The Temporal Dynamic Relationship Between Happiness And Meaning: Empirical Sampling And Tracking Evidence During The COVID-19 Outbreak And Normalization Perio

"The purpose of all human efforts is to achieve happiness." This famous saying of British writer Owen highlights the importance of well-being.There are two main schools of thought on what is happiness and how to obtain it: the philosophers represented by Aristippus hold the view of hedonism,which holds that the purpose of life is to experience the greatest degree of happiness;Philosophers represented by Aristotle hold the view of eudaemonism,which holds that well-being is mainly obtained by realizing the meaning of life.Although happiness and meaning represent different well-being orientations,they are also closely related.Scholars and laypeople believe that happiness and meaning are indispensable for a life close to "virtue" or " authentic happiness".So,does higher levels of happiness lead to more sense of meaning? Or are happier people because they have a higher level of meaning? The self-determination theory holds that engaging in meaningful activities can enable people to obtain a higher level of happiness;the broaden-and-build theory holds that,with the passage of time,positive emotions(such as happiness)will broaden personal thinking,thus promoting psychological elasticity and happiness;the integrated model of well-being points out that happiness and meaning can predict each other.Therefore,exploring the causal relationship between happiness and meaning can not only theoretically enrich the correlation model of hedonism and eudaemonism,but also play a guiding role in how to promote people’s overall well-being in practical,and ultimately achieve well-being.Previous studies from longer-/ shorter-term and between-/ within person have shown that a moderate positive correlation exists between happiness and meaning,that is,happiness and meaning are both different and related.However,these studies still remained some questions.First,previous studies on the causal relationship between happiness and meaning mostly focused on the static trait level,but the causal relationship between the dynamic and instantaneous levels is not clear.Second,in the previous studies of momently level,the individual’s happiness is mostly described by measuring the individual’s current overall emotional state.However,it is not clear which emotion or emotions are related to meaning.Finally,since the outbreak of the COVID-19,people’s emotional health has been greatly affected,and people’s thinking about meaning will also be enhanced when their life safety is threatened.Will the correlation mode between happiness and meaning during the outbreak of the COVID-19 be different from that in daily life? This also needs to be explored.To sum up,we conducted two wave experience sampling survey(N=184)during the outbreak period(from February 6 to 15,2020)and the stable period of the epidemic(from August 21 to 30,2021)to explore patterns of associations between happiness and meaning.Specifically,during the experience sampling process of each period,participants filled out an electronic questionnaire about emotions and meaning on a mobile application(Hui Xin,Co.Beijing Huixinlian Technology)over a 10-day period.Participants received an application notification to answer the questionnaire four times during the day between 09:00 am and 22:00 pm(the minimum interval between any two prompts was 2 hours).The aim of the study was to explore the simultaneous and lagged relationship between meaning and different emotions during the outbreak and stable of the COVID-19 epidemic.The main findings are as follows:(1)From the outbreak period(February 5,2020)to the stable period(August 19,2021),people’s psychological well-being was significantly decreased,the stress level was significantly decreased,and the depression level was significantly increased.There was no significant change in the subjective well-being and anxiety levels.(2)The results from hierarchical linear model showed that people’s current happiness can positively predict the meaning of the next moment during the COVID-19 outbreak,however,the current meaning cannot predict the happiness of the next moment,which verifies the broaden-andbuild theory.In the stable period of the COVID-19 epidemic,people’s current happiness can positively predict the meaning of the next moment,and the current meaning can also predict the happiness of the next moment,which verifies the integrated model of well-being.(3)Further results from network analysis indicated that during the COVID-19 outbreak,current feeling of dispirited can negatively predict the meaning of the next moment.In the stable period of the COVID-19 epidemic,current feeling of happy can positively predict the meaning of the next moment,and current worry can negatively predict the meaning of the next moment;Moreover,the current meaning can positively predict the feeling of happy of the next moment and negatively predict the anxiety of the next moment.Taken together,this study draws the following conclusions: from the outbreak period and the stable period of the COVID-19 epidemic,people’s psychological well-being was significantly decreased,the depression level was marginally increased,and the stress level was significantly decreased.Secondly,in the outbreak of COVID-19,happiness can predict the meaning of the next moment,and in the stable period of the COVID-19 epidemic,happiness and meaning can be predicted each other.This study enriches the correlation model between emotion and meaning theoretically,and plays a guiding role in the intervention research of enhancing well-being in daily and public emergencies in practice.