Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to examine the relations between time perspective and well-being considering two groups with different cultural backgrounds between Turkish and French. Instruments tapping into positive and negative affect, ontological well-being, flourishing, and five types of time perspective were administered to 615 late adolescents ages between 18 and 24 (Mean of age= 20.95, SD= 3.28). In this study, a recently created subjective well-being construct, known as ontological well-being (OWB), was utilized for measuring eudaimonic happiness based on time perspective in a cross-cultural study. Cluster analysis showed that Turkish people had higher levels of positive affect, negative affect, and psychological flourishing compared to French people, but the levels of regret and nothingness were similar in both groups. Differences between clusters in terms of negative affect were mainly driven by differences in ontological well-being (OWB).
TopWhat Is Ontological Well-Being?
Subjective well-being (SWB) was defined by Diener (1984; 2000) as a unity of cognitive and affective evaluations of life. Life satisfaction constituted the cognitive dimension while positive affect and the lack of negative affect represented the affective dimension, later referred to as emotional well-being. Diener et al. (1999) described subjective well-being in a broad category of constructs that includes people's emotional responses, domain satisfactions, and global judgments of life satisfaction. Each of the specific phenomenon need to be specified in their own right, considering components often related substantially, suggesting the need for the higher order factor. Accordingly, subjective well-being might be comprehended as a general area of scientific field rather than a single specific phenomenon. Main divisions could be pleasant affect (e.g. joy, affection, happiness), unpleasant affect (e.g. sadness, stress, depression), life satisfaction (e.g. desire to change life, satisfaction with past, significant others’ views of one’s life), and domain satisfactions (e.g. work, family, leisure health).
Many researchers have been studied the associations between subjective wellbeing and various variables. Diener (1999) highlighted that there are social and psychological indicators of subjective well-being as well as people’s different reactions to the similar contexts, and they assess condition based on their personal expectations, values, and earlier experiences. For instance, Kuzu, Berk, and Aydin (2017) examined whether four factors (body image, pain, function and mental health) predicted subjective well-being variables (Positive Affect, Negative Affect, Life Satisfaction) or not. Findings of the study emphasized that body image significantly predict Positive Affect, Negative Affect, Life Satisfaction as consistent with the literature. Researchers claimed that body image is related with psychosocial concerns therefore body image is a crucial variable which is associated with subjective well-being.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Positive Affect: Pleasant feelings such as strong, alert, and active.
Subjective Well-Being: Cognitive and emotional evaluation of general happiness of one’s personal life.
Negative Affect: Unpleasant feelings such as sad, depressed and anger.
Self-Construal: It is individuals understanding of who they are in relation to the broad set of cultural influences.
Ontological Well-Being: A collection of affective and cognitive evaluations of one’s life and considered personal project with past, present, and future parts.
Flourishing: Eudaimonic visions of well-being regarding feelings and human flourishing in relevant areas such as purpose in life, relationships, self-esteem, feelings of competence, and optimism.
Time Perspective: An unconscious processes of assigning personal and social experiences into past, present and future events in order to give meaning and coherence to those events.