Evaluation of Well-Being in Adolescence: Proposal of an Integrative Model with Hedonic and Eudemonic Aspects

The evaluation of well-being can be conducted according to distinct traditions, among which the hedonic and eudemonic traditions stand out. The hedonic focuses on happiness, emphasizing the presence of positive affects and the absence of negative affects. The eudemonic emphasizes living well and fully, and the realization of human potential. This study aims to test a hypothetical model of well-being in adolescents, seeking to assess the dimensional structure of well-being, including measures of hedonic (subjective) and eudemonic (psychological) well-being. The sample consisted of 1248 Brazilian adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age (M = 15.09,SD = 1.77). The instruments employed were the Psychological Well-Being Scale, the Brief Multidimensional Students' Life Satisfaction Scale and the Core Affects Scale. Three hypothetical models of relationships between the two well-being perspectives were tested using structural equation modeling. The results show that the model with subjective well-being and psychological well-being as two uncorrelated factors presented the worst values for model fit. The Oblique Model, with subjective well-being and psychological well-being as two correlated factors (r = .90) and the Single Factor Model, with well-being measures as observed variables of a single well-being latent factor, exhibited close fits. We conclude that a second-order factor encompasses the complexity of the well-being construct across different dimensions, while offering an integrative perspective of those dimensions.