Symposium 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Towards Patterns Of Mental Health: A Person-Centered Approach To The Dimensionality Of Psychosocial Well-Being (#172)

Lusilda Schutte 1
  1. North-West University, Potchefstroom, NORTH WEST, South Africa

Positive Psychology has made great progress in understanding facets of psychosocial well-being. What is less understood is the dynamics of and links between different facets and the ways in which they are embedded in intrapersonal, interpersonal and ecological levels of functioning. This presentation will argue that well-being research needs to enter a new stage where we move beyond studying the “symptoms” or “elements” of being well to studying and understanding the “syndromes” or “patterns” of being well while taking cognisance of contextual factors. Specifically, the potential of person-centered analyses, particularly recent psychometric developments that allow for consideration of both global and specific factors, to study patterns of well-being will be explored. This will be illustrated based on latent profile analyses conducted on various datasets.