Subjective well-being

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a self-reported measure of well-being, typically obtained by questionnaire.

Ed Diener developed a tripartite model of SWB in 1984, which describes how people experience the quality of their lives and includes both emotional reactions and cognitive judgments. It posits "three distinct but often related components of wellbeing: frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and cognitive evaluations such as life satisfaction." SWB is an overarching ideology that encompasses such things as "high levels of pleasant emotions and moods, low levels of negative emotions and moods, and high life-satisfaction."

SWB therefore encompasses moods and emotions as well as evaluations of one's satisfaction with general and specific areas of one's life. SWB is one definition of happiness.

Although SWB tends to be stable over the time and is strongly related to personality traits, the emotional component of SWB can be impacted by situations; for example, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, lowered emotional well-being by 74%. There is evidence that health and SWB may mutually influence each other, as good health tends to be associated with greater happiness, and a number of studies have found that positive emotions and optimism can have a beneficial influence on health.