[The "Well-being paradox" in quality-of-life research]

In quality-of-life research an empirical phenomenon has been observed independently in medicine and in the social sciences which is so contrary to what intuition tells us that it has been called paradoxical. In medicine it is called the "satisfaction paradox" and in the social sciences the "well-being paradox". What is meant in both cases is that objectively negative factors in one's life have relatively little effect on subjective quality of life. In the present paper examples are given of relevant research findings from both fields. An attempt is then made to explain the phenomenon, with the topic being examined not only from a methodological but also from a personality, cognition and social psychology perspective. Finally, the implications for research and clinical work are discussed.