Abstract
Increasing individual subjective well-being has various positive outcomes, knowledge about its antecedents and the mediators of this relationship can therefore help to increase subjective well-being and the accompanying positive effects. The more future oriented facets of psychological capital, i.e. optimism, hope and self-efficacy have been shown in several studies to be positively related to subjective well-being and negatively to ill-being. Furthermore, recent studies suggest coping strategies as mediators for these relationships. In our study, we examined the longitudinal relation of optimism, hope and self-efficacy with subjective well-being and ill-being in a German panel dataset and tested the mediating effect of flexible goal adjustment in a path model. Our results show a statistically significant positive effect of self-efficacy and optimism on subjective well-being as well as a statistically significant negative effect of optimism on depression over three years. All three predictors show a statistically significant relation with flexible goal adjustment, but flexible goal adjustment did not mediate the effect on subjective well-being or depression.
Highlights
Happy workers will be more productive workers—as Cropanzano and Wright [1] acknowledge, this relation has been supported if happiness was operationalized as well-being, the happy-productive worker hypothesis [2] has been subjected to much debate and produced controversial empirical results [3]
In our study we focus on personal characteristics and on characteristics proposed by positive psychology, as well-being can be enhanced by interventions
According to previous research on self-efficacy, optimism and hope with well-being and ill-being, we propose: (1) Self-efficacy (a), optimism (b) and hope (c) at T0 positively predict subjective well-being at T1
Summary
Happy workers will be more productive workers—as Cropanzano and Wright [1] acknowledge, this relation has been supported if happiness was operationalized as well-being, the happy-productive worker hypothesis [2] has been subjected to much debate and produced controversial empirical results [3]. To learn about mechanisms that increase well-being is relevant in the work context as well as independent of the context [4]. It is relevant for the individual itself, and, according to the happy productive worker hypothesis, for organizations. According to the conservation of resources theory [6], individuals seek to acquire and maintain resources. Their gain or maintenance results in well-being [9]. Hobfoll [6] distinguishes four types of resources that have the potential to increase well-being: physical objects, conditions, energies or personal characteristics [9]. In our study we focus on personal characteristics and on characteristics proposed by positive psychology, as well-being can be enhanced by interventions
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