Coping and Co-creation: One Attempt and One Route to Well-being. Part 2. Application to Identity and Social Well-being

Abstract

Background. This is the application part of a two-part paper that starts from the assumption that core cognition for promoting agent well-being is shared by all living beings. In Part 1, we derived a number of key terms of core cognition and two behavioral ontologies: coping and co-creation. Objective. Our first aim is to extend the conceptual framework and two behavioral ontologies, while explaining, from first principles, the observed basic structure in identity development. The second is to apply core cognition on a metatheoretical level to explain how the two theories about fostering well-being show the characteristic features of our two behavioral ontologies. Results. We demonstrate that the four different combinations of coping, cocreation, adequacy, and inadequacy explain from first principles the underlying structure of identity. Among other things, these accurately leads us to the defining features of authoritarianism. The notion of ontological security, as it is known in the literature, accurately describes the coping mode’s restricted capacity for the creation and protection of well-being. Ontological security leads to a self-limiting form of well-being that has been described as “abnormal normality.” In contrast, psychological safety provides the preconditions for high wellbeing and a safe environment, thus promoting the healthy development of coping and co-creation adequacy.