From ill-being to well-being: Bipolar or bivariate?

Abstract

Despite the inception of positive psychology more than 20 years ago, the fundamental question about whether well-being and ill-being are bipolar (opposites of a single continuum) or bivariate (two independent, orthogonal continua) remains controversial. Leveraging methodological advances, the present study seeks to provide new empirical evidence to the controversy through three operationalizations, including a variable-centered approach (confirmatory factor analysis), a person-centered approach (latent profile analysis), and a two-way visualization clustering both variables and persons. Analyses were performed based on a large, diverse sample of 7,448 participants worldwide. The findings suggest that well-being and ill-being are bipolar, located at opposite ends of a single bipolar continuum. We highlight how bipolarity does not contradict the goal of positive psychology, nor does it disagree with the notion that well-being is not the absence of ill-being. The implications of bipolarity on measuring and cultivating well-being are also discussed.