From Happiness To Hope

Well-being is a psychological construct used to describe the best individual experience and function. Well-being is a key factor for adolescents to grow up happily. As a crucial role in the development, well-being can resolve the conflicts during adolescence.The current researches of youth well-being are conducted in the theoretical model of adult well-being, including cognitive evaluations(life satisfaction) and affective experience(both positive and negative affects). However, this approach does not fully take the developmental characteristics of well-being model into account. For individuals of different ages, well-being may have different constructs. Compared with the elderly, the level of the goals of the youth is much more closely related to well-being. They are more eager to get personal growth. It shows that the well-being of adolescent is strongly influenced by the future-oriented construct. The innovation of this research is reconstruct a well-being model based on the future-oriented characteristics of adolescents, and explore the developmental character and function of youth’s well-being.This paper consists of four researches. On the basis of the existing theory and measurement model of well-being and combining with the future-oriented characteristics of adolescents, research one integrate two time dimensions to the adolescent’s well-being model and prepare the measurement. Research two studies the development trends and gender characteristics of the components of adolescent well-being during the growth. On the basis of the Basic Psychological Needs Theory, which belongs to the Self- Determination Theory, research three studies the influence to the adolescent well-being components made by the different level the parents satisfy their children’s basic psychological needs in the family. On the basis of Broaden-and-Build Theory of Positive Emotions, research four studies how the adolescent present-oriented and future-oriented well-being influence their academic development.According to the results of analysis, we can get the following conclusions from this research: 1. The youth well-being is constituted by two dimensions, which are content and time; content dimension includes cognitive evaluation and affective experience, time dimension includes present and future, this two crossed dimensions form four parts: the current life satisfaction and current affect experience, the future expected satisfaction and future affect experience; this model fits to describe the youth well-being.2. The Adolescent’s Well-being Scale has acceptable reliability and validity.3. In the 5~11 grades, the level of youth well-being has a downward trend. It is the most prominent to the decline of cognitive evaluation and positive affect, and the increase of negative affect during the junior high school.4. There is no significant gender differences for most of students about their well-being except for some parts of well-being elements of grade 9 students.5. The three kind basic psychological need satisfaction degrees from parents to their children can predict present-oriented and future-oriented well-being of youth; The basic psychological need satisfaction degrees from mothers to children influence youth more about their present-oriented well-being and future-oriented negative emotion, the basic psychological need satisfaction degrees from fathers to children influence youth more about future-oriented satisfaction and future positive emotion. This shows that the mother’s way of education can influence more about present-oriented well-being of youth; however, the way of fathers can influence more about future-oriented well-being of youth.6. This three months longitudinal study found that their present-oriented well-being at time one are much more closely related to the school engagement at time one, compared to their future-oriented well-being at time one. However, the former cannot predict the later. Their future-oriented well-being at time one is less closely related to the school engagement at time one, compared to their present-oriented well-being at time one. But the former can predict the later significantly. Through the school engagement at time two, youths’ future-oriented well-being at time one influence the academic achievements at time three. It indicates that future-oriented well-being can benefit the further school engagement and academic achievement of adolescents. The previous researches did not reach an agreement on whether the academic achievement can be influenced by adolescents’ well-being. The well-being model of adolescent made by this research will contribute to the explanations of the disagreement. The future-oriented characteristics of adolescents’ well-being can make a better prediction to academic development.According to a series of evidence in this study, the well-being model of adolescents is not consistent with that of adults. Optimistic attitude and hopeful future are more meaningful to adolescents than the happiness and satisfaction at the moment. Further researches should lay emphasis and importance on the sections of future-oriented well-being.