Page No.189-195.
Seema Mehrotra, Ravikesh Tripathi, and Humera Banu,
NIMHANS, Bangalore
.
Research on the concept of well-being in the field of psychology has a long history.
The construct of subjective well-being has received significant attention and there is
a fair degree of consensus amongst scientists on its conceptualization. In contrast,
the construct of psychological well-being that focusses on positive psychological
functioning continues to generate debates on its meaning, dimensions, and
measurement. This paper aims at presenting a few concerns in the emerging
literature on psychological well being, with a special focus on the Ryff’s model.
Through the presentation of data on measurement of psychological well-being in
the Indian context, this paper highlights that the nature and the number of dimensions
of psychological well-being across different cultures may not fully correspond to the
Ryff’s model. Self acceptance, mastery and competence, positive relations,
engagement, and growth emerged as the four factors on a 20-item measure of
psychological well-being developed through two field trials, briefly described in the
paper. Further studies are required on this measure. There is also an urgent need
for qualitative methods of inquiry to develop an in-depth, culturally-rooted
understanding of dimensions of psychological wellbeing as well for developing
new assessment tools/modifying existing ones.