Subjective well-being is broad concept that includes experiencing pleasant emotions, low levels of negative moods, and high life satisfaction. Ed diener a famous psychologist wrote a great article of SWB. The key points and precise summary of that article is given below.
The first concept that has been discussed in the article by diener is of good life. He ponders on the question that; what is the good life? Besides the old defining characteristics that are love others, pleasure or self-insight, another idea about good life is mentioned. The idea is that it's desirable for people themselves to think that they are living good lives. The subjective definition of quality of life is democratic, that is, because it is each individual's right to decide whether his or her life is worthwhile. It is this approach to defining good life that has come to be called "Subjective well-being " and in informal term labeled as "Happiness ". SWB refers to evaluation of people's life. They experience abundant SWB with the feeling of many pleasant and few unpleasant emotions, experience of pleasure and pain, and when they are satisfied with their lives. With growing world people have been granting great importance to SWB.
Diener has defined SWB as, that people's mood and emotions reflect on line reactions to events happening to them. Each individual makes broader judgments about his or her life as a whole. Thus this indicates that there are number of separate components of SWB that are as follows:.
• Life satisfaction (global judgments of one's life).
• Satisfaction with important domains (work satisfaction).
• Positive effect (experiencing many pleasant emotions and moods).
• Low levels of negative affect (experiencing few unpleasant emotions and moods).
Measuring SWB: In early research SWB was measured by replying on only single self-report item. For example, respondents were asked "How do you feel about your life as a whole? " by Andrews and Withey.