Abstract:

Subjective well-being, according to Diener and Ryan [1] is an umbrella term intended to describe a certain level of well-being that people experience based on their subjective evaluation of their own lives. It can be both an emotional and a cognitive appraisal [2] and can occur in the current moment as well as within several years [3]. It includes evaluations and emotions associated with life satisfaction, interests, and occupation; emotional responses such as joy and sadness associated with life events; satisfaction with work, relationships, health, rest, meaning, goals, and other areas of an individual's life [1]. People experience high subjective well-being when they experience many pleasant and few unpleasant emotions, when they are engaged in interesting activities, and when they are satisfied with their lives [4]. Embodiment is a form of experiencing and understanding the world through the body in lived experiences [5]. Not only our observations from practice, but also several research studies indicate there is a correlation between embodiment and subjective well-being [6]. The main aim of the presented research was to explore the relationships between embodiment and the emotional and cognitive components of subjective well-being. The research sample consisted of 185 adolescents with a mean age of 18.36±2.27 years, 129 females and 56 males. The presented study took the form of quantitative correlational research in which two methodologies were applied. The Experience of Embodiment Scale (EES) questionnaire and the subjective well-being questionnaire is self-constructed and focused on emotional and cognitive components. The emotional component measurement method was inspired by the work of Larson, Mannell, and Zuzanek [7] and the cognitive component measurement method was inspired by the life satisfaction questionnaire by Fahrenberg et al. [8]. The results indicate weak to strong statistically significant correlations between embodiment and the cognitive and emotional components of subjective well-being. The results are discussed in the context of the possibilities of engaging adolescents' embodiment also in educational practice.

Keywords:

Embodiment, well-being, adolescents.