The folk conception of the good life
Traditionally, the concept of the good life has been associated with well-being, as if they were equivalent terms. Recently, some empirical work has questioned this assumption, revealing that the popular notion of the good life may encompass considerations beyond well-being, such as morality or aest...
- Autores:
-
Carmona Díaz, Gino Marttelo
- Tipo de recurso:
- Doctoral thesis
- Fecha de publicación:
- 2024
- Institución:
- Universidad de los Andes
- Repositorio:
- Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
- Idioma:
- eng
- OAI Identifier:
- oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/76078
- Acceso en línea:
- https://hdl.handle.net/1992/76078
- Palabra clave:
- Folk conceptions
Good life
Subjective well-being
Personal aspirations
Nomologic networks
Psicología
- Rights
- openAccess
- License
- https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/static/pdf/aceptacion_uso_es.pdf
| Summary: | Traditionally, the concept of the good life has been associated with well-being, as if they were equivalent terms. Recently, some empirical work has questioned this assumption, revealing that the popular notion of the good life may encompass considerations beyond well-being, such as morality or aesthetic values. In this dissertation, my goal is to explore the popular conception of the good life through a prototype approach. Specifically, my aim is to examine the centrality of morality, success, and meaning in the popular conception of the good life through a series of studies employing different methodologies, including a free-listing task (Study 1), a centrality task (Study 2), a categorization task (Study 3), and an experiment (Study 4). Across these studies, we found that the popular conception of the good life indeed includes many elements beyond well-being, such as moral, material, and aesthetic considerations. The studies also revealed that both morality and success may be key factors in judgments about the good life. Additionally, in Study 5, we explored the nomological network of the good life in relation to other concepts such as moral identity, personal aspirations, and subjective well-being. The results provided strong evidence of a relationship between the good life and moral identity and personal aspirations. Surprisingly, we found no evidence of a relationship between the good life and subjective well-being. This work has several theoretical, methodological, and social implications. It contributes to a better understanding of the popular conception of the good life and its differentiation from well-being, offers a bottom-up approach to examining the prototypical structure of a concept, and reveals important social implications of how people perceive the idea of the good life, such as the things they aspire to achieve. |
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