How Healthy and Unhealthy Values Predict Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being: Dissecting Value-Related Beliefs and Behaviours

Abstract

Despite a strong link between values and well-being, little is known about dimensions moderating this link, e.g., whether individuals who act upon their values experience greater well-being for healthy values (e.g., self-transcendence) and lower well-being for unhealthy values (e.g., self-enhancement). Moreover, research on values and value-related behavior has rarely accounted for hedonic and eudaimonic well-being at the same time. Thus, we aimed to examine how values, value-related behaviors, and their interaction relate to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. We expected that ‘healthy’ values would correspond with higher well-being and unhealthy values with lower well-being. A community sample representative of young adults (N = 1161) reported their values, value-related behavior, and well-being. We found that for most values, behavior was an additional independent predictor of well-being related either to even more (e.g., self-transcendence) or less (e.g., self-enhancement) positive outcomes. For some values, behavior moderated the link between beliefs and well-being by boosting (self-transcendence) or suppressing it (conservation). We also found different links between hedonic versus eudaimonic well-being, e.g., self-enhancement and openness to change. This study presents the importance of asking about value-related beliefs, behaviors, their congruence, and specific facets of well-being when analyzing the value and well-being link. We conclude that some values are best for well-being when they remain passive, with little accompanying behaviors (self-enhancement or conservation), whereas others provide more benefits when individuals act upon them (self-transcendence).

Values, Health and Well-Being of Young Europeans Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET)

“…Furthermore, in Eastern Europe, conservation and self-enhancement were high, and openness to change and self-transcendence were low among both genders. Confirming the idea of conservation and self-enhancement as unhealthy values [ 40 ], we show the low SRH and SW among Eastern European NEETs [ 40 ]. This might reflect, first, the higher social norm to work in Eastern European countries [ 44 ].…”

“…This is the first study to combine and explain health and well-being by values among young unemployed men and women. The obtained results increase the understanding of the factors affecting the health and well-being of NEET young people because values precede and guide actions and, thus, health behaviour, such as smoking, eating behaviour or seeking social support [ 40 , 45 ] and values can also influence how people feel, e.g., they can make you more or less trustful or, they can make you feel guilty or ashamed when you do not live according to prevailing norms. An individual’s opportunity to influence their health and health behaviour is, however, shaped and limited by several social, contextual and individual circumstances.…”

“…When analysing the association between values and SRH in European regions, we show that self-enhancement was positively related to SRH among Western European women, South-Eastern men and Eastern women. This is an interesting and rather contradictory finding because self-enhancement is considered an unhealthy value [ 40 ]. On the other hand, the unhealthiness has been shown in association with SW, not SRH.…”

“…The values of conservation and openness to change are opposing, as are self-enhancement and self-transcendence, and these opposing values are not expressed by the same person. Openness to change and self-transcendence are found to be beneficial, and conservation and self-enhancement harmful, for health and well-being [ 39 , 40 ]. Among NEET young people, openness to change might indicate an active social life and more social support, creativity to deal with problems and flexibility with life changes, which lead to better health and well-being.…”

Volunteering and political participation are differentially associated with eudaimonic and social well-being across age groups and European countries

“…Health and leisure activities covered self-reported general health (1 = very bad; 5 = very good), frequency of physical activity in the past seven days (0 = on no days; 7 = on all days), frequency of socializing with friends, relatives, or work colleagues (1 = never; 7 = every day), and frequency of attendance at religious services (1 = never; 7 = every day). Finally, to take dispositional factors into account, we used six two-item scales from the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ) [81] to assess the values of benevolence, universalism, achievement, stimulation, hedonism, and power, which are known to be associated with nonpolitical and political participation [82,83] as well as with eudaimonic and social well-being [84,85]. Before computing mean scores on each scale, we centered each item on the mean value across all 21 PVQ items [81].…”