Two Concepts or Two Approaches? A Bifactor Analysis of Psychological and Subjective Well-Being

Researchers often debate about whether there is a meaningful differentiation between psychological well-being and subjective
well-being. One view argues that psychological and subjective well-being are distinct dimensions, whereas another view proposes
that they are different perspectives on the same general construct and thus are more similar than different. The purpose of
this investigation was to examine these two competing views by using a statistical approach, the bifactor model, that allows
for an examination of the common variance shared by the two types of well-being and the unique variance specific to each.
In one college sample and one nationally representative sample, the bifactor model revealed a strong general factor, which
captures the common ground shared by the measures of psychological well-being and subjective well-being. The bifactor model
also revealed four specific factors of psychological well-being and three specific factors of subjective well-being, after
partialling out the general well-being factor. We further examined the relations of the specific factors of psychological
and subjective well-being to external measures. The specific factors demonstrated incremental predictive power, independent
of the general well-being factor. These results suggest that psychological well-being and subjective well-being are strongly
related at the general construct level, but their individual components are distinct once their overlap with the general construct
of well-being is partialled out. The findings thus indicate that both perspectives have merit, depending on the level of analysis.