaction with their lives. One group of women was introduced to others who provided them with emotional support; the other group was left to deal with their problems on their own. Those who received emotional support from others were able to reappraise their life circumstances and showed a marked improvement in life satisfaction compared with women who did not receive such support. In contrast, problem-focused reappraisals involve attempts to reduce stress through instrumental social support -- activities such as receiving practical help from others. For example, the employee receives help with family or work responsibilities, advice in resolving situations, and/or financial aid. Thus, workers appraise stressors more positively when they engage in problem- and emotion-focused coping than when they do not.

The Social Support Principle of Reappraisal: Re-interpreting significant negative events with the assistance of significant others can reduce the valence of the negative affect associated with these events. This should reduce dissatisfaction within the domain that houses these events. Doing so should enhance subjective well-being.

David Myers, author of The Pursuit of Happiness, has reviewed the literature on the relationship between spirituality and subjective well-being and concluded that religiously active people in Europe and the USA are happier than their non-religious counterparts. Religious people are also much less likely to become delinquent, to abuse drugs and alcohol, to divorce, or to commit suicide. They are also physically healthier. Myers explains that religion plays an important role in buffering personal crises. For example, a person who experiences a loss, such as the death of a spouse, interprets the loss in ways that are less damaging to the person’s subjective well-being. Belonging to a church allows a person to seek social and emotional support from church members. The support helps the person re-interpret the loss in ways that preserve satisfaction with life. So, the message to those who seek personal growth is to get involved with a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or religious fellowship that can provide the social and emotional support you’ll need in moments of crisis. This support is important for helping you adjust to negative events in your life by giving them new meaning.

Time

As the saying goes, “time heals wounds.” When bad things happen, sometimes giving it time helps the wound heal. The disappointment becomes less intense, and the distress created by the negative affect dissipates as life takes new directions. Research has shown that happy people are not immune to negative events. They deal with those events by not thinking about them and allowing time to “heal the wounds.”

The Time Principle of Reappraisal: Dissatisfaction in a given domain arising from a significant negative event decreases over time. Thus, domain dissatisfaction can be reduced by allowing time to pass without thinking and dwelling on the negative event. Doing so enhances subjective well-being.

The message from the time-healing principle is straightforward. Let time help you heal the wound. With time, emotions become less intense. Other events take on more importance with the passage of time. So, allow time to intervene if all else fails.

Balance

Figures 1 and 2 show an individual before and after implementing balance. The “before” situation describes a person who feels very good about his family life (determined mostly by family events that are all positive), moderately negative about his work life (determined by moderately negative and very negative events at work), and very negative about his leisure life (determined by leisure events that have generated intense negative feelings).

The principle of balance holds that subjective well-being can be enhanced by balancing the life domains (see Figure 2). This means experiencing a balance between positive and negative affect within and across life domains. Balance within a life domain is achieved by experiencing both positive and negative events. Positive events serve a reward function: goals are attained, and resources are acquired. In contrast, negative events serve a motivational function: they lead the person to recognize problems and opportunities for further achievement and growth.

Balance across life domains can be achieved through compensation (a principle described in some detail previously). That is, increasing the salience of positive life domains compensates for the salience of negative life domains. And conversely, increasing the salience of negative life domains compensates for positive life domains. Specifically, increasing the salience of negative life domains motivates individuals to pay greater attention to those domains. Increasing the salience of negative life domains prompts individuals to take corrective action in those domains. The goal is to decrease the negative valence of beliefs related to one’s evaluation of the totality of a negative life domain.

Figure 2 shows the individual achieving balance by increasing the salience of both family life and leisure life. Increasing the salience of leisure life motivates the individual to engage in activities that elicit positive feelings in that domain. However, increasing the salience of a negative life domain (i.e., leisure life) would generate more dissatisfaction than satisfaction with life overall. Hence, to avoid experiencing dissatisfaction below intolerable levels, this individual has compensated by increasing the salience of family life, from which he experiences much joy. Thus, balance is achieved within the three life domains—family, work, and leisure. Balance is also achieved within the leisure and work domains by engaging in leisure and work activities, resulting in positive affect.

Before	After

Suggestive evidence for the viability of the principle of balance lies in the Yin- Yang concept, which is popular in East Asian cultures. The Yin-Yang concept posits that subjective well-being can be achieved by maintaining a balance between positive and negative emotions. The adage is to remain calm, undisturbed, and unaroused. Thus, the Ying and Yang are balanced between fulfillment of physical and spiritual needs. East Asian culture holds that positive events, such as achievement and success, may generate envy in others and criticism for “showing off.” Conversely, negative events may not be perceived as all “bad.” Negative events offer an opportunity for learning and personal growth. Thus, one can argue that the notion of Yin and Yang promotes balance within life domains. People are encouraged to seek balance in their lives by turning the bad into good, or simply by accepting the good with the bad, the positive with the negative, and success with failure.

The Principle of Balance Within Life Domains: Balance within a life domain enhances subjective well-being over the long term. Balance within a life domain involves actions that balance positive and negative events in that domain.

The advice one can take from the principle of balance within life domains is simple. Accept a little humility in your life. Do not shy away from making mistakes. Mistakes can be a source of strength. You can learn from these mistakes to continue to grow. Mistakes highlight opportunities for growth. Mistakes offer challenges for the future. Conquests and goal achievements, on the other hand, provide you with “food that nourishes your soul.” These personal triumphs help you give meaning to your past. Savor them. Indulge in your accomplishments and appreciate them. Therefore, accept the good with the bad and acknowledge your successes while considering your failures. Savour the good things that happen to you and plan the future by learning from your tumbles and falls. Do this with a sense of purpose and balance. Balance is important because if you dwell on your failures, the future may look all gloom and doom. And if you only dwell on the successes, you may cease to grow. Balance gives you a reason to hope for a future that continues to bring meaning to your life.

With respect to balance between life domains, research shows that people are more satisfied with life when satisfaction comes from multiple domains rather than from a single one. For example, when people are asked to discuss others' life satisfaction, most infer it as a direct function of their satisfaction across multiple domains. They tend to calculate happiness by averaging the satisfaction across several important domains. Additionally, research shows that those who believe they will achieve some of their goals and derive satisfaction from multiple domains tend to report higher levels of life satisfaction than those who do not.

The Principle of Balance Between Life Domains: Balance between life domains enhances subjective well-being. Balance involves increasing the salience of both positive and negative life domains. Increasing the salience of a negative domain heightens motivation to take future action to increase satisfaction in that domain. In contrast, increasing the salience of positive life domains generates more positive affect to compensate for the increased negative affect resulting from the increased salience of the negative life domain.

This strategy has several implications. First, the strategy implies that “putting all your eggs in one basket” may not be effective in enhancing subjective well-being. That is, one should not allow one or two life domains to overwhelm one’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life. It is best to be invested emotionally in several domains. Doing so allows one to compensate for dissatisfaction in some domains with satisfaction in others.

Consider the story of Elizabeth. Elizabeth placed all her energy into caring for her children. She did not engage in any significant leisure or recreational activities. She saw very few adult friends, although they were very important to her at one point in her life. In other words, she put all her emotional eggs in one basket: family life. This is a dangerous strategy because if things go wrong in Elizabeth's family life, she is likely to sink into depression. And this is exactly what happened. She overinvested in the family. To overcome this problem, Elizabeth should establish some meaningful goals and priorities in their life. She should draw a pie chart of her life. Overall happiness is the pie composed of slices. Some slices are larger than others because they are more important. She should consider all areas of life: family, work, social, financial, spiritual, residential, health and safety, etc. She should "draw a picture of what areas seem to dominate your life most now. In other words, where is most of your time and mental energy going?" If the picture drawn turns out to be a pie with one or two life domains (e.g., family life), she should do some soul-searching and develop a new pie that reflects her new priorities about what she really wants from life. The goal here is to clarify her life goals and priorities. Following this exercise, she should select a small handful of goals she considers most important.

Factors Affecting Balance

Let us explore the effect of treating one, several, or many life domains as highly important. We will classify people in three categories: those who "put all their eggs in one basket," those who "put most of their eggs in several but few baskets," and those who "evenly divide all their eggs in too many baskets." Those who "put all their eggs in one basket" are those who invest themselves emotionally in one life domain, and thus their happiness is dependent on how well they do in that domain and that domain only. Let us call these people "the imbalanced types." Those who "put most of their eggs in several but few baskets" regard a small number of life domains (e.g., three or four) as highly important, while treating the remaining life domains as unimportant. We will call these people "the moderately balanced types." Finally, those who "evenly divide all their eggs into too many baskets" are those who spread themselves too thinly. They are not emotionally involved in life. They choose not to invest themselves in any single domain. They carry on with a certain degree of detachment across all areas of life. We will call these people "the very balanced types."

Satisfaction Quota

The imbalanced types are likely to have heightened emotional involvement in only one domain. Specifically, the imbalanced types are likely to experience events and outcomes intensely. If things are right in that one most important domain, they feel happy. In contrast, if things do not go as expected, they feel very unhappy. This may be because the imbalanced types have been socialized in an environment where self- worth is defined by accomplishments in one domain, and only that domain. Thus, they set goals in that domain higher and more value-laden than those who do not invest themselves much in one domain -- the moderately balanced types and the very- balanced types. The imbalanced types are unlikely to experience high levels of subjective well-being, even though they may be highly satisfied in their chosen domain. This is because overall life satisfaction requires meeting a variety of needs. If one adopts Maslow’s view of human needs (biological, safety, social, esteem, self- actualization, knowledge, and beauty), then one can argue that it is highly unlikely that one can adequately satisfy all the human needs through participation in one domain alone. Subjective well-being arises from the satisfaction of a variety of human needs, which can be effectively met across several life domains.

Take, for example, this person I call Corey. Corey is entirely focused on achieving wealth in life, at the expense of family, leisure, community, friendship, and love. Corey is highly satisfied with his material life, but he remains unhappy with his life overall. Why? This is because the satisfaction stemming from the material domain contributes only so much to overall life satisfaction and happiness. In other words, there may be a quota of satisfaction that can spill over from a given life domain to the overall life. In other words, overall life satisfaction cannot come from a single source or life domain. There is a finite amount of satisfaction in any given life domain that can spill over into the most superordinate domain, involving life overall. This is because people have different needs (biological, safety, social, esteem, etc.). It is extremely unlikely to satisfy the full range of human developmental needs effectively through experiences in a single domain.

Consider a workaholic. She may love her job and devote a great deal of time and effort to it. She is very successful in her profession. Her needs for self- actualization, esteem, affiliation, and even safety (financially) may be met through her experiences at work. But what about love, physical intimacy, family, and the need to care for a dependent, such as a child? These needs are biologically ingrained and cannot be easily met through professional work alone.

This is an important point that brings us back to the notion that subjective well- being is not simply the sum of positive minus negative affect, irrespective of the source. It is the satisfaction of human developmental needs —the full range of needs, not a handful of selected ones. One cannot substitute positive affect related to one need for another. To illustrate with an arithmetic example, suppose that a person's level of subjective well-being is 50 (on a scale varying from -100 to +100). This means that she is relatively happy with life. This moderate degree of happiness stems from five key life domains — work, leisure, family, community, and neighborhood. Now, let us focus on the work-life domain. She has +15 points of satisfaction. The satisfaction quota in the work domain is +10. In other words, only 10 out of the 15 could contribute to subjective well-being. She is +5 over the limit in her work domain. This does not mean that she does not feel good about her work life. Yes, she does. But only so much of that satisfaction can contribute to her overall life satisfaction. Why? Work-life satisfaction may reflect only a subset of human developmental needs, not the full range.

Research shows that materialism is negatively correlated with life satisfaction. Here, materialists can be viewed as imbalanced, as they regard wealth and material possessions as the most important aspects of life. Materialists who successfully hoard material wealth may feel successful and happy with their financial life. But there is so much happiness to be found in the financial domain. Placing undue emphasis on making money is likely to lead them to neglect their family, their place in the community, their social life, and so forth. This neglect is likely to create negative affect across the following life domains: family, neighborhood, social, leisure, and spiritual. Negative affect from these other domains, in turn, adversely affects subjective well-being. Overall, materialists are likely to be more unhappy than happy with their lives.

The Quota Principle of Balance: Satisfaction from one life domain can contribute only a limited amount (a quota) to subjective well-being. Conversely, dissatisfaction in one life domain can adversely affect subjective well-being up to some threshold (or limit).

What advice can people seeking personal growth take away from the quota principle? Don’t let your entire life hinge on one role or life domain. Your life is made up of many different roles and domains. Don’t focus on one domain so much that you can’t experience joy if that one domain becomes unsettled. If this domain is all you think about, and it can deaden your enjoyment of other domains, domains that can bring you a considerable amount more joy into your life.

Aggregation

Now, let us contrast the life of the imbalanced person (Corey) with that of the very-balanced type. Let us call this very balanced person Joey. Joey can be characterized as follows. He manages his life well. He has things under control. He has his job, wife, children, church, friends, neighbors, community, leisure, politics, and sports, among others. His life is highly regimented. He has his work habits and his habits with his wife and kids. He has his church rituals, watching sports, fishing, and so on. However, he is not emotionally invested in any one of these life domains. He invests only a little in each. One can say that this person's life is on "automatic pilot." If things deviate from the set course, his well-established and ingrained habits bring him back on track. For example, his job goals are quite modest. His father was a baker and ran his own bakery. Joey's father expected his son to work at the bakery and take over someday. Joey is carrying on in his father's footsteps. It has been a tradition within the family. He knows that he is not smart enough to be a top executive in a Fortune 500 company. He knows he can run the bakery, and he does a good job.

So, is Joey a happy person? The answer to this question is yes, but his happiness is not likely to be very fulfilling. The question arises: Who is likely to feel greater happiness in life, Joey or Corey? The answer is Joey, of course! This is because Joey has more life domains in which he extracts satisfaction. Even though the satisfaction extracted from each life domain may be small, the aggregate of all the satisfactions from all the domains amounts to a level of overall life satisfaction greater than that of Joey’s. Again, we go back to the satisfaction of human developmental needs. In Joey's case, he may feel more satisfied with life because he derives satisfaction from different domains of life. This aggregation of positive affect likely reflects the satisfaction of different human developmental needs, not limited to a select few.

The Aggregation Principle of Balance: Aggregating satisfaction across different life domains enhances subjective well-being. The more satisfaction is experienced from multiple life domains, the higher the subjective well-being.

What is the message communicated by the aggregation principle? Do not put all your eggs in one basket. To satisfy the full range of developmental needs, you should get involved in life by participating in a variety of domains. The more the better! You can experience personal growth by becoming an active participant in life’s diversity. Become fully engaged at work. Get more involved with your family, wife, and kids. Seek out exciting leisure and recreational activities. Get to know your neighbours and be an active citizen in your community. Participate in politics. Be a voter and exercise your civic duties. Enhance your relationships with your friends, co-workers, and relatives. In other words, experience the richness and diversity that life offers.

Satisfaction Efficiency

Now, let us focus on the moderately balanced person. There is research focusing on moderately balanced individuals. The research suggests that people with more “very important” goals have higher life satisfaction than those with fewer “very important” goals. What does this mean? A person investing in fewer domains that are very important to him and succeeds in these domains is more likely to be a happier person compared to a person who either invests himself in too many life domains (with less important goals) or a person who invests himself exclusively in one life domain (with one overriding and very important goal). A person who invests in fewer important domains is, to me, “moderately balanced.” Let us call this person a name, David.

David has four important life domains in which he emotionally invests himself. Let us say that these life domains are work, family, leisure, and health. In relation to his work, David is passionate about his job. He is a surgeon. He loves what he does and feels mentally challenged. He feels that his work counts for something important. His goals and aspirations for his job are ambitious yet realistic, and he feels he is making significant progress towards their realization. David has a family too—a wife and two children. His relationship with his wife is based on love, respect, and warmth. His wife has her own career, and she feels sufficiently rewarded from her job. Both he and his wife earn decent salaries that support the family's material needs. His children, now in their adolescent years, are doing well in school. They have good friends, are healthy, and get along well with him and their mother. He loves watching his children learn new things and gets quite excited about teaching them about life. He loves his kids and cares a great deal about their welfare. About his health, he feels good, too. He plays tennis with two of his work colleagues. He feels challenged playing this game and gets a good workout. He tries to eat healthy and takes vitamins daily. Overall, he feels good about his health. His leisure life is also good. In addition to playing tennis and spending quality time with his wife and children at home, he enjoys exciting family vacations. Each year, the family goes to an exotic place. Most of their vacations are quite exhilarating. Furthermore, he and his wife have three close families that they regularly socialise with. One family resides right next door to them. They visit quite often. They get together with the two other families once or twice a month. They host an evening during which the three couples play a game of cards — bridge. They have a lot of fun doing this. In sum, David is a happy man. He is emotionally involved in work, family, leisure, and health, and he feels sufficiently rewarded in these life domains.

The question that needs to be posed here is why David (the more moderately balanced person) is happier than Joey (the very-balanced person)? This is because David has focused on several domains that satisfy most of the human needs (biological, safety, social, esteem, self-actualization, knowledge, and beauty). There is a principle of satisfaction efficiency that plays an important role here. That is, subjective well-being is better served through satisfaction from a small set of important life domains than a larger set of domains that are equally important. The intensity of satisfaction in each life domain is inversely proportional to the effort required to achieve it. The more effort consumed, the less the satisfaction. Investing in life domains that are likely to meet most or all of human needs is a much more effective strategy than investing oneself in many domains and “spreading oneself thinly.”

Let us go back to Joey. Joey makes enough money to meet his family’s economic needs. He works at his father’s bakery and hopes to own it after his father retires. He works to earn a living, and he, too, is looking forward to retirement so he can devote more time to fishing. As you can guess, his leisure life is centred on fishing. He enjoys fishing, but it comes at an expense. He travels around 100 miles to reach the lake. It costs him a lot in gas and wear and tear on his pickup truck. The truck is continuously in need of repairs because of this. He pulls a fishing boat with it. He watches sports on television, but the satisfaction he gets from it seems minimal. He goes to church, but not regularly. He does not have close friends at church, so he gets little satisfaction from attending. He goes to church mostly because of his wife. This makes him happy, and he feels closer to God during the church service. He is close to his children, but sometimes they drive him crazy. He feels he needs to constantly tell them not to do certain things. And this causes quite a bit of family conflict. Nevertheless, he loves his children and feels that he is better off with them than without them. He loves his wife, and he cannot imagine being without her. But sometimes he feels the need to be with other women, and he regrets it. He has been loyal to his wife and intends to remain so. Lately, it seems that his wife is more demanding of his time and energy. He works hard to make his wife happy, but he feels that he needs to work harder to maintain good marital relations. He has noticed on a couple of occasions over the last few months that his wife was enchanted by his male neighbour. This has created some tension between him and his wife. Regarding his health, he seems to be trying hard to take care of himself. After work, he goes to the gym and works out for one whole hour. He feels good about staying in shape and that he works hard at it. His house is in constant need of repairs. He does his best to fix things around the house. His house is a typical blue-collar home in a blue-collar neighbourhood. He feels good about his house but wishes that he could afford a nicer house in a nicer neighbourhood.

Notice that Joey is somewhat satisfied in many or all his major life domains—job, leisure/entertainment, family, marital, church, children, house and neighbourhood, and health. However, this satisfaction derived from all these life domains comes at a cost: hard work. Now compare Joey’s situation with that of David’s. Remember that David is emotionally invested in three or four important life domains: work, family, leisure, and health. As a surgeon, David is passionate about his work. His work not only satisfies his financial needs but also his social, esteem, actualization, knowledge, and creative needs. He socializes with several physicians (including at family get-togethers and social outings). He has been recognized as one of the best surgeons in the region, and he feels very proud of his professional accomplishments. He loves his job and does not find it hard work. He stays in shape by playing tennis with his physician friends at the hospital. He does not feel he has to work hard to stay in shape because he really enjoys the game. He is very passionate about his wife and children, too. He is very proud of his wife and her accomplishments. She is an attorney. His family gives him a sense of security, love, warmth, and the feeling of being “complete.” He does not feel that he must work hard to keep his marriage going. He is very proud of his children and their accomplishments at school. Again, David does not feel he needs to coach them on life to keep them out of trouble. They seem to be doing the right things with very little supervision from the parents. And so on!

The point of contrasting David’s life with Joey’s is to demonstrate that although Joey is somewhat satisfied with his life, David is much more satisfied. David is happier because he has invested himself in fewer life domains (job, leisure, family, and health), gaining greater satisfaction from these domains while expending less energy. Joey, on the other hand, has invested himself in more areas of life (job, family, church, house and neighbourhood, leisure, children, spouse, and health). He feels that he must work hard in each domain to gain an acceptable level of satisfaction. Joey is not efficient in generating satisfaction, whereas David is.

The Satisfaction Efficiency Principle of Balance: Satisfaction from a small set of important life domains yields higher levels of subjective well-being than satisfaction from a larger set of equally important domains. This is because the amount of satisfaction experienced is inversely related to the effort required to generate it. Thus, satisfaction derived from a small set of domains is likely to require less effort than satisfaction derived from a larger set of domains.

The satisfaction efficiency principle advises us to be efficient in how we experience satisfaction across all areas of our lives. Try to find ways to satisfy many of your developmental needs (biological, safety, social, esteem, knowledge, and aesthetics needs) by being fully engaged in a few areas. Do not spread yourself too thinly. Concentrate your energies in selected areas in which you can derive much satisfaction, the kind of satisfaction that is fulfilling. If you feel you are working too hard and juggling too many things to maintain a certain level of satisfaction, perhaps you need to simplify your life. Try to reorganize. Find ways to consolidate. Make some tough decisions and walk away from things that drain your energy. Concentrate your energy on the few areas that give you the most pleasure in life.