Understanding Subjective Well-Being from a Top Down Theory Approach

摘要

This article is a part of a Master of Education's thesis concerning on subjective well-being of teenage inmates who join an alternative education in prison. This article focuses on discussing subjective well-being based on a top down theory approach. In general, to look at the quality of life and subjective well-being is limited by accumulating hedonic momentary pleasures, that perspective is known as the bottom up theory approach. For this reason, there is a top down theory approach that views subjective well-being more broadly based on one's perception of directional emotions. In this case, the perception is believed to explain subjective well-being, because the bottom-up theory approach that only limits the objective conditions is considered incapable of understanding subjective well-being that varies greatly from person to person. Then in the top down theory approach, humans can live and interpret every life event as a form of subjective well-being.