Happiness, eudaimonia, and other holy grails: What can job loss teach us about ‘One-size-fits-all’ theories of well-being?

Positive psychology has made significant advances in our understanding of well-being, yet agreement about the definition and nature of well-being remains elusive. This study explores theexperience of well-beingfrom a bottom-up, naturalistic point of view and compares these inductive notions with existing a priori theories. Using a qualitative-focused case study methodology, this paper explores how everyday people describe well-being in the context of job loss among a sample of 20 workers from the Ottawa, Canada technology sector. Findings support integrated conceptualizations of hedonia and eudaimonia while also potentially identifying new notions of well-being. Identified themes include (a) life evaluation, (b) transitory experiencing, (c) growth and grounding, (d) environmental mastery/stability, (e) mental ill-being/ill-health, and (f) motivational mindsets/conditions. This study shows well-being to be a rich, pluralistic construct which includes the non-dualistic notions of both subjectivity and objectivity as well as encompassing notions related to the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]