engleski

The incremental validity of low-arousal affect in predicting well-being

According to the hedonic perspective, happiness is defined as subjective well-being, which refers to cognitive and affective evaluations of one's life. The vast majority of researchers use PANAS scales to measure the affective component of subjective well-being. These scales were constructed to assess high-arousal affects. Whereas some cultures favour high-arousal positive states, others value low-arousal positive states (Tsai, 2007). Similar differences have been found between younger and older people (Scheibe et al., 2013). The aim of the present study is to examine the incremental validity of low-arousal affects in predicting well-being. 642 participants (mean age 44.3) from three countries completed the PANAS with additional eight low- arousal items, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (the shortened nine-item version) and the Depression scale (DASS). The results from hierarchical multiple regression analyses show that low- arousal affect explain an additional 11% of the variance in life satisfaction and depression, and 6% in basic psychological needs over and above what could be predicted by PANAS. These findings indicate the importance of including low-arousal affect in assessing affective well-being.

Low-arousal emotions ; well-being

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