Dynamics of psychological well-being. Exploration of data from the Polish survey Social Diagnosis

This article presents a way of thinking about the lifelong stability of psychological well-being in dynamical terms. The reciprocal causality of well-being and its correlates is estimated by a structural equation model for panel data from Social Diagnosis, a survey conducted in Poland in 2000, 2003, and 2005, with more than 18 thousand respondents examined during this time and 5724 respondents examined in all three waves of the program. Psychological well-being is understood as a kind of performance indicator for a dynamic adaptation system. Self-regulation quality is derived from characteristics of the system of causal interrelations in which well-being is involved. It is posited that self-regulation of well-being could be mediated by patterns of resource expenditure in the processes of coping. Implications for possibilities of lasting change in psychological well-being are discussed. peerReviewed publishedVersion