Well-being

Well-being, wellbeing,welfare or wellness is a general term for the condition of an individual or group, for example their social, economic, psychological, spiritual or medical state; a high level of well-being means in some sense the individual or group's experience is positive, while low well-being is associated with negative happenings.

In economics, the term is used for one or more quantitative measures intended to assess the quality of life of a group, for example, in the capabilities approach and the economics of happiness. As with the related cognate terms 'wealth' and 'welfare', economics sources often contrast the state with its opposite. The study of well-being is divided into subjective well-being and objective well-being.

Background

Although there has not been a clear definition established for well-being, it can be defined as “...a special case of attitude”. This definition serves two purposes of well-being: developing and testing a [systematic] theory for the structure of [interrelationships] among varieties of well-being, and integration of well-being theory with the ongoing cumulative theory development in the fields of attitude of related research”. One’s well-being develops through assessments of their environment and emotions and then developing an interpretation of their own personal self. There are two different types of well-being: cognitive and affective.. Social well-being is mentioned in Canadian law.