Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University.
Department of Psychology, King's University College at the University of Western Ontario.
Psychol Sci. 2020 Mar;31(3):293-305. doi: 10.1177/0956797619898826. Epub 2020 Feb 11.
Using representative cross-sections from 166 nations (more than 1.7 million respondents), we examined differences in three measures of subjective well-being over the life span. Globally, and in the individual regions of the world, we found only very small differences in life satisfaction and negative affect. By contrast, decreases in positive affect were larger. We then examined four important predictors of subjective well-being and how their associations changed: marriage, employment, prosociality, and life meaning. These predictors were typically associated with higher subjective well-being over the life span in every world region. Marriage showed only very small associations for the three outcomes, whereas employment had larger effects that peaked around age 50 years. Prosociality had practically significant associations only with positive affect, and life meaning had strong, consistent associations with all subjective-well-being measures across regions and ages. These findings enhance our understanding of subjective-well-being patterns and what matters for subjective well-being across the life span.
我们使用来自 166 个国家（超过 170 万受访者）的有代表性的横断面数据，研究了主观幸福感的三个衡量标准在整个生命周期中的差异。在全球范围内，以及在世界各个地区，我们发现生活满意度和消极情绪的差异非常小。相比之下，积极情绪的下降幅度更大。然后，我们考察了四个对主观幸福感有重要影响的因素，以及它们的关联如何变化：婚姻、就业、亲社会行为和生活意义。在世界各个地区，这些预测因素通常与主观幸福感呈正相关。婚姻与三个结果的关联非常小，而就业的影响更大，在 50 岁左右达到峰值。亲社会行为仅与积极情绪有显著关联，而生活意义与所有主观幸福感指标在各地区和各年龄段都有很强的一致性关联。这些发现增进了我们对主观幸福感模式以及对整个生命周期中主观幸福感重要因素的理解。
