ABSTRACT

Despite their primary emphasis on either the environment or the person, both approaches in fact embody themes from the other. Features of the environment are important for subjective well-being because they are desirable or undesirable in relation to individuals’ needs or wants. (Consistent with much of the literature, those two terms are here treated as largely interchangeable. However, the term need sometimes implies a stronger biological infrastructure than want.) And individuals’ attributes are relevant to well-being when they influence the level or personal salience of environmental features or involve cognitive processes in reaction to those features. It is clear that happiness arises not from the environment or the person alone, but from some combination of the two.