A psychologically rich life: Beyond happiness and meaning. (#64)
Psychological science has typically a good life in terms of either hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. We propose that psychological richness is another, neglected aspect of what people consider to be a good life. Unlike happy or meaningful lives, psychologically rich lives are best characterized by a variety of interesting and perspective-changing experiences. We introduce the Triad Model of a good life and present empirical evidence showing that happiness, meaning, and psychological richness are related but distinct and desirable aspects of a good life, with unique causes and correlates. In doing so, we show that a non-trivial number of people around the world report they would choose a psychologically rich life at the expense of a happy or meaningful life, and that approximately a third say that undoing the most regretted event of their lives would have made their lives psychologically richer. Furthermore, we propose that the predictors of a psychologically rich life are different from those of a happy life or a meaningful life, and report evidence suggesting that people leading psychologically rich lives tend to be more curious, pursue more challenging coursework, and lean more politically liberal. Together, this work provides a foundation for the study of psychological richness as another dimension of a good life, moving us beyond the dichotomy of hedonic versus eudaimonic well-being.
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