Describing Broad Categories with Narrow Terms: the Problems with Emotional Well-Being

Abstract

The target article proposes a new term—emotional well-being—and a new definition of that term, which are meant to bring clarity to a broad set of psychological constructs that relate to well-being. Although we appreciate the goal of improving scientific communication through the clarification of terms and definitions, both the chosen terminology and definition are too narrow to capture the broad range of constructs that researchers in these areas study. This imprecision will likely impede rather than aid effective scientific communication. In this commentary, we consider whether it is necessary or even useful to try to define and label the broad category that is the focus of the target article, and we conclude the potential for confusion outweighs the limited benefits that would result.

Precise terminology is essential for effective scientific communication. Scientific progress is difficult, if not impossible, when researchers within and across disciplines use different terms to refer to the same constructs and processes or use the same term to refer to different things. For this reason, we are sympathetic with the motivations that guided the target article by Park et al. (2022). The effort to clarify and harmonize the terms that have been used to describe the broad range of evaluatively positive psychological phenomena that social scientists study seems like a worthwhile goal. Yet at the same time, Park et al.’s proposal highlights the challenges that exist when attempting to achieve this goal. In this commentary, we discuss some concerns we have about their chosen terminology and accompanying definition.

Park et al. (2022) propose to use the term “emotional well-being” to reflect the broad range of evaluatively positive psychological phenomena that psychologists and other social scientists study. Their primary definition of this term is that it is “a multi-dimensional composite that encompasses how positive an individual feels generally and about life overall” (p. 10). Their argument for adopting this label is that, unlike other terms such as “subjective well-being” or “psychological well-being,” “emotional well-being” is not already widely used. Unfortunately, both the label and the provided definition fail to capture the broad range of phenomena that are discussed in their paper. Because this has the potential to impede rather than improve both scientific communication and the efficient accumulation of knowledge about these topics, we encourage other social scientists not to adopt this terminology.

Park et al. (2022) state that their focus is on “definitions and terminology related to psychological aspects of well-being” (p. 4; emphasis added). Indeed, the term “psychological aspects of well-being” is used frequently throughout their paper, including in a section heading that lays out the “landscape of confusion” (p. 5) that they hope to survey. Given the repeated use of this term to succinctly describe the category of interest, one might have expected the authors to propose using “psychological aspects of well-being” as an overarching label for that category. Given our reading of the broad range of constructs that Park et al. discussed, an appropriately broad definition for this category might resemble the following: “Psychological aspects of well-being include the broad range of psychological phenomena that are evaluately positive, either in a subjective sense or in terms of the outcomes these phenomena have for self, others, or society as a whole.” Terminology focused on emotions and a definition that focuses on positive feelings about life overall are both misleadingly narrow.

Precise terminology is useful not only to convey a sense of what should be included in a specific category, but also to clarify what should be excluded. For instance, elsewhere, we have argued that a useful definition of the term subjective well-being is that it is “an overall evaluation of the quality of a person’s life from her or his own perspective” [Diener et al., 2018; p. 1]. The focus on “well-being” highlights the fact that this concept is broad and inclusive, that it captures many different ways that one’s life can go well, including aspects related to social, health, and material well-being (see Diener et al., 2018 Table 1, for the full definition of “well-being” and distinctions between this and other related constructs). The critical modifier “subjective” limits the category to specify that it is based on a person’s own evaluation of their well-being. The definition itself further clarifies that subjective-well-being researchers are primarily interested in overall evaluations of a person’s subjective sense of quality of life (though these can be obtained by aggregating across evaluations of narrower components).

Table 1.

The breadth of well-being concepts: what is excluded

Breadth	Example concepts	Examples of what is excluded
Broadest	Well-being	Non-self-evaluative phenomena (e.g., attitudes, opinions)
Broader	Psychological aspects of well-being	Non-psychological phenomena (e.g., physical health, economic well-being)
Broad	Subjective well-being	Phenomena that do not reflect a person’s subjective evaluation of life (e.g., eudaimonic well-being, a sense of autonomy)
Narrower	Life satisfaction	Emotional well-being
Narrowest	Joy	Other emotions like calmness

This definition of subjective well-being allows for the inclusion of distinct measures, including explicit evaluations of a person’s life in the form of answers to life satisfaction questions, as well as more affective evaluations of the moments of that life in the form of experiential or retrospective ratings of emotions. Presumably, affective responses reflect evaluations of momentary experiences, and if researchers aggregate across enough of these moments, it is possible to capture a person’s typical evaluation of life as a whole. The terminology and definition also exclude many related constructs; optimism, a sense of purpose, and strong social relationships may all be desirable, and may all contribute to a good life, but they would not be included in the category of subjective well-being (see Table 1 for examples of phenomena that would be excluded from different well-being-related categories).

Importantly, this term and definition allow researchers to update the components that they believe should be included within the category as they learn more. For instance, if research showed that momentary emotional experiences were driven primarily by stable personality characteristics or their underlying physiological systems and were unrelated to the events and experiences of a person’s life, researchers might decide that the measures no longer match the definition and should be excluded from the category1. Similarly, if explicit judgments of life satisfaction were strongly influenced by response styles or social desirability, then alternative approaches to measuring the hypothetical construct of subjective well-being might be preferred.

In contrast to the term “subjective well-being,” the term “emotional well-being” is too narrow a label for the category that it describes. The modifier “emotional” implies that emotions are central, and the term limits the implied breadth of the category in a way that does not accurately reflect its components (at least as described by these authors). To be sure, most of the constructs that Park et al. (2022) list in their paper would correlate with self-reports of emotional experience, but that is true of just about any evaluative psychological content that researchers would be likely to assess. Emotions are not central to many of the constructs listed in the text and various tables that Park et al. (2022) present. As just a few examples, emotions are not central to life satisfaction, autonomy, purpose in life, environmental mastery, meaning, optimism, insight, or transcendence. Moreover, the focal statement in Park et al.’s definition, which states that emotional well-being “encompasses how positive an individual feels generally and about life overall” (p. 10), makes the focal category sound much like narrower class of phenomena that is usually described as subjective well-being, rather than a category that encompasses the broad set of constructs discussed elsewhere in their paper.

To us, the label and definition that Park et al. (2022) provide is much narrower than the category they describe, while the category itself is too broad to be useful. The motivation to be inclusive when carving out research domains is certainly understandable, especially for concepts like well-being, which have attracted interest from basic and applied researchers across the social and medical sciences. Adopting labels and definitions that exclude specific constructs and phenomena can imply that the excluded constructs are unimportant. But without such exclusions, the category itself becomes too broad to be useful.

One way to address our concerns would be to choose a different label for this category. Indeed, the term “psychological aspects of well-being”—the term that Park et al. (2022) repeatedly rely on to describe the phenomena that are the focus of their discussion—appears more appropriate than “emotional well-being,” given the topics that they discussed. By focusing on the term “psychological” rather than “emotional,” this label captures the breadth of constructs that the authors appear to want to include, while also excluding constructs from other domains (most notably physical health or economic standing; see Table 1 for examples of categories and what they might exclude). Of course, there already exists a set of measures that are typically referred to as “psychological well-being” (Ryff, 1989). This is unfortunate, as the label “psychological well-being” is itself overly broad for the set of constructs that Ryff (1989) incorporates. So one option would be for expert groups like that described by Park et al. (2022) to encourage the use of this term as an overarching label for the broad set of psychological constructs that are central to well-being.

An alternative possibility—and one that is probably more realistic given the historical use of the terms that the authors reviewed—is to reconsider whether this broad, overarching category is even needed. Most of the constructs that Park et al. (2022) discuss already have a rich history in the social sciences, and it is not clear how the proposed organizing framework aids further research progress in this area. Few would be surprised that these constructs are related (again, most evaluative constructs assessed through self-report are correlated), so bringing them together under an umbrella term may not shift researchers’ understanding of their associations. The proposed framework does not prioritize certain constructs as more central than others (and given the breadth of the category, we believe it would be difficult to make a case for such prioritization). Moreover, the proposed framework does not simplify the landscape of evaluative psychological constructs by identifying areas of overlap or by highlighting unrecognized redundancy that could be eliminated through more precise terminology. Finally, the breadth and inclusiveness of the category means that it would be difficult to use it to argue for a small set of core measures that tap the important components, something that, if it were possible, might aid in the accumulation of knowledge through the harmonization of measures across studies. To be sure, work like this is already being done, but it is not clear that the emotional well-being organizing framework makes the path forward any clearer. Given the concerns about the appropriateness of the proposed label and definition as descriptions of the broad category that they are meant to describe, we see some important costs to the adoption of the terminology with little associated benefits.

We present this critique of Park et al.’s (2022) proposal in the spirit that motivated the original work: We, too, hope for clarity in communication about these constructs. We very much appreciate the challenges that the authors faced when developing this framework; it is not easy to come up with terms and definitions that are simultaneously succinct and comprehensive, especially when stakeholders already have opinions—potentially divergent and strongly held opinions—about existing terminology. Given these important challenges, it is necessary to consider the specific benefits that come from the promotion of specific labels and definitions, especially when they add to or deviate from terms already in existence. Ultimately, we think that neither the term “emotional well-being” nor the definition that Park et al. (2022) provided for it matches the breadth of the category they are meant to describe, and the costs of this imprecision do not come with any associated benefits.

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