A Model of Subjective Well-Being Homeostasis: The Role of Personality

By Robert Cummins, E. Gullone, A. Lau. 2002

208 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A considerable body of data is now available to suggest that subjective well-being (SWB) is not free to vary over the theoretical range offered by measurement scales. Rather, most people experience a moderately positive level of well-being, such that the population average is normally held at about 75 percent of maximum. This has led to the proposal that SWB is under the influence of a homeostatic system designed to hold its value within a narrow, positive, set-point-range for each individual. Our paper offers a model that could account for such maintenance through an interlocking system of psychological devices as follows: (a) Personality provides a steady affective background that determines the set-pointrange for the whole homeostatic system. (b) A set of cognitive buffers involving perceived control, self-esteem and optimism, absorb the impact of different need states and, together with personality, create subjective well-being (c) Met and unmet needs act directly on the cognitive buffers, with the met needs reinforcing the buffering system and the unmet needs providing motivation. Personality is also presented as having a powerful influence on motivational systems that seek satisfaction and, thus, predispose behavior that is likely to maintain normal levels of SWB. (d) Finally, at the most fundamental level of the homeostatic system, the processes of habituation and adaptation constitute the first line of defence against the threat of changed extrinsic conditions influencing levels of SWB. Data are cited in support of all levels of the model and the implications of homeostatic control are discussed. In particular, depression is described in terms of homeostatic failure, and the limitation of using SWB as a measure of intervention outcome is emphasized. That is, interventions can only raise SWB if its initial levels were below the setpoint-range. It is concluded that the model is consistent with a great deal of the literature and that testing its many propositions should prove a fruitful approach to advancing knowledge in this area.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/44507808272edac23954b83dd767b4638096b246

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Citations in the corpus

The ‘What’, ‘Why’ and ‘How’ of Employee Well-Being: A New Model (2009, background): “... measures of well-being are necessary to capture the subtleties, complexities and variation of employees’ cognitive and affective experiences at work has been made by several authors (e.g., Daniels 2000; Warr 1990) and aligns with the Abstract-Specific Hypothesis which claims that what respondent”
Islamic religiosity, subjective well-being, and health (2009, methodology): “We call this process Subjective Well-being Homeostasis (Cummins, Gullone, & Lau, 2002 ).”
Subjective Well-Being of China’s Off-Farm Migrants (2010, background): “One instance in which subjective well-being fell below the normative range predicted by the " Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis " was Algeria for which the PWI was 52.30 (SD=21.10).”
A proposed model of lifestyle balance (2008, background): “Cummins, Gullone, and Lau (2002) theorized that people who maintain a state of subjective well-being homeostasis are able to do so by having adequate core resources (such as healthy relationships, financial stability, etc), thus faring better after stressful life events than people without such…”
Personal Well-being in Urban China (2009, background): “Another possible explanation for the apparent paradox of stable personal well-being with rising income is 'The Theory of Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis' (Cummins, 1998; Cummins & Nistico, 2002; Cummins et al., 2002).”
Subjective Wellbeing, Homeostatically Protected Mood and Depression: A Synthesis (2010, background): “A detailed discussion of these internal buffering systems is provided in Cummins and Nistico (2002) and Cummins et al. (2002) .”
Self-Esteem, Self-Efficacy, and Social Connectedness as Mediators of the Relationship Between Volunteering and Well-Being (2012, result): “In finding support for self-esteem as a mediator, the study has for the first time provided empirical evidence for Musick and Wilson’s (2003) model of how volunteering enhances individual well-being and the theory of subjective well-being homeostasis (Cummins et al., 2002).”
Comparing Multiple Discrepancies Theory to Affective Models of Subjective Wellbeing (2011, background): “These variables have been proposed by a number of researchers to influence SWB (Cha 2003; Cummins et al. 2002; Diener and Lucas 1999; Hills and Argyle 2001; Lucas et al. 1996; Vitterso 2001; see Table 6).”
Subjective Wellbeing as an Affective-Cognitive Construct (2007, methodology): “This process has been characterized as Subjective Wellbeing Homeostasis and the proposed operation of this management system has been outlined (Cummins 2005; Cummins et al. 2002; Cummins and Lau 2004; Cummins and Nistico 2002).”
Developing a National Index of Subjective Wellbeing: The Australian Unity Wellbeing Index (2003, background): “That is, on a scale where zero represents complete dissatisfaction with life and 100 represents complete satisfaction, people’s set-point normally lies within the positive scale range of 50–100 (see Cummins et al., 2002).”
The longitudinal development of employee well-being: a systematic review (2016, background): “Overall, the results would seem to favour the theories that emphasize change over time (Baltes et al., 1998; Fredrickson, 1998; Hobfoll, 1989) than stability (Cummins et al., 2002; Headey &Wearing, 1989).”
Measuring trends in child well-being: an evidence-based approach (2007, background): “Note that life satisfaction data have homeostatic properties (Cummins et al., 2002), which effectively places a floor and ceiling on the normal ranges of variation of population averages over time.”