Process Nature of Well-Being:A Theoretical Overview

World Health Organization has viewed well-being as a state of equilibrium at the physical, mental, social and spiritual domains. "How" aspects or dynamics of well-being based on theoretical framework help us to understand the process nature of well-being. These ideas are extremely helpful in developing well-ness enhancement programmes. Intentional activity theory suggests that volitional activities where energy is spent increases well-being. Telic or end-point theories posit that well-being is gained when goal or need is reached and persistence of unfulfilled needs are responsible for unhappiness. According to Bottom-up theory happy life is the accumulation of happy moments. In contrast, top-down theory advocates for a global propensity to experience things in a positive manner. Cognitive approach to Associationistic theories suggests that events attributed to internal and stable factors bring in maximum well-being. Judgment theories based on comparison views that people experience well-being when they find themselves to be better off than others. According to Adaptation theory recent changes produce happiness and unhappiness. But people eventually adapt to the overall level of events and restore happiness. Proactive theory predicts that the greatest happiness is experienced by those who have negatively skewed distribution of events. Another popular form of judgment theory advocates that the less the discrepancy between the actual condition and aspiration the greater is the happiness. Thus, there are different theoretical routes to understand the process nature of well-being. A crucial examination of their relative strengths is a challenging task before the researchers.