Psychological Maturity Predicts Different Forms of Happiness

Andres Fossas ()
Additional contact information
Andres Fossas: Harvard Extension School

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2019, vol. 20, issue 6, No 13, 1933-1952

Abstract: Abstract Are more mature people happier? Do they experience a different form of happiness? The current mixed-methods study explored these questions by recruiting 35 adults at different stages of adult psychological maturity as operationalized by Robert Kegan’s subject-object theory. Happiness was measured quantitatively in both hedonic and eudaimonic forms, and qualitatively as the structure of an adult’s conceptualization of happiness. Psychological maturity was measured with the subject-object interview. Quantitative findings revealed a curvilinear relationship between maturity and happiness, such that participants near the 4th stage of adult maturity (self-authoring mind) reported greater levels of happiness than those closer to the 3rd stage (socialized mind) and 5th stage (self-transforming mind). The qualitative findings suggest that participants at or near each of the three adult maturity stages described a structurally different form of happiness. Combined, the results suggest that: (1) happiness may change qualitatively as an adult matures psychologically; (2) extant quantitative measures of happiness may be inadvertently capturing one of several possible qualitative forms of the construct in adulthood. The implications for the current understanding of wellbeing, and its measurement, are discussed.

Keywords: Happiness; Wellbeing; Maturity; Subject-object theory; Development; Complexity; Eudaimonia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-018-0033-9 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:20:y:2019:i:6:d:10.1007_s10902-018-0033-9

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

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-018-0033-9

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 ().