PSYC1005 Chap.1 Wellbeing Myths, Models and Evidence
Wellbeing Myths, Models and Evidence
Week 1 sets the frame for the whole course. It traces how wellbeing became a scientific construct, from the 1946 World Health Organization definition of health to positive psychology, and compares Keyes’s dual-continua model with a single line from illness to health.
It separates hedonic from eudaimonic wellbeing, sets Seligman’s PERMA model beside Ryff’s six dimensions, and tests two popular beliefs, that money buys happiness and that wellbeing is fixed by genes. It closes with why false claims feel true and how affective forecasting goes wrong.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Wellbeing as more than the absence of illness
- 02
The dual-continua model of mental health
- 03
Hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing
- 04
PERMA and Ryff's six dimensions
- 05
Money, genes and happiness myths
- 06
Fluency and intuitive judgements of truth
- 07
Focalism and immune neglect
Worked example · free
Placing a person on the dual-continua model
- 1On the illness axis Jordan sits toward high mental illness because of the diagnosis.
- 1On the wellbeing axis Jordan sits high, given purpose, relationships and engagement, so the quadrant is symptomatic but content.
- 1A single line would force high illness to mean low wellbeing and would miss what Jordan has, which is why treatment and wellbeing building are separate jobs.
Key terms
- Unidimensional model
- A model that places mental illness and mental health at opposite ends of a single line.
- Hedonic wellbeing
- Wellbeing as feeling good, measured as happiness or life satisfaction.
- Flourishing
- High mental wellbeing combined with low mental illness on the dual-continua model.
- Focalism
- The failure to consider other, non-focal events when predicting how a focal event will affect our happiness.
- Immune neglect
- The failure to allow for the psychological mechanisms that reduce negative feeling after a setback.
Wellbeing Myths, Models and Evidence FAQ
What is the difference between hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing?
Hedonic wellbeing is feeling good, measured as happiness or life satisfaction. Eudaimonic wellbeing is functioning well, through competence, meaning and positive relationships. The lecture stresses that high wellbeing can sometimes require a spell of low happiness, as when demanding but meaningful work makes a person less cheerful in the moment yet more fulfilled overall.
Is happiness mostly genetic?
A twin study attributed about half the variance in wellbeing to genes, and one estimate reached 80%. The lecture qualifies this in two ways: Lyubomirsky and colleagues proposed that around 40% is left to intentional activities, and the twin study’s measure mainly captured a cheerful disposition rather than wellbeing as a whole.
How do PERMA and Ryff's model differ?
PERMA lists five elements, positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment, each pursued for its own sake and measurable separately. Ryff lists six dimensions of positive functioning: self-acceptance, positive relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life and personal growth. PERMA mixes feeling good with functioning well; Ryff’s model is eudaimonic.
Why do myths about wellbeing feel true?
The lecture separates analytic judgements of truth, which weigh the evidence, from intuitive ones, which treat ease of processing as a sign of truth. Claims feel truer when they are repeated, come with a photograph, rhyme or appear in a clear font, none of which bears on accuracy. Short, catchy wellbeing slogans exploit exactly these cues.
What are focalism and immune neglect?
Both are reasons we overestimate how strongly events will affect our happiness. Focalism is forgetting the other events that will also shape our mood, which a diary of upcoming days can correct. Immune neglect is forgetting the psychological processes that soften bad news, such as explaining a rejection away when the decision seems poorly informed.
What is the Three Good Things exercise?
It is the first weekly wellbeing skill. For a week, about ten minutes before sleep, you think of three good things that happened that day, from small to substantial, write them down and reflect on why each happened. The lecture justifies it by our tendency to dwell on negatives, and the reflection asks whether its effects matched the literature.
Exam move
Draw the dual-continua grid from memory and place three example people in it, then write PERMA and Ryff side by side and mark which elements overlap. For the myths, learn one study and one qualification each, and practise naming focalism and immune neglect from short scenarios, because the exam can describe either one without using its name.
Add one line for each model on what it would predict for a person with a diagnosed illness, and one line on why fluency makes a slogan persuasive, since both ideas return in later weeks.
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