OECD Conference on New Frontiers in Subjective Well-being Measurement, 4 March 2024, Paris, France

1. Bringing Eudaimonia to
OECD Measures of
Subjective Well-Being
Carol D. Ryff
University of Wisconsin-Madison
OECD Center on Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability
and Equal Opportunity (WISE)
Paris, France, March 4, 2024

2. Plan
❖ How to define and measure eudaimonia
➢ Return to Aristotle + 20th century views
➢ Scale development & evaluation
➢ Distinguish eudaimonia from hedonia
❖Scientific findings on eudaimonia [MIDUS, HRS]
➢ Links to health (biomarkers, morbidity, mortality,
brain & genetic assessments)
➢ Links to growing inequality
❖Synergies: longitudinal cohort studies (LCS) & OECD
➢ LCS bring evidence for what matters
➢ OECD brings public policy focus

3. Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Nichomachean Ethics
• Question: what is the highest of all human goods?
• Answer: happiness, but noted different meanings
“The general run of men say that happiness is some plain
and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth or honor.”
Aristotle likened this to a life “suitable for beasts.”
• Instead, he defined happiness as:
activity of the soul in accord with virtue

4. Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Nichomachean Ethics
• Next question: what is the highest virtue?
• Answer: eudaimonia – achieving the best that is within us
❖ personal excellence unique to one’s talents and
capacities, involves growth & self-realization
֍ virtuous personal becoming ֍

5. Ryff (1989) “Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning
of psychological well-being.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Reaching beyond
happiness and
life satisfaction

6. Autonomy:
marching to
one’s own
drummer
Kjeragbolten, Norway

7. Environmental Mastery:
managing your external world

8. Personal Growth: making the most of
your talents and capacities
Imagerie
Pellerin
d’Epinal
(19th
century)

9. Positive Relations with Others:
taking care of your social ties

10. Purpose in Life: finding meaning and
direction in your life

11. Self-Acceptance: recognizing and
accepting your strengths and weaknesses
Self-portrait by Kseniya
Beliaeva, woman artist
from Belarus

12. Theory-Guided Definitions
(construct-oriented approach)
Psychometric Progression
Writing items
80 items written for high/low scorer on each of
six dimensions (positively/negatively worded)
Culling item pools
Face validity checks by independent raters;
extensive checks of item-to-scale correlations
Reliability checks
Test-retest reliability; internal consistency
(alpha coefficients)
Validity checks
Convergent/discriminant validity;
confirmatory factor analyses

13. 2021
● Eudaimonic & Hedonic Well-
Being (Ryff, Boylan, & Kirsch,
2021) – links to demographic
factors & health
● Debate about measurement
recommendations
➢problem of thin, poorly
validated measures
➢inadequate assessment tools
undermine science of well-
being

14. Eudaimonia Greets Hedonia
Empirically
➢ hedonic & eudaimonic measures
➢ related but distinct constructs
➢ different correlates/predictors
(age, education, personality)
Journal of Personality
& Social Psych, 2002

15. 30+ Years After Ryff (1989)
40 languages & 1400+ pubs

16. Topical Areas
❑Psychometric Properties
❑Adult Development & Aging
❑Personality Correlates
❑Family Life
❑Work & Volunteer Engagements
❑Health & Biomarkers
❑Intervention/Clinical Studies

17. www.midus.wisc.edu
Data
publicly
available!
Sample:
11,000+
adults
(25-74)

18. 30,000+ users 2,000+ pubs

19. Purpose in Life/Eudaimonia →
• longevity
• protection against disease
• physiological regulation
• brain-based emotion regulation
• gene expression
Select Findings

20. Cohen, Bavishi, & Rozanski (2016) Psychosomatic Medicine
10 prospective
studies (n=136,265):
• Higher purpose in
life → reduced risk
all-cause mortality
• Higher purpose in
life → reduced
cardiovascular
events

21. Purpose in life protects against Alzheimer’s
and mild cognitive impairment.
(Boyle et al., Archives Gen Psychiatry, 2010)
Rush MAP

22. Purpose in life modifies association between Alzheimer’s
disease pathology in the brain and cognitive function
(Boyle et al., Arch Gen Psych, 2012)
Rush MAP

23. ➢Purpose in life →reduces risk of myocardial infarction
among adults with coronary heart disease
(Kim et al., J Behav Med, 2013)
➢Purpose in life → reduced risk of stroke
(Kim et al., J Psychosomatic Res, 2013)
➢ Purpose in life →more preventive health
behaviors (cholest tests, cancer screenings).
(Kim, Strecher, & Ryff, PNAS, 2014)
Health and Retirement Study (HRS)
➢ Purpose in life →decreased risk of functional
decline (grip strength, walking speed)
(Kim, Kawachi, Chen, Kubzansky, JAMA Psychiatry, 2017)

24. High Purpose →reduced risk
future drug misuse
Kim et al (2020), Psychosomatic Medicine

25. Purpose in life → lower levels of allostatic load
(summary index of biological risk)
(Zilioli et al. 2015, J of Psychosomatic Research)

26. Eudaimonic well-being protects against
inflammation among the less educated
(Morozink & Ryff, 2010, Health Psychology)

27. Lower educational attainment predicts
higher levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6)
Interleukin-6
• marker of inflammation
involved in etiology of
numerous diseases
(cardiovascular, cancer,
rheumatological,
osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s)

28. High well-being protects
against high IL-6 among the less educated

29. Reward circuitry, eudaimonic well-being,
and cortisol (Heller et al., Psych. Science, 2013)

30. Sustained engagement of ventral striatum in
response to positive stimuli → higher eudaimonia

31. Sustained ventral striatal activity
Residualized
AUCg(nm/L)
Cortisol
magnitude
(nmol/L) Walking 30-Mins. post Walking Lunch Bed-time
Sustained VS activity → reduced cortisol output
over the day
Schaefer et al., (2013). Purpose in life predicts better emotional recovery
from negative stimuli. PLoS ONE
Nair et al., (2024). Purpose in life as resilience factor in brain health.
Frontiers in Psychiatry

32. Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being
and Gene Expression
Fredrickson et al., (2013) PNAS
• inflammatory gene
expression (CTRA)
• healthy pattern linked with
eudaimonia
• unhealthy pattern linked
with hedonia
Apsley et al., (2024) Brain, Behavior & Immunity
Cuevas et al., (2023) Brain, Behavior, & Immunity
Mann et al., (2021) Biodemography & Social Biology

33. Problems of inequality
forces against
eudaimonia

34. Growing Inequality in America:
Psychosocial/Biological Pathways
Kirsch, Love, Radler, & Ryff, American Psychologist, 2019
• Summarized MIDUS
findings on health
inequalities
• Compared two national
samples from before to
after Great Recession

35. Links between SES & health mediated or
moderated by psychosocial factors

36. ➢ MIDUS Core (1995)
➢ MIDUS Refresher (2012)
[pre/post Recession]
Despite gains in education
over time:
❖ Refresher had worse
economics, worse health,
less well-being than Core
Kirsch, Love, Radler, & Ryff (2019) American Psychologist

37. Higher Distress & Lower Well-Being
Concentrated Among Low SES Individuals
Goldman, Glei, & Weinstein (2018). Declining mental health among
disadvantaged Americans. Proceedings National Academy of Sciences
Differences
between pre- &
post-Recession
samples
(1995 – 2012)

38. 2017
Growing Class Divide in U.S.
(top 20% vs. rest)
The upper middle class have
privileged access to…
❖Better education and jobs
❖Stable marriages to equally
or more successful partners
❖Safe, thriving neighborhoods
❖Higher income and more
wealth
❖Healthier lifestyles and
longer life-spans

39. Preceding discrepancies
translate to
compromised levels of:
• Optimism
• Life satisfaction
• Happiness
among the
disadvantaged
2017

40. 2020
Past two decades:
• rise in deaths from
suicide, drugs
(opioids) & alcohol
• context
• broken families
• declining wages
• healthcare costs

41. 2023
….“persistence of extreme want in a
nation of extraordinary wealth”
Exploitation:
• paying undocumented
workers < minimum wage
• overdraft fees (banks)
• high rent for low-income
tenants with no alternatives
• payday lenders charging high
interest

42. Poverty in UK:
• Deeply divided society
• family fragility, stagnating
wages, poor housing,
frayed communities,
unsafe streets
• Exacerbated by pandemic
• 700% increase in calls
to domestic abuse
hotline
• 86% increase seeking
help for addictions

43. Enter →COVID-19
illness/death
+++
rampant unemployment
lost health insurance
evictions/homelessness
hunger/food lines

44. Pandemic precarity: COVID-19 exposed & exacerbated
inequalities in the American heartland (Indiana)
(Perry et al, 2021, PNAS)

45. Ryff (2022) Journal of Constructivist Psychology
“Intersecting Catastrophes”
(pandemic & plague of inequality)
• relevant emotions:
➢ anger, shame
• compromised well-being
• how to fix:
➢ individual level
➢ societal/ structural
• arts/humanities:
➢ activate caring &
compassion

46. Where are we headed?
➢ eudaimonia increasingly
sequestered among the
privileged?

47. 20-Year Trajectories of Purpose
in Life By Education
p = 0.002
p = 0.010

48. 20-Year Trajectories of Personal
Growth by Education
p = 0.008
p < 0.001

49. 20-Year Trajectories of
Autonomy by Education
p = 0.007
p < 0.001

50. Without a College Degree, Life in
America is Staggeringly Shorter
Case & Deaton, October 3, 2023

51. Return to OECD Agenda
➢ which aspects of eudiamonia to assess?
❖ purpose in life: predicts diverse health outcomes
(policy import – reduced healthcare costs)
❖ personal growth: closest to Aristotle’s definition –
way of tracking personal becoming across nations
❖ self-acceptance: balanced self-evaluation – import
for virtue & ethics
❖ autonomy: variation across individualist/collectivist
countries
➢ CREDIBLE MEASUREMENT IS KEY

52. Repeat Opening Observation
Build on synergies between OECD
& longitudinal cohort studies (LCS)
✓ Cohort studies bring evidential basis –
which indicators of well-being matter
for health & mortality
✓ OECD brings public policy focus – which
needs greater focus in LCS especially
during major historical stressors

53. Thanks for listening
cryff@wisc.edu
http://midus.wisc.edu