Macchia Lucía, Kaats Micah, Johnson Byron, VanderWeele Tyler J
School of Health and Medical Sciences, City St George's, University of London, Rhind Building, St John St, London, EC1R 0JD, UK.
Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 30;15(1):14355. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-98421-1.
Subjective wellbeing (SWB) is a self-reported construct of wellbeing including components like life satisfaction, and positive and negative affect. We explore the role of physical pain in the construct of SWB using data from the Global Flourishing Study (22 countries, N = 187,160) and the Gallup World Poll (163 countries, N = 2,048,494). Consistent with the existing understanding of physical pain, we document that people can experience negative affect-related pain in the absence of physical health problems, and with near perfect physical health. We also find that the current components of SWB are not perfect proxies for pain and that physical pain and other components of negative affect like stress, worry, anxiety, anger, and sadness load on the same factor in principal component factor analysis. Based on this empirical evidence, we suggest that physical pain can be included in the construct of SWB as a component of negative affect. This proposition has the potential to advance the field in the coming decades by providing a better understanding of people's wellbeing, presenting alternative methods to measure SWB, and informing the design of wellbeing interventions.
主观幸福感（SWB）是一种自我报告的幸福感结构，包括生活满意度以及积极和消极情绪等组成部分。我们利用全球繁荣研究（22个国家，N = 187,160）和盖洛普世界民意调查（163个国家，N = 2,048,494）的数据，探讨身体疼痛在主观幸福感结构中的作用。与对身体疼痛的现有理解一致，我们记录到人们在没有身体健康问题且身体几乎完全健康的情况下，也会经历与消极情绪相关的疼痛。我们还发现，主观幸福感的当前组成部分并非疼痛的完美替代指标，并且在主成分因子分析中，身体疼痛与压力、担忧、焦虑、愤怒和悲伤等消极情绪的其他组成部分加载在同一因子上。基于这一实证证据，我们建议将身体疼痛作为消极情绪的一个组成部分纳入主观幸福感的结构中。这一主张有可能在未来几十年推动该领域的发展，通过更好地理解人们的幸福感、提供测量主观幸福感的替代方法以及为幸福感干预措施的设计提供信息。
