Orientations to Happiness and Subjective Well-Being in Chinese Adolescents: The Roles of Prosocial Behavior and Internet Addictive Behavior

Ying Yang, Peipei Li, Xinyuan Fu and Yu Kou ()
Additional contact information
Ying Yang: Beijing Normal University
Peipei Li: Beijing Normal University
Xinyuan Fu: Central University of Finance and Economics
Yu Kou: Beijing Normal University

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2017, vol. 18, issue 6, No 10, 1747-1762

Abstract: Abstract Researchers have studied individual’s pursuit of well-being through two perspectives: the eudaimonic perspective and the hedonic perspective. Peterson and his colleagues (2005) introduced their Orientations to Happiness scale, a self-report measure assessing individual’s pursuit of well-being that corresponds to these two perspectives. Specifically, the Life of Meaning subscale is the index of the eudaimonic pursuit; the Life of Pleasure subscale is the index of the hedonic pursuit. Previous research has demonstrated that orientations to happiness are positively associated with individual’s subjective well-being, whereas little research has addressed the mechanisms underlying the associations. Based on goal theory of happiness, the present study investigated how orientations to happiness were associated with subjective well-being by examining the indirect effects of the prosocial behavior and Internet addictive behavior in a sample of Chinese adolescents aged between 13 and 18 (N = 2082). The results showed that: (1) both life of meaning and life of pleasure were positively associated with adolescents’ subjective well-being; (2) prosocial behavior partially mediated the positive association between life of meaning and subjective well-being; and (3) prosocial behavior also partially mediated the positive association between life of pleasure and subjective well-being, whereas Internet addictive behavior undermined the positive association here. The findings shed light on the underlying mechanisms between orientations to happiness and subjective well-being.

Keywords: Adolescents; Orientations to happiness; Subjective well-being; Prosocial behavior; Internet addictive behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-016-9794-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:18:y:2017:i:6:d:10.1007_s10902-016-9794-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... fe/journal/10902/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-016-9794-1

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Happiness Studies is currently edited by Antonella Delle Fave

More articles in Journal of Happiness Studies from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().