Within-Individual Variability in Well-Being Among Emerging Adults

The growing rates of youth who report poor well-being is a cause of great public concern. But we still do not have a good grasp of the degree of volatility of poor well-being among emerging adults. The current study examines within-individual variability in well-being.

We collected repeated measures of five well-being indicators (life satisfaction, general mental health, stress, loneliness, and self-rated health) every other week among a sample of 133 Danish students in upper secondary education (mean age = 18.6). We calculated three different measures (standard deviations, absolute fluctuations, and range) to capture within-individual variability in well-being across 3 months. We furthermore examined correlates of well-being variability.

We found that all five well-being indicators varied considerably over the period. On average the within-individual range (maximum value - minimum value) spanned roughly 30% of the scale of the well-being indicators. The average within-individual standard deviation corresponded to roughly two thirds of the between-individual standard deviation in the baseline measures. We found well-being to vary more among females and those with the lowest baseline well-being to vary more than those with better baseline well-being.

The findings suggest that individual well-being in emerging adulthood fluctuates considerably-also for individuals who report relatively low well-being at baseline. This suggests that the large share of emerging adults reporting low well-being is likely to partly represent individuals drifting in and out of poor well-being. However, we should not lose sight of a small group (approximately 7% of our sample) that consistently report low well-being.