What Makes a Life Good?

Two studies examined folk concepts of the good life. Samples of college students (N=104) and community adults (N=264) were shown a career survey ostensibly completed by a person rating his or her occupation. After reading the survey, participants judged the desirability and moral goodness of the res...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: KING, Laura A., SCOLLON, Christie N.
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1998
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/933
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/1932/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Two studies examined folk concepts of the good life. Samples of college students (N=104) and community adults (N=264) were shown a career survey ostensibly completed by a person rating his or her occupation. After reading the survey, participants judged the desirability and moral goodness of the respondent's life, as a function of the amount of happiness, meaning in life, and wealth experienced. Results revealed significant effects of happiness and meaning on ratings of desirability and moral goodness. In the college sample, individuals high on all 3 independent variables were judged as likely to go to heaven. In the adult sample, wealth was also related to higher desirability. Results suggest a general perception that meaning in life and happiness are essential to the folk concept of the good life, whereas money is relatively unimportant.