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Satisfaction with Meaning in Life: a metric with Strong Correlations to the Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being of Adolescents

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Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between a single-item scale on satisfaction with meaning in life (SML) and other well-being metrics, both eudaimonic and hedonic. A sample of N = 923 Spanish adolescents in secondary education was used for this purpose. Although we have theorized and explored this metric as a component of eudaimonic well-being, our results show that it is also very closely related to the cognitive and the affective components of hedonic well-being. Standardized regression weights using structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to show the strong correlation between the SML and all of the well-being instruments used in this study. This relationship was more pronounced with cognitive domain-based and positive affect latent variables than the eudaimonic well-being latent variable. Multi-group SEM analysis by gender and academic year reveals a definitive variation in the relationships between these variables for gender, whereas the variation by academic year remains unclear. The correlation between the SML and every other well-being instruments is stronger for girls in all cases. Although values decrease with age for all instruments, the relationships fluctuate and display no clear trend. This study contributes new evidence to discussions on the relationship between eudemonic and hedonic well-being.

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Acknowledgements

This article is based on data collected in the research project with reference number PSI2013-41512-P, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). Thanks are due to all children that kindly agreed to answer the questionnaires, to all participating schools, and to Barney Griffiths for the English editing of this paper.

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  1. Research Institute on Quality of Life, University of Girona, Girona, Spain

    Ferran Casas & Mònica González-Carrasco

  2. Doctoral Program on Education and Society, Faculty of Education and Social Sciences, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile

    Ferran Casas

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  1. Ferran Casas
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Correspondence to Ferran Casas.

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Casas, F., González-Carrasco, M. Satisfaction with Meaning in Life: a metric with Strong Correlations to the Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being of Adolescents. Child Ind Res 14, 1781–1807 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-021-09826-z

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