Abstract
What kind of life do people want? In psychology, a good life has typically been conceptualized in terms of either hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. We propose that psychological richness is another neglected aspect of what people consider a good life. In study 1 (9-nation cross-cultural study), we asked participants whether they ideally wanted a happy, a meaningful, or a psychologically rich life. Roughly 7 to 17% of participants chose the psychologically rich life. In study 2, we asked 1611 Americans and 680 Koreans what they regret most in their lives; then, if they could undo or reverse the regretful event, whether their lives would have been happier, more meaningful, or psychologically richer as a result. Roughly 28% of Americans and 35% of Koreans reported their lives would have been psychologically richer. Together, this work provides a foundation for the study of psychological richness as another dimension of a good life.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability
All materials and data can be found at https://osf.io/yuf92/.
References
Barrett, L. F., Gross, J., Christensen, T. C., & Benvenuto, M. (2001). Knowing what you’re feeling and knowing what to do about it: mapping the relation between emotion differentiation and emotion regulation. Cognition and Emotion, 15, 713–724.
Besser, L., & Oishi, S. (in press). The psychologically rich life. Philosophical Psychology.
Chen, C., Lee, S.-y., & Stevenson, H. W. (1995). Response style and cross-cultural comparisons of rating scales among East Asian and North American students. Psychological Science, 6, 170–175.
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: the science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34–43.
Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. L., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75.
Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. (1999). Subjective well-being: three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 276–302.
Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). New well-being measures: short scales to assess flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 97, 143–156.
Elliot, A. J. (1999). Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals. Educational Psychologist, 34, 169–189.
Ford, B. Q., Lwi, S., Hankin, B., Gentzler, A., & Mauss, I. B. (2018). The cost of believing emotions are uncontrollable: youths’ beliefs about emotion predict emotion regulation and depressive symptoms. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 47, 1170–1190.
Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. A., Lun, J., Lim, B. C., et al. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: a 33-nation study. Science, 332, 1100–1104.
Gruber, J., Mauss, I. B., & Tamir, M. (2011). A dark side of happiness? How, when, and why happiness is not always good. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(3), 222–233.
Heintzelman, S. J., & King, L. A. (2014). Life is pretty meaningful. American Psychologist, 69, 561–574.
Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33, 61–83.
Hesse, H. (1932/1984). Narcissus and Goldmund. New York: Bantam.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
King, L. A., & Hicks, J. A. (2007). Whatever happened to “what might have been?” Regrets, happiness, and maturity. American Psychologist, 62, 625–636.
Markus, H. R., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969.
Muthén, L. K., &Muthén, B. O. (1998-2006). Mplus user’s guide. (4th edn). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Oishi, S., & Choi, H. (2020). What is a psychologically rich experience? An exploration of visual images. A paper under review.
Oishi, S., Choi, H., Buttrick, N., Heintzelman, S. J., Kushlev, K., Westgate, E. C., Tucker, J., Ebersole, C. R., Axt, J., Gilbert, E., Ng, B. W., & Besser, L. L. (2019). The psychologically rich life questionnaire. Journal of Research in Personality, 81, 257–270.
Oishi, S., Choi, H., Heintzelman, S. J., Westgate, E. C., Buttrick, N., Ebersole, C. R., & Besser, L. L. (2020). The triad model of a good life: a happy life, a meaningful life, and a psychologically rich life. A paper in preparation.
Oishi, S., Choi, H., Liu, A., & Kurtz, J. (2020). Experiences associated with psychological richness. A paper under review.
Oishi, S., Westgate, E., Heintzelman, S. J., Buttrick, N., Choi, H., & Cha, Y. (2020). The politics and curiosity of a happy life, a meaningful life, and a psychologically rich life. A paper in preparation.
Quoidbach, J., Gruber, J., Mikolajczak, M., Kogan, A., Kotsou, I., & Norton, M. I. (2014). Emodiversity and the emotional ecosystem. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143, 2057–2066.
Rutkowski, L., & Svetina, D. (2014). Assessing the hypothesis of measurement invariance in the context of large-scale international surveys. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 74, 31–57.
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it? Exploration on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 1069–1081.
Saffrey, C., Summerville, A., & Roese, N. J. (2008). Praise for regret: people value regret above other negative emotions. Motivation and Emotion, 32, 46–54.
Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65.
Steger, M. F., Frazier, P., Oishi, S., & Kaler, M. (2006). The Meaning in Life Questionnaire: assessing the presence of and search for meaning in life. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 53, 80–93.
Tamir, M., Schwartz, S. H., Cieciuch, J., Riediger, M., Torres, C., Scollon, C., Dzokoto, V., Zhou, X., & Vishkin, A. (2016). Desired emotions across cultures: a value-based account. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111, 67–82.
Tamir, M., Schwartz, S. H., Oishi, S., & Kim, M. (2017). The secret to happiness: feeling good or feeling right? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146, 1448–1459.
Tsai, J. (2007). Ideal affect: cultural causes and behavioral consequences. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 242–259.
Vittersø, J. (2016). Handbook of eudaimonic well-being. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.
Westgate, E.C., & Losee, J. (2020). Mere categorization: the process of categorization is inherently rewarding. Manuscript in preparation.
Westgate, E. C., & Wilson, T. D. (2018). Boring thoughts and bored minds: the MAC model of boredom and cognitive engagement. Psychological Review, 125, 689–713.
Zeelenberg, M. (1999). The use of crying over spilled milk: a note on the rationality and functionality of regret. Philosophical Psychology, 12, 325–340.
Acknowledgments
We thank JP Bouvet and TJ Gill for their help with editing the manuscript.
Funding
This research was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation and Saint Louis University to Shigehiro Oishi and Lorraine L. Besser (G011993).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Ethical Approval
Approval was obtained from the ethics committee of University of Virginia. The procedures used in this study adhere to thetenets of the Declaration of Helsinki.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Handling editor: Phoebe Ellsworth
Our studies were not preregistered.
Electronic Supplementary Material
ESM 1
(DOCX 12 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Oishi, S., Choi, H., Koo, M. et al. Happiness, Meaning, and Psychological Richness. Affec Sci 1, 107–115 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-020-00011-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-020-00011-z