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Contents
- Abstract
- Guiding Hypotheses
- Method
- Subjects
- Striving Lists
- Striving Assessment Scales
- Striving Instrumentality Matrix
- Experience-Sampling Procedure
- Mood Form
- Thought Content
- Subjective Well-Being Variables
- Results
- Correlations of SAS Variables
- Positive Affect
- Negative Affect
- Life Satisfaction
- Time Orientation
- Additional Analyses
- Discussion
- Striving Fulfillment and Well-Being
- Ambivalence, Conflict, and SWB
- Expectations and SWB
- Directions for Future Research
- Personal Strivings and Traits
- Conclusions
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Abstract
Personal strivings refer to the characteristic types of goals that individuals try to achieve through their everyday behavior. This study examined relations between characteristics of these personal goal strivings (e.g., importance, past attainment, effort) and components of subjective well-being (positive and negative affect and life satisfaction). Subjects generated lists of their personal strivings and rated each striving on a series of dimensions. Subjects also recorded their moods and thoughts by use of an experience-sampling method on 84 occasions over a 3-week period. Positive affect was found to be most strongly related to striving value and past fulfillment, whereas negative affect was associated with low probability of future success, striving ambivalence, and between-striving conflict. Striving importance and instrumentality (low conflict) were the strongest predictors of life satisfaction. Possible explanations for the connections between striving fulfillment and positive affect and between striving conflict and negative affect are discussed. It is concluded that the concept of personal striving is a useful heuristic device for understanding individual differences in subjective well-being. In addition, the concept is promoted as an alternative to the traditional trait approach to personality.
There is a widespread belief in our culture that possessing and progressing toward meaningful life goals is a prerequisite for subjective well-being. Many subjective well-being theories are telic in nature—proposing that fulfillment of needs, goals, and desires is related to happiness (Diener, 1984). For example, Wilson (1960) argued that the satisfaction of needs leads to happiness and the presence of needs that remain unfulfilled leads to unhappiness. Chekola (1974) developed the concept of life plans—the total integrated set of one's desires and goals. According to Chekola, happiness depends on the continuing fulfillment or realization of the life plan. In addition, the interrelatedness of motivation in the form of goals or needs and...