• Corpus ID: 58895502

Conceptualizations of Wellbeing: Insights from a Prototype Analysis on New Zealand Workers

@inproceedings{Hone2015ConceptualizationsOW,
  title={Conceptualizations of Wellbeing: Insights from a Prototype Analysis on New Zealand Workers},
  author={Lucy C. Hone and Aaron J. Jarden},
  year={2015}
}

• L. Hone, A. Jarden
• Published 2015
• Psychology

The current research investigated New Zealand workers' perspectives of wellbeing. Specifically, we were interested in how workers conceptualized wellbeing and what sorts of activities workers currently engage in to promote their individual wellbeing. Four studies surveyed whether workers' conceptualizations of wellbeing are consistent with academic models of wellbeing, the different ways New Zealand workers promote individual wellbeing, and whether the concept of wellbeing is prototypically organized (that is, if not all instances of a concept share all of the features of a prototype). Indicating that wellbeing is indeed prototypically organized, participants were able to list components of wellbeing and then demonstrated significant agreement over which components were central (important) to the concept of wellbeing, and which were peripheral (less important). Results indicated that New Zealand workers are less likely than academic researchers to consider the presence of achievement, engagement, and optimism as important for wellbeing. In contrast to current popular academic models, New Zealand workers viewed physical health, work-life balance, and feeling valued as central components of wellbeing. Physical activity/regular exercise, nurturing relationships, participating in hobbies/interests, and healthy eating were identified as the most popular ways to promote personal wellbeing. Implications for human resource managers, employees, researchers and policy makers are discussed, in addition to recommendations for future research.