Bentham or Aristotle in the Development Process? An Empirical Investigation of Capabilities and Subjective Well-Being

By Carol Graham, Milena Nikolova. Social Science Research Network, 2015

159 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Life evaluations and emotional states are distinct subjective well-being (SWB) components. We explore the relationship between opportunities and SWB dimensions, distinguishing between actual capabilities and means (education, employment, and income) and perceived opportunities (autonomy and health perceptions and belief in hard work). We find a link between capabilities and SWB (particularly, life evaluations), which varies across world regions. Capabilities can be associated with stress and anger; and seem to matter the least for the happiest respondents. We also explore the determinants of the least studied well-being dimension: eudaimonia, or life purpose, which is an underlying objective of the development process.

Subfields: General Health Professions, Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/74bab44fe621bbd720846ace082741528e1b8678

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Health Professions

1. F. Cnossen
2. Milena Nikolova
3. Carol Graham
4. Frank Martela
5. Kennon M. Sheldon

In Social Psychology

1. Frank Martela
2. Milena Nikolova
3. Carol Graham
4. F. Cnossen
5. Kennon M. Sheldon
6. Sonja Lyubomirsky
7. Richard M. Ryan
8. Maarten Vansteenkiste

In Sociology and Political Science

1. F. Cnossen
2. Milena Nikolova
3. Carol Graham
4. Frank Martela
5. Kennon M. Sheldon

Citations in the corpus

• What makes work meaningful and why economists should care about it (2020, background): “Therefore, just like life satisfaction is distinct from having meaning and purpose in life (Graham and Nikolova, 2015), job satisfaction is conceptually different from work meaningfulness.”
• The Economics of Happiness (2021, background): “For example, research shows that migration improves both the incomes and subjective well-being of migrants who have moved from post-socialist countries to the West (Nikolova & Graham, 2015).”
• Clarifying the Concept of Well-Being: Psychological Need Satisfaction as the Common Core Connecting Eudaimonic and Subjective Well-Being (2019, background): “…health (Steptoe, Deaton, & Stone, 2015; Tennant et al., 2007), economics (Clark, 2016), economic policy (Dolan et al., 2011; National Research Council, 2013; OECD, 2013), and developmental studies (Graham & Nikolova, 2015) have advocated for examining dimensions of well-being that go beyond SWB.”