Well-being | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value, prosperity or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative to someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good for this person, what is in the self-interest of this person. Well-being can refer to both positive and negative well-being. In its positive sense, it is sometimes contrasted with ill-being as its opposite. The term "subjective well-being" denotes how people experience and evaluate their lives, usually measured in relation to self-reported well-being obtained through questionnaires. Well-being has been treated as a variable from none to a high degree of well-being. This usage of well-being has in later times been widened to also include a negative aspect. With the aim of understanding how different route environmental variables affect the wellbeing during walking or cycling, the term "environmental unwellbeing" has been coined. Different forms of well-being, such as mental, physical, economic, or emotional are often closely interlinked. For example, improved physical well-being (e.g., by reducing or ceasing an addiction) is associated with improved emotional well-being. As for another example, better economic well-being (e.g., possessing more wealth) tends to be associated with better emotional well-being even in adverse situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Well-being plays a central role in ethics since what a person ought to do depends, at least to some degree, on what would make someone's life get better or worse. According to welfarism, there are no other values besides well-being. The terms well-being, pleasure, and happiness are used in overlapping ways in everyday language, but their meanings tend to come apart in technical contexts like philosophy or psychology. Pleasure refers to experience that feels good and is usually seen as one constituent of well-being. But there may be other factors, such as health, virtue, knowledge or the fulfillment of desires.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (38)

Related courses (7)

Related lectures (43)

Subjective well-being

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire. Ed Diener developed a tripartite model of subjective well-being in 1984, which describes how people experience the quality of their lives and includes both emotional reactions and cognitive judgments. It posits "three distinct but often related components of wellbeing: frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and cognitive evaluations such as life satisfaction.

Life satisfaction

Life satisfaction is a measure of a person's overall well-being, assessed in terms of mood, relationship satisfaction, achieved goals, self-concepts, and self-perceived ability to cope with life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards one's life—rather than an assessment of current feelings. Life satisfaction has been measured in relation to economic standing, degree of education, experiences, residence, and other factors. Life satisfaction is a key part of subjective well-being.

Self-determination theory

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a macro theory of human motivation and personality that concerns people's innate growth tendencies and innate psychological needs. It pertains to the motivation behind people's choices in the absence of external influences and distractions. SDT focuses on the degree to which human behavior is self-motivated and self-determined. In the 1970s, research on SDT evolved from studies comparing intrinsic and extrinsic motives, and from growing understanding of the dominant role that intrinsic motivation played in individual behavior.

Happiness: The Illusion of Consumption and Growth

Examines the reasons why happiness does not rise with GDP per capita, addressing the illusions of consumption, the impact of social support and freedom, and the seeds of unhappiness.

Adriano Olivetti's Leadership Style MGT-468: Leading and managing in a global context

Delves into Adriano Olivetti's visionary leadership, emphasizing his human-centered approach and innovative business strategies.

Alternatives to GDP: Genuine Progress Indicator and Human Development Index HUM-471: Economic growth and sustainability I

Discusses the Genuine Progress Indicator and Human Development Index as alternatives to GDP.

This course examines the supply of energy from various angles: available resources, how they can be combined or substituted, their private and social costs, whether they can meet the demand, and how t

This course examines growth from various angles: economic growth, growth in the use of resources, need for growth, limits to growth, sustainable growth, and, if time permits, population growth and gro

The media frequently report on how color influences one's emotions and well-being. We teach students basic skills to critically understand and interpret these claims analyzing empirical studies in aff