colloquium: Psychological Wellbeing and its Measurement

Since the inception of the Positive Psychology Movement (American Psychological Association, 2000) in modern scientific psychology, many psychologists have been focusing their attention on the positive aspects of human behaviour instead of the historically darker side of human nature. As observed by the anthropologist Jahoda (1958), the positive aspects of human nature should be studied in their own right rather than the absence of depression and other mental illness. In addition to such popular constructs as happiness, and subjective wellbeing, the concept of psychological wellbeing includes the mental functioning that presumably leads to the desirable state of being. Psychological wellbeing means positive, progressive mental functioning that leads to the state of “thriving”, rather than “languishing”, merely the absence of mental illness. This presentation will attempt to distinguish these overlapping constructs and present the project in which we explored the conceptualization and manifestation of psychological wellbeing in a modern Asian context – Singapore and the construction of a Mental Wellbeing Index for adult and child Singaporeans.