The Characteristic And Mechanism Of Subjective Temporal Trajectory For Subjective Well-being Among Chinese People

The never-stopping pursuing value in life is subjective well-being (SWB). People with high subject well-being usually have a more successful career, with better interpersonal relationship and lower divorce rates, are much healthier and long-lived, with more chances to engage in a marriage and have babies while less chances to lose jobs. How do people evaluate their subjective well-beings from a temporal perspective? They may feel happier in the future than in the present, both happier than in the past. A opposite downward trend may however be exhibited. This is the issue addressed by the subjective temporal trajectory for subjective well-being researches. The subjective temporal SWB trajectory refers to the trend about the subjective evaluation of the past, present and future SWB. The investigation about subjective SWB trajectory has important significance for a comprehensive understanding of SWB.The western studies found that most people evaluate SWB in an upward trend. In the other words, present SWB was lower than the anticipated future SWB and both are higher than past SWB. This could be explained by the belief that people always think they would have a better life in the future. The upward trend about SWB evaluation has positive meaning, but unreal upward evaluation trend can be detrimental. group differences can also be found in this evaluation trend. Optimists report a lower past SWB than present SWB which is comparable to the future SWB. Pessimists however report a comparable past and present SWB but both are lower than the future SWB. The subjective SWB trajectory of optimists is thought to be real and good to health, while the subjective SWB trajectory of pessimists is unreal in the contrary. Different subjective SWB trajectories are found in different age periods. Young adults have an upward SWB trend (past< present< future). For the middle adults, the past SWB equals to the present SWB and both are lower than the present SWB, while for the old adults, the trend is just the opposite of young adults. This age differences could be explained by life-span development theory, which proposes that young adults are growing in all aspects, therefore showing an upward temporal trajectory; till middle age when they are mature, the trend is stable too; however, when they grow old and feel that death is approaching, they would become less optimistic about future but enjoy recollecting about past lives.All these conclusions are from western culture background. In eastern culture, past receives more respect. To keep self-consistent and away from dysfunctional, eastern people would not disregard their past self. But Chinese look forward to future as well. Then is the subjective SWB trajectory of the eastern different from that of the western? The investigation about the subjective SWB trajectory of Chinese will answer the question that whether the the subjective SWB trajectory is universal. Chinese college students will evaluate their past SWB is lower than present SWB,and both are lower than future SWB if the subjective SWB trajectory is universal,Also in the optimisms, pessimists,young adults, middle adults, and old adults.Rather than an upward trend, the subjective SWB trajectory may demonstrate itself differently based on previous self researches about Chinese.In other words, the Chinese undergraduates will not evaluate their present SWB lower than past SWB, but still give the future SWB the highest scores. If this was true, what is the reason? In addition, most researches aim to reveal the cognitive and motive mechanism of subjective SWB trajectory with few concerning on its neural mechanism. As reviewed above, it is of significant importance to explore the STP trajectory in Chinese and its mechanism, which broadens the area of happiness and promote the understanding of happiness in Chinese. Therefore, three studies were designed to explore the characteristic and mechanism of subjective SWB trajectory among chinses people.Study 1 explored the subjective SWB trajectory of Chinese undergraduates by two different methods. Study 1a used Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale (Chinese version) to investigate 376 undergraduates’evaluation about their past, present and future SWB. The results revealed that Chinese undergraduates scored their past and present SWB identically while both were lower than their future SWB. i.e. past SWB=present SWB<future SWB. Study lb required 45 undergraduates to rate whether the happy and unhappy words are suitable to describe their SWB in the past, present and future temporal perspective separately. The results are consistent with study la, which also found past SWB=present SWB< future SWB. But on unhappy words, an inversed trend was found, that is the past unhappiness equals the present unhappiness which are higher than the future unhappiness. Based on the finding of study 1, the subjective SWB trajectory is different from that of the western undergraduates. Then what about the group differences?Study 2 explored the group differences of subjective SWB trajectory on Chinese. Study 2a recruited 492 undergraduates to complete the Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale (Chinese version) and Life Orientation Test and then they are divided into optimistic and pessimistic groups by their scores in the Life Orientation Test. The results found that optimists are happier than pessimists, but their trajectories do not have significant differences, both show that the past SWB is identical to the present SWB but lower than the future SWB.Study 2b investigated 131 young adults (average age= 27.25±.39 years),108 middle adults (average age= 48.44±.95 years) and 103 old adults (average age= 68.67±.43 years) using Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale (Chinese version). The results showed that for the young adults, the past SWB< the present SWB< the future SWB; for the middle adults, the past SWB< the present SWB< the future SWB; for the old adults, the past SWB< the present SWB< the future SWB. Obviously, the middle and old adults other than the young adults exhibit a different pattern with their western counterparts.With the findings of study 1 and 2 collapsed, we could come to such a conclusion that the subjective SWB trajectory of Chinese is indeed different from western. It is possible that the explicit evaluation does not reveal the true thoughts of Chinese. In this reason, it is necessary to explore how Chinese undergraduates judge their subjective SWB trajectory on temporal perspective through a implicit manner. It is unclear why the implicit STP dissociates from explicit subjective SWB. From the culture perspective, the exploration of mediation effect of this difference may contribute to explanation of why the implicit and explicit subjective SWB of undergraduates differ with each other. Second, some latent factors may mediate the subjective SWB trajectory under eastern and western culture and explain the cultural differences. Third, explore the electrophysical mechanism of subjective SWB trajectory is of great importance.Study 3 explored the mechanism of subjective SWB trajectory of Chinese undergraduates. Study 3 a implicitly measured the GNAT of 34 undergraduates. The results revealed that on happy words, sensitivity (d’) of the association between past and happiness is significantly lower than the sensitivities of present and future associated with happiness, but the sensitivity of the association between present and happiness is not significantly different from that between future and happiness. That means that Chinese undergraduates implicitly evaluate the past SWB is lower than the present SWB which is comparable to the future SWB. They grows from past to future. On unhappy words, sensitivity (d’) of the association between past and unhappiness is significantly higher than the sensitivities of present and future associated with unhappiness, but the sensitivity of the association between present and unhappiness is not significantly different from that between future and unhappiness. The result suggests that implicitly, people think their past life is unhappiest with the present and future life not that unhappy and similar. That is to say the past SWB> the present SWB= the future SWB which is not consistent with study lb. Self-enhancement works in implicit manner. It is unclear why the explicit subjective SWB of western and eastern undergraduates are separate. It is probable that the culture difference between west and east can explain this separation.The study 3 b investigated cultural differences between the SWB evaluations of Chinese and American undergraduates. Specifically, we tested whether dialectical thought can mediate the effect of culture on subjective SWB trajectory. We measured 116 Chinese and 91 American undergraduates using the Temporal Satisfaction With Life Scale and Dialectical Thinking Scale. The results found that in the western culture, American undergraduates rated the past SWB< the present SWB< the future SWB; in the eastern culture, Chinese undergraduates rated the past SWB= the present SWB< the future SWB. There are no differences when Chinese and American undergraduates evaluated the past and future SWB, however, Chinese rate lower on the present SWB than American. Such effect is mediated by the dialectical self. In detail, dialectical thought partially mediate the effect of culture on evaluation of present SWB. On the increment of happiness, American thinks that the happiness increment from past to present is comparable to that from present to future while the Chinese think the increment from now to future is remarkably larger than that from the past to present.The study 3 investigated the psychophysical mechanism of subjective SWB trajectory of Chinese undergraduates. The 16 university participants were asked to evaluate whether the happy and unhappy words are suitable to describe their past, present and future life and we recorded their electroencephalography (EEG). We analyzed the event-related potential (ERP) locked to the happy and unhappy words. The results showed that evaluating the unhappy words significantly raised the P2 peaks than happy words. On happy words, there were no significant P2 latency differences between evaluating past and present, past and future; evaluating the present significantly shortened the P2 latency than evaluating the future. On unhappy words, there were no significant P2 latency differences between evaluating past and present, present and future; evaluating the past significantly shortened the P2 latency than evaluating the future. There were no LPC amplitude differences between happy and unhappy words when evaluating the past and present; the happy words induced greater LPC amplitude than the unhappy words when evaluating the future. On the happy words, there were no significant LPC differences between evaluating past and present, past and future; evaluating the present marginally significantly amplified the LPC amplitude than evaluating the future. On the unhappy words, there were no significant LPC differences between evaluating past and present; evaluating the past and present both significantly lowered the LPC than evaluating the future.The study on the subjective SWB trajectory and mechanism of Chinese has just started and some conclusion till waits to be confirmed. Future research can test the influence of temporal distance on subjective SWB trajectory. The life events changed from periods to periods, which may be valued to a different extent, this might influence the STP trajectory; The future research can focus on the mediation variables of western and eastern STPs, such as modesty and self-construal.The relationship between subjective SWB trajectory of Chinese and mental and physical health is a further research issue as well.