Life Goals and General Well-Being

Abstract

Meaning, purpose and major goals in people's lives have been purported to relate to well-being and health. To begin study of the relations among these variables, a group of 115 college students was divided into subgroups scoring high and low on general well-being, and differences in their life-goal orientation were estimated using the Life Esteem Survey questionnaire. Three life-goal components were significantly different for the subgroups: recognition of a framework of purpose, perspective of progress, and commitment to a framework. A fourth component, quality of life goals, was not significantly different. A comprehensive set of 22 possible life goals significantly discriminated among the subgroups; however, on only one, excitement, were differences significant. The only significant interaction between sex and well-being also held for the value placed on the goal of excitement. A tendency was shown for the value placed on more hedonistically oriented goals to differentiate the subgroups with the group on low well-being higher on the hedonistically oriented goals.