Subjective Well-Being

According to Freud’s conclusion based on decades of experimentation and theoretical work in the field of psychotherapy, humans cannot be happy because a satisfaction of needs creates only a momentary phase of happiness which expires after some time. Therefore, the focus of life should not be obtaining happiness, and people should focus on avoiding suffering instead (Bullock, n.d.). However, several paradigms about well-being exist, and individual cognitive patterns and paradigms define the emotional responses to social influences. From an objective viewpoint, well-being is a state of consciousness that arises from a combination of internal and external factors, and money is an unstable external influence in defining subjective well-being.

Money as a determinant for subjective well-being is influenced by several cultural influences. For example, Dittmar (2008) points out a study on UK and Croatian students that revealed more materialistic inclinations in UK students who were more subject to lower well-being in case of conflicts between material and community values. Based on this study, it is possible to make a conclusion that society defines the value of money and its effects on human psychology. If learning theories suggest that cognitive patterns and paradigms form during childhood when the child is exposed to and accepts external ideas, that explains how people from different cultural backgrounds can perceive the value of money differently and form different motivations for making money.

In explaining subjective well-being, the money-making motivations are divided into realistic and unrealistic categories. Scientific researchers explain that realistic goals include financial security, success, worth, and pri...

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...any money-making motivation as unrealistic or counter-productive to subjective well-being.

Subjective well-being is apparently a product of psychological reactions to external stimulants, and those reactions are a product of learning social paradigms through cultural influences. As such, it is not possible to strictly relate it to any given external circumstance, person, or object for all communities and individuals. In terms of money-making motivations, they are all equally related to subjective-wellbeing. Fulfilling financial goals leads to the achievement of desires, so it increases well-being while incomplete goals will lower subjective well-being. It is possible to argue that subjective well-being which arises from making money is only a temporary sensation that will eventually fade, so income levels are unstable and unreliable determinants of well-being.