Sustainability and Subjective Well-Being: How Students Weigh Dimensions

Abstract

Sustainability and Subjective Well-Being (SWB) are strongly interrelated domains. The way students view them and prioritize their dimensions should be factored into curricular developments in education for sustainability. Instruments developed to examine sustainability and SWB preferences typically use rating scale items to measure dimensions as separate entities. In contrast, the question format used in this study forces the students to rate variables in relation to each other. The sum of both SWB and sustainability variables was fixed, which means that increasing the weight of a priority automatically meant a decrease in the weight that could be allocated for the remaining elements. Two-block Partial Least Squares (PLS) modelling was used to examine how pre-defined SWB and sustainability dimensions behave when handled within the same model. It was found that those who ordered the three sustainability dimensions as Environment > Society > Economy tended to rank SWB dimensions as (Relations with others, Inner peace) > (Health, Close to nature) > (Good job, Leisure). Our research proved that the use of question formats resembling real-life resource allocation dilemmas and the treatment of SWB and sustainability as one system can yield invaluable information for the educational process.

Contributions of Subjective Well-Being and Good Living to the Contemporary Development of the Notion of Sustainable Human Development

“…We believe that this study has managed to go beyond the contributions of subjective wellbeing and Good Living In the contemporary development of the notion of sustainable human development in corporate human capital [105][106][107][108], in which the of development was associated with the economic perspective during the Cold War, where industrialized countries showed the world their models of economic recovery and competed to show effective results [109][110][111][112]. Over time, theoretical discussions about development focused on accepting the assumptions of welfare economics understood as utilitarian, as a vision for maximizing the production of goods and services [113][114][115][116][117].…”

Subjective Well-Being in Higher Education: Psychometric Properties of the Satisfaction with Life and Subjective Vitality Scales in Spanish University Students

“…Spanish higher education institutions are becoming more interested in developing strategies aimed to nurture sustainability values in university students and society, which is leading to the creation of a sustainability specialization campus committed to environmental, economic and social sustainability [94]. Psychosocial and social sustainability are heavily associated with subjective well-being in this particular population, as college students consider that social relationships and health are the two most important factors of well-being [1,95,96]. Interestingly, this appreciation seems to be shared by populations from different cultural and geographical backgrounds, pointing towards a cross-cultural model regarding social sustainability and subjective well-being [34,35].…”

“…Subjective well-being has become a topic of major interest in sustainability research and psychosocial and public health [1][2][3]. Subjective well-being is a comprehensive concept that refers to multiple self-evaluations of overall life and is composed of both cognitive and emotional constructs [4][5][6][7].…”

“…Additionally, this population is more likely to suffer high levels of stress, depression and anxiety, which severely affect their subjective well-being and quality of life [30][31][32]. Among university students, the link between sustainability and subjective well-being is of particular interest, because higher education has been proposed as a predictor of post-materialistic goals and green values [1,33], and conflict between green and materialistic values is associated with higher degrees of stress and a lower subjective well-being [22]. Additionally, although university students consider psychosocial and social sustainability in particular core factors of subjective well-being, research regarding this topic is scarce [1,34,35].…”

The appearance of sport as a travel motivation in traveling habits

“…Demand is not only expanding but re-shaping as well. The needs of travelers are changing, instead of passive travel, active leisure time activities are getting more prevalent during travel (Smith and Puczkó, 2010;Michalkó et al, 2011;Csirmaz and Pető, 2015;Bíró and Müller, 2017;Lövei and Kalmár, 2017;Lenténé et al, 2019a), as health awareness is appreciated more and more in leisure and travel trends as well as in travel motivations (Sőrés et al, 2012;Müller et al, 2005Lengyel, 2015;Kalmar et al, 2016;Gödény et al, 2018;Laoues et al, 2019;Lengyel et al, 2019). Several national and international studies report that sport plays a dominant role in travel motivations (Müller and Bácsné, 2018).…”