Topic > The effects of self-affirmation on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being

A study was conducted to test the effects of self-affirmation on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Participants were 540 undergraduate students (141 male and 399 female) from the University of Western Sydney, aged 17–71 years. Participants were randomly assigned to a control condition or an experimental condition. The study used electronic surveys to measure hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, and the results were used as baseline measures for the continuation of the study. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The Modified Differential Emotions Scale, consisting of 20 items with five-point Likert scales, was used for hedonic well-being. Eudaimonic well-being was measured using an 18-item scale, with a 7-point Likert scale for each item. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the experimental group and the control group for both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Introduction The present research provides ample support for the idea that affirmations increase adaptive functioning and well-being. Regardless of this fact, there is little to no recognition of the effect of affirmations in the fields of wellness studies and positive psychology (Howell, A. 2017). There are two main conceptions of well-being, hedonic well-being and eudaimonic well-being. The hedonic conception of well-being associates well-being with pleasure and happiness (McMahan, E., & Estes, A. 2011). The eudaimonic view of well-being, however, conceptualizes well-being in terms of “the cultivation of personal strengths and contributions to the greater good” (McMahan, E., & Estes, A. 2011). This perspective focuses heavily on the meaning of life and self-actualization. A person labeled as having high levels of satisfaction in his or her life and who experiences more positive affect (PA) than negative affect (NA) is considered to have a high level of "hedonic" well-being. While a person considered to have "eudaimonic" well-being maintains high levels of purposeful life commitment, lives in accordance with one's "true self" and aims to achieve a true sense of self. Cohen and Sherman 2014 define self-affirmation as "an act that manifests one's adequacy and thus affirms one's sense of self. global integrity” (p. 337) It is basically the behavior of expressing a positive attitude towards oneself by saying positive affirmations, repeated every day. This article examines the effect of self-affirmation and positive expressions on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. People want to be healthy, they want to grow, learn, and have positive relationships, but “psychological threat can impede their ability to do so” (Cohen and Sherman 2014. p. 354). Hence the theorization that affirmations can combat the internal alarm of psychological threat. Epton and Harris (2008) demonstrated the effectiveness of self-affirmation in increasing eudaimonic and hedonic well-being through experimentation with students. They found that students engaging in a self-affirmation intervention (e.g. writing about past acts of kindness they had completed) had extremely high ratings of both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being compared to students assigned to the control group. MethodParticipantsA total of 540 undergraduate students (141 male and 399 female) from Western Sydney University were recruited via convenience sampling and participated in a study investigating the effects of self-affirmation on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. The age of. = 0. 72.