Dr Pauldy Otermans is a Lecturer in Psychology at Brunel University London.
‘Wellbeing’ is a popular topic in ‘positive psychology’ circles these days, but there’s a problem – we’ve now got nearly as many definitions of what ‘wellbeing’ is as there are researchers trying to define it. However well intentioned, it’s all turning into a bit of a mess.
Throughout the world, people believe wellbeing – which personally I define as ‘an individual’s sense that they have what they need in order for life to be good’ – is a desirable thing to have. It affects our social and personal relationships, it determines how we learn, how we behave and how productive we are. In short, wellbeing matters to all of us.
However, not everyone finds it an easy thing to attain. For example, if you are struggling to protect your small harvest of wheat – which is meant to feed your family as well as generate a bit of income – from getting trampled by roaming lions or elephants, then a sense wellbeing might be elusive for you. Life circumstances can be harsh, and no one should blame you if – despite your best efforts at containing your wheat harvest within a fenced-off plot of land – hungry animals who don't know anything about property rights come trampling.
Until now, research on wellbeing typically begins with surveys in developed nations and ends with surveys in developing nations – find traits that suggest high-levels of wellbeing in richer, supposedly happier nations, and then see if those traits can still be detected in poorer nations where conditions are significantly tougher. We however, subscribe to idea that this sequence should be reversed – start your surveys in developing countries (e.g. rural villages in Zambia and India), and then head for wealthier climes (e.g. starting with universities and other advantaged settings in the United Kingdom). Indeed, some early results of our research support our hunch: Wellbeing is easy to detect within our United Kingdom samples so far.
We are currently collecting additional data in the United Kingdom, just to make sure that we can measure wellbeing validity and reliably outside of developing nations. We are especially interested in learning whether wellbeing can be understood as the following seven different concepts: (1) Economic Confidence; (2) Agency and Participation; (3) Social Connections; (4) Close Relationships; (5) Physical and Mental Health; (6) Competence and Self-Worth; and (7) Values & Meaning as our colleagues have found in Zambia and India or whether it can be seen as one concept (as we are seeing in the United Kingdom thus far).
We believe that wellbeing is something that is lived. It will be sensitive to ethnic, gender and cultural differences. Social connections, culture, values and meaning are important factors when it comes to one's wellbeing. One is not born "with" culture, we are born "into" cultures. An example of this is language. Most children can pick up any language during the first two years after birth, but they usually become fluent only in the language(s) that their caregivers have taught them. Therefore, we want to find out whether women and men score similarly (or not), and whether members of ethnic minority and majority groups score similarly (or not) in the United Kingdom.
We hope that the results of the survey – which you are welcome to take yourself - will tell us more about whether one gender is more inclined towards having higher levels of wellbeing than the other. Also, we hope to find predictors in the data that can tell us before you are born whether you are likely to have high levels of wellbeing or not. With this information, we hope to get a clearer picture of wellbeing and use this information to find ways to improve people’s wellbeing in society.
To particpate in the Wellbeing Survey, please visit: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/B72P3LR
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