Doing Well-Being: The Role of Self-Reported Activities in Relation to Subjective Well-Being

Sammanfattning: Everyday activities play a fundamental part in our lives. But how do they relate to well-being? Specific types of activities, such as positive and social activities have been found to be related to subjective well-being (SWB). However, this pre-registered study aimed to investigate if self-reported everyday activities, and activities participants reported had the most impact on their SWB in the past four weeks, could predict their SWB. Participants (N = 295) were recruited from Prolific and answered open-ended questions regarding their activities, as well as numerical SWB scales, and the data was analysed using natural language processing. Inconsistent with the hypotheses, activities and activity level could not predict SWB, p > .05. Small correlations were found between predicted valence of activities and SWB, r = (-.13)-.13), p < .05, and between perceived variation in activities and SWB, r = .14-.15, indicating that features of activities may be more important than activities themselves in predicting SWB. When plotting individual activities, social, active and food related activities were related to high SWB, whereas duties and passive activities were related to low SWB. In conclusion, the activities people report they partake in do not predict SWB, although the features of the activities may.