A Good Story: Using Future Life Narratives to Predict Present Well-Being

Eric Hill (), Heather Terrell, Andrea Arellano, Blake Schuetz and Craig Nagoshi

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2015, vol. 16, issue 6, 1615-1634

Abstract: The present research examined the predictive and nomological validity of a narrative method for assessing goals. College students (N = 337, 158 women, M age = 19.08) from a large, public university wrote short narratives about their best possible selves in the future, imagining that they had realized all of their life dreams. Narratives were coded in terms of the number of statements reflecting each of fourteen types of goals. Intercoder reliability was strong. With regard to predictive validity, intrinsic goals, particularly spiritual and intimacy goals were positively related to well-being. Extrinsic goals, power goals in particular, tended to be negatively related to well-being. With regard to nomological validity, the spiritual goals-well-being relationship was mediated by frequency of religious service attendance and self-report measures of religiosity. Interestingly, intrinsic goals were negatively related to life satisfaction. Results are discussed in the context of self-determination theory and the internalization of extrinsic motivations. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Keywords: Life goals; Intrinsic goals; Extrinsic goals; Spirituality; Well-being; Narratives; Narrative content coding; College students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1007/s10902-014-9581-9

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