Abstract
The target article proposes a new term—emotional well-being—and a new definition of that term, which are meant to bring clarity to a broad set of psychological constructs that relate to well-being. Although we appreciate the goal of improving scientific communication through the clarification of terms and definitions, both the chosen terminology and definition are too narrow to capture the broad range of constructs that researchers in these areas study. This imprecision will likely impede rather than aid effective scientific communication. In this commentary, we consider whether it is necessary or even useful to try to define and label the broad category that is the focus of the target article, and we conclude the potential for confusion outweighs the limited benefits that would result.
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Notes
Note that this example is hypothetical and that we do believe that there is evidence that affective experience can be useful measures of subjective well-being.
References
Diener, E., Lucas, R. E., & Oishi, S. (2018). Advances and open questions in the science of subjective well-being. Collabra: Psychology, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.115.
Park, C. L., Kubzansky, L., Chafouleas, S., Davidson, R., Keltner, D., Parsafar, P., … Wang, K. H. (2022). Emotional well-being: What it is and why it matters. Affective Science.
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1069–1081. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.6.1069.
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Handling editor: Wendy Berry Mendes
Both authors read Park et al. (2022) independently and shared their own comments with each other. Then, the first author drafted a paper, to which the second author made some edits and added a table (which the first author further modified).
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Lucas, R.E., Oishi, S. Describing Broad Categories with Narrow Terms: the Problems with Emotional Well-Being. Affec Sci 4, 29–31 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-022-00157-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-022-00157-y