Well-Being, Self-Actualization, and Fundamental Motives: An Evolutionary Perspective

From an evolutionary perspective, feelings of subjective well-being signal progress toward adaptive goals. We discuss life history theory and fundamental motives—integrating ideas from social psychology and evolutionary biology that offer a potentially useful perspective on subjective well-being. We discuss some preliminary research from this perspective, and outline implications for future research. In doing so, we suggest that different people may have very different notions of which behavior evokes feelings of subjective well-being, linked to their particular life history features (e.g., age, sex, relationship status). This perspective also suggests predictable variations in what evokes subjective well-being across geography and cultures. We end by addressing avenues for future work taking an evolutionary perspective to understanding happiness and satisfaction—as well as the positive side of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.