Wellbeing is more than the absence of problems and pains. Wellbeing includes positive conditions such as life satisfaction, growth, meaning, coping, and positive emotions. What are the sources and processes generating wellbeing, happiness, and quality of life? What is the underlying structure of wellbeing, and what components are valued as key ingredients in a good life? How do genetic and environmental factors act and interact to generate wellbeing over time?

Wellbeing is a UN Sustainable Development Goal, is universally valued, and has important consequences for health, school- and work-life, and general functioning. Studies have shown that personality traits and genes may contribute to wellbeing, but environmental factors seem to play a greater role. We focus on the interplay of genes and environments, the role of social relations in wellbeing, parenthood and family life, the relationship between wellbeing and illbeing, happiness at the intersection of ancient philosophy and modern science, and interventions to promote wellbeing.

Our research questions

• What is a good life? Which human conditions constitute quality of life, and how can these conditions be identified? What is the role of values in defining wellbeing?
• What is the underlying structure of wellbeing? Using network models and factor analyses we analyze the dimensionality and associations between wellbeing components.
• How can wellbeing be measured? We use established scales and develop novel measures, and work on national measurements of wellbeing. 
• What is the role of social relations in wellbeing? Are the associations causal or confounded by underlying factors? Which social factors and relations are important, and what are the mechanisms involved?
• How do genetic factors influence wellbeing and mental health? What is the role of genetics and environments in interpersonal processes, and how do genetic factors operate through the environment?
• How can ancient happiness philosophy contribute to modern wellbeing research? Are Aristotle’s notions of happiness, virtues, and normativity relevant in today’s society? Is collective wellbeing more than the sum of happy individuals?
• What is the relation between wellbeing and illbeing? Can high wellbeing protect against mental health problems?
• How can interventions, at both the individual and societal level, contribute to increased wellbeing and reductions in mental health problems?

How we work

We collaborate across different research projects and with a number of national and international researchers and stakeholders. We use a combination of new data collections and existing data sets. These include the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), the Norwegian Twin Registry (NTR), data from the Quality of Life Survey of Statistics Norway (SSB), and the Norwegian Counties Public Health Surveys of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Typically, we use longitudinal data, genetically informative data, and experimental studies.