The following definition of emotional well-being (EWB) is a working draft. Drs. Crystal Park and Sandra Chafouleas led a subcommittee of researchers from the network of networks. This subcommittee spent approximately one year working together to discuss separating the constituents of EWB from causes, consequences, and correlates.  Active discussion also entailed concept mapping, and determining how to be inclusive of culture and context.  More information about the work of the subcommittee can be found in a special issue of Affective Science .  In that issue, 7 commentaries on the work are offered along with a response by the original authors to those commentaries.

Our working definition of EWB is:

EWB is a multi-dimensional composite that encompasses how positive an individual feels generally and about life overall.

It has both experiential features such as the emotional quality of everyday experiences and reflective features such as judgments about: life satisfaction, sense of meaning, and ability to pursue goals that can include and extend beyond the self.

These features occur in the context of culture, life circumstances, resources, and life course.

We expect that this definition may change over time so please stay tuned for more. If you have feedback please let us know here.