Lay Conceptions of Well-Being and Rules Used in Well-Being Judgments Among Young, Middle-Aged, and Elderly Adults

Abstract

The present study deals with lay conceptions of well-being and its main determinants, and the rules used by everyday people to assess the well-being of others based on various pieces of information. The results showed that (a) most proposed definitions of well-being refer to the family, the physical body, and acceptance of oneself and one's situation; (b) the factors with the greatest impact on judgments of the well-being of others are health, harmony with spouse, harmony with children, self-acceptance, positive relations, purpose in life, and personal growth; (c) the above findings apply to respondents of all ages; and (d) the information integration rule for estimating the level of the well-being is essentially additive.