Connecting the dots: using a network approach to study the wellbeing spectrum

In positive psychology, defining the wellbeing construct has been a challenge. We used the psychometric network approach to study the structure of wellbeing. The sample consisted of Dutch adults registered with the Netherlands Twin Register. The variables were measured through standardized surveys. The network was estimated using the Mixed Graphical Models method and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regularization to limit the number of spurious edges. We estimated a network in a trimming sample (N=1343, 63% females, M_age = 53.18, SD_age = 9.45) and in an estimation sample (N=726, 75% females, M_age = 45.27, SD_age = 11.12) to examine its performance and accuracy. Our final network consists of a positive cluster including satisfaction with life, subjective happiness, and flourishing items, and a negative cluster including depressive symptoms, loneliness, and neuroticism items. We identified the four most central nodes: one satisfaction with life item, one neuroticism item, and two depression items. This suggests that to get a general sense of the wellbeing construct, these items would serve as most informative. The network approach clearly demonstrates the different, yet connected positive and negative clusters of wellbeing and therefore re-affirms the complex interconnectivity of wellbeing phenotypes. In addition, the network results reject the view of strictly delineated wellbeing domains. Having identified the most central nodes in the network, these can be used in futures studies with limited resources, as they are likely to be the most representative of the wellbeing spectrum.