Meaning matters: linking proactive vitality management to subjective well-being

Abstract

Prior research has indicated that positive affect, energy, and vitality are positively related to subjective well-being. Unfortunately, most scholars have overlooked the possibility that individuals may proactively manage their energetic, affective, and cognitive resources to boost their subjective well-being. Grounded in social cognitive theory, the current research focuses on explaining why students’ proactive vitality management (PVM) leads to positive outcomes (i.e., meaning in life, subjective well-being) and considers how school support climate moderates these effects. One experimental study (Study 1) and a three-wave lagged survey (Study 2) were conducted to examine the benefits of PVM. The results demonstrated that PVM was positively related to students’ meaning in life, further promoting their subjective well-being. Moreover, school support climate accentuated PVM’s effect on meaning in life and its indirect effect on subjective well-being via meaning in life. Implications for research and practice are also discussed, along with study limitations and future research directions.