Researchers have found that living according to your values can improve your well-being.
But well-being can also help you live by your values.
Key Facts:
- Acting on personal values can boost well-being the next day.
- Feeling good can help people act on values the next day.
- There’s a two-way relationship between values and well-being.
- Not all values affect well-being the same way.
Source: Journal of Personality (27 July 2023)
What Are Values?
Values are the things that matter most to us – our guiding ideals and principles.
Values help shape who we are and how we live.
Some common values include family, friendship, success, pleasure, spirituality, and creativity.
We all have a set of values that are important to us personally.
Past Research on Values and Well-being & Happiness
Previous studies found that how much people valued things wasn’t strongly linked to their wellbeing and happiness.
But more recent research showed that fulfilling or acting on values is more important for wellbeing.
For example, when people felt they were living according to their values, they tended to have higher wellbeing.
This matches the concept of “valued living” in psychology.
Valued living means making choices and acting in line with your values.
Therapies like Acceptance and Commitment Therapy aim to help people live by their values to improve wellbeing.
But most studies only looked one-way – whether valued living affects wellbeing.
They didn’t test whether the reverse could also be true, that wellbeing helps people act on their values. Both directions are plausible.
The Current Study: Survey of 184 people
This study looked at how daily value fulfillment and wellbeing influence each other over time.
The researchers surveyed 184 people from Europe, India, and Turkey for 9 days.
Each day, participants rated:
- How much they fulfilled values that day
- Their wellbeing that day
The values measured were:
- Self-direction: freedom, creativity
- Stimulation: excitement, novelty
- Hedonism: pleasure, enjoyment
- Achievement: success, competence
- Conformity: obedience, duty
The wellbeing ratings covered positive and negative aspects like mood, stress, and life satisfaction.
Does Value Fulfillment Boost Well-being?
The results showed that acting on certain values predicted higher wellbeing the next day:
- Self-direction values: More positive wellbeing
- Hedonism values: Less negative wellbeing
So fulfilling values related to freedom and pleasure improved wellbeing measures the following day.
This supports the idea that valued living enhances wellbeing over time.
Does Well-being Help Value Fulfillment?
The researchers also found that higher wellbeing predicted greater value fulfillment the next day:
- Positive wellbeing: More fulfillment of achievement, stimulation, and self-direction values
- Negative wellbeing: Less achievement value fulfillment
Feeling good made it easier for people to act on values related to success, excitement, and freedom the next day.
These results show a two-way relationship between values and wellbeing.
Value fulfillment can boost wellbeing, but wellbeing also helps people live by their values.
Other Important Findings:
- The effects were consistent across the 3 countries in the study.
- How important someone rated a value didn’t strengthen the link between that value and wellbeing.
- Pre-study wellbeing levels didn’t change the effects.
- Weekends vs. weekdays didn’t affect the results.
- Different wellbeing measures like mood, stress, and life satisfaction showed similar patterns.
- But not all values affected wellbeing equally. The type of value mattered.
Insights for Our Wellbeing
This study reveals some helpful insights about the connection between values and wellbeing:
- Focusing on self-direction and hedonism values may be especially good for wellbeing. Acting on values related to freedom, creativity, and pleasure had the strongest links to feeling good.
- There’s a virtuous cycle between values and wellbeing. Fulfilling values boosts wellbeing, which in turn helps people live by their values.
- Feeling good empowers people to act on their values. Boosting wellbeing through positive activities may enable more valued living.
- Valued living could be used in therapies and schools to promote wellbeing through purposeful, rewarding action.
- The findings were robust across cultures, times, and wellbeing types. The two-way link between values and wellbeing appears fundamental to human flourishing.
The Mental Mechanisms
Why does acting on values improve wellbeing, and vice versa?
The researchers suggest a few potential mental mechanisms:
- Values are abstract ideals – fulfilling them may provide concrete meaning and purpose.
- Choosing intrinsic goals (like values) enhances wellbeing in studies.
- Valued actions often involve pursuing self-growth and relationships – key factors in wellbeing.
- Positive emotions from wellbeing broaden mindsets and enable pursuing new meaningful activities.
More research is needed to clarify the precise psychological processes involved.
But this study convincingly demonstrates the two-directional relationship between living by values and feeling good.
Caveats to keep in mind…
This study had a few limitations to keep in mind:
- Only 5 value types were measured out of 10 total. Further research could look at all 10.
- The average age was 26 years old. Findings may differ for older populations.
- Daily surveys may not capture wellbeing fluctuations between the 2 days.
What are the takeaways: well-being & values relationship?
Overall, this research clearly shows that values and wellbeing interact in a mutually reinforcing upward spiral over time.
Acting on values boosts wellbeing, and feeling good empowers value fulfillment. These results integrate previous theories and have implications for clinical treatments.
They also provide simple self-help strategies: focus on values around self-direction, stimulation, and hedonism, and find activities that make you feel good.
This two-pronged approach can launch a positive cycle of valued living and wellbeing.
By living in line with our deeply held values while also cultivating joy and meaning, we can build lives of purpose and fulfillment.
References
- Study: Value fulfillment and well-being: Clarifying directions over time
- Authors: Paul H P Hanel et al. (2023)
