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Affective Reactions to One’s Whole Life: Preliminary Development and Validation of the Ontological Well-Being Scale

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“The state of being is our ontology, our total experience of the present, past, and future” (Ivey 1986, p. 2).

Abstract

In line with the perspective provided by the intentional paradigm which claims that the measures of subjective well-being (SWB), whether cognitive or affective, should refer to life itself, the Ontological Well-Being Scale (OWBS) has been operationalized. The research reported herein was aimed at developing and validating this psychometric tool in the assessment of individuals’ affective evaluations of their life within a three-time perspective. Five studies were conducted to confirm the factor structure of the OWBS and to assess its construct validity. Four factors were derived and validated, which were shown to relate to mental health indicators and personality in expected ways. It was found that this new construct, in contrast with the current measures, did not tap into the personality factors of extraversion and neuroticism. Incremental validity results showed that the OWBS explained additional variance in mental health indicators already captured by the current measures of SWB.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. Grant 108K394.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Izmir University of Economics, 35330, Balcova, Izmir, Turkey

    Ömer Faruk Şimşek

  2. Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, 17100, Canakkale, Turkey

    Ercan Kocayörük

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  1. Ömer Faruk Şimşek
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Correspondence to Ömer Faruk Şimşek.

Appendix: The Ontological Well-Being Questionnaire

Appendix: The Ontological Well-Being Questionnaire

Please consider your own life as a personal project with its past, present, and future parts. Like all projects, your life includes completed (the past), ongoing (the present), and prospected (the future) parts. What is expected from you is to rate the intensity of the emotions you experience when looking at these parts of your project. Please answer according to the scale below.

 

Very slightly or not at all

   

Extremely

1

2

3

4

5

When I look at the completed part of my life project, I feel:

  1. 1.

    _____ Proud

  2. 2.

    _____ Disappointed

  3. 3.

    _____ Satisfied

  4. 4.

    _____ Regretful

  5. 5.

    _____ Upset

  6. 6.

    _____ Guilty

  7. 7.

    _____ Incompetent

When I look at the ongoing part of my life project, I feel:

  1. 8.

    _____ Tired

  2. 9.

    _____ Enthusiastic

  3. 10.

    _____ Aimless

  4. 11.

    _____ Lost

  5. 12.

    _____ Motivated

  6. 13.

    _____ Energetic

  7. 14.

    _____ Excited

  8. 15.

    _____ Irresponsible

  9. 16.

    _____ Empty

  10. 17.

    _____ Anxious

  11. 18.

    _____ Helpless

When I look at the future of my life project, I feel

  1. 19.

    _____ Hopeful

  2. 20.

    _____ Strong

  3. 21.

    _____ Confident

  4. 22.

    _____ Courageous

  5. 23.

    _____ Looking forward

  6. 24.

    _____ Ambitious

This questionnaire is intended for free use in research and clinical applications. Please contact the authors prior to any such noncommercial use. This questionnaire may not be used for commercial purposes.

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Şimşek, Ö.F., Kocayörük, E. Affective Reactions to One’s Whole Life: Preliminary Development and Validation of the Ontological Well-Being Scale. J Happiness Stud 14, 309–343 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9333-7

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