The concept of «psychological well-being» describes the state and characteristics of a person’s inner world, which determine the experience of well-being, as well as behavior that produces and manifests situational well-being. What personal features are associated with such an internal picture of the world of the individual and the style, way of life? The answer to this question is already more complicated, since different researchers, describing even similar personality traits, often use different concepts, different vocabulary.
K. Riff singled out as the basic components of a person’s psychological well-being: positive relationships with others, self-acceptance (a positive assessment of oneself and one’s life), autonomy (the ability to follow one’s own beliefs), competence (control over the environment, the ability to effectively manage one’s life), the presence of goals that give life direction and meaning, personal growth as a sense of ongoing development and self-realization.
It seems that approximately the same list can be formulated in other terms, assuming that psychological well-being is associated with such personal characteristics as self-confidence, adequate self-esteem, a positive outlook on life, goodwill, sociability, and emotional stability.
The concept of «psychological well-being» is closely related to such concepts as mental health and meaningfulness of life. As P.P. Fesenko, “The existing research in personality psychology does not give an unequivocal answer to this question,” however, based on his own research, the author claims that the meaningfulness of life and the psychological well-being of a person directly and significantly correlate with each other. According to his data, «all structural components of psychological well-being directly correlate with the level of meaningfulness of life and meaningful life orientations.»
Unfortunately, causal relationships in the work of P.P. Fesenko are not clear enough and can give rise to various interpretations. Does meaningful life generate psychological well-being, or does psychological well-being generate an interest in meaningful life? Or maybe both the meaningfulness of life and psychological well-being are in fact independent branches growing from the same root, and are equally generated by something third, for example, the general culture of the individual?
A separate, very interesting question is about the psychological well-being of young children, for whom the question of the meaningfulness of life is not in principle. There is an assumption, however, that the psychological well-being of a young child is in fact connected with the meaningfulness of his life in the most intimate and direct way. The fact is that a small child does not live as a separate being, he develops as an element of the ecosystem, where the mother and the family as a whole are engaged in his development, create for him a focus on the future, thus fulfilling the function of giving meaning to his life. If a child is only fed, but not developed, if he is not created growth prospects, the child stops his development, essentially turns into a “vegetable”.
Unfortunately, such experiments were carried out by life itself: after the October Revolution, there were a large number of abandoned children who were collected in baby houses, but who could only be provided with food and basic care. Six months later, the children lost all interest in life and people and reacted with displeasure to attempts to pick them up and play with them. They only wanted to sleep and eat.