Detecting the needs for happiness and meaning in life from google books

Abstract

Research has shown that subjective well-being has two related but distinct dimensions, eudaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being. Hedonic well-being refers to one's overall positive affective experiences, while eudaimonic well-being is related to having a meaningful and noble purpose for life. While people are striving to have a happy and meaningful life, their motivations can be influenced by socio-economic conditions and contexts. In this study, we analyzed words frequencies in the Google Books corpus to measure the changing needs for eudaimonic and hedonic well-being and their relationships with economic growth. Results show that the frequencies of words related to hedonic well-being decrease while those related to eudaimonic well-being increase over the years. Furthermore, when people are poor, their motivation for hedonic well-being is relatively high. The hedonic motivational strength dramatically decreases and becomes stable when income reaches at a certain level. In contrast, people have relatively low motivation for eudaimonic well-being when they are poor. The eudaimonic motivational strength dramatically increases and becomes stable when income reaches at a certain level. Our study demonstrates an example of measuring subjective well-being through analysis of digital media.