Spontaneous thought unfolds as a dynamic stream that reflects continuously changing internal states and is closely tied to individual differences in mental health. However, quantifying the temporal structure of spontaneous thought remains challenging due to limited behavioral paradigms and analytic tools that preserve its continuous, multidimensional nature. Here, we introduced Density Map-Based Predictive Modeling (DMPM), a framework that characterizes spontaneous thought dynamics elicited by the Free Association Semantic Task (FAST) within valence–self-relevance–time (VST) space. DMPM summarizes each individual’s thought stream using rating and vector density maps that capture both where thoughts concentrate and how they transition over time. Across multiple independent datasets (total N = 392), DMPM yields robust, generalizable predictions of positive affectivity (PA) and negative affectivity (NA). Feature analysis indicated that affectivity is reflected not only in the content of thoughts, but also in transition dynamics, with self-relevance as a key organizing dimension. Furthermore, higher DMPM-predicted positive affectivity was associated with lower salivary C-reactive protein (CRP), suggesting a link between thought dynamics and inflammation. Together, these findings establish a scalable, interpretable approach for quantifying spontaneous thought dynamics and relating them to transdiagnostic affective traits and potential physiological correlates.

Anecdotal and empirical evidence underscores the importance of aligning major life decisions with one's true self. Yet, achieving this alignment is not always straightforward and appears to vary across cultures and individuals. Across 10 studies (N = 3,127), we investigated these variations by exploring (a) cultural differences in true-self-congruent job choices, focusing on North American and South Korean cultures, and (b) cultural and individual differences in endorsing the belief that following one's true self leads to positive outcomes, particularly increased competence in job choices, which we refer to as the "true-self-as-cause (TSAC)" belief. Study 1 revealed that a higher proportion of American employees reported truly loving their current job compared to South Korean employees. Studies 2-4 showed that North Americans were more willing than South Koreans to leave their current job for one that better aligns with their true self, even at the cost of job stability (Study 2), competence (Studies 3a and 4), financial benefits (Study 3b), or family happiness (Study 3c). Study 5 demonstrated that true-self-congruent job choices among North Americans were explained by their stronger TSAC belief endorsement compared to South Koreans, over and above a number of alternative mechanisms. Studies 6, 7a, and 7b provided causal-chain evidence by manipulating TSAC belief endorsement. The current research contributes to the literature on the true self and authenticity by shedding light on cross-cultural variability in making authentic decisions and its psychological underpinning. Implications and potential directions for future research on the role of TSAC belief endorsement are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Extensive research documents the far-reaching consequences of social class, yet one fundamental question remains underexplored: Does social class shape how people construe death? We examine whether subjective social class is associated with distinct death attitudes and whether those attitudes, in turn, are related to suicidal ideation. Across Studies 1a and 1b, lower subjective social class was associated with greater escape acceptance, which involves viewing death as relief from life's hardships. By contrast, neutral acceptance, approach acceptance, fear of death, and death avoidance showed no consistent association with social class. In Study 2, lower subjective social class was indirectly associated with greater suicidal ideation through higher escape acceptance, even after adjusting for depressive symptoms and exposure to threatening life events. Taken together, these findings reveal an overlooked implication of perceived social standing: Social class is linked not only to how people live but also to how they make meaning of death.

This study aimed to (1) identify personality profiles based on the Five-Factor Model using a large South Korean sample (N = 813,611) and (2) examine their associations with well-being and related variables (e.g., self-esteem, loneliness, subjective social status). Using a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), we identified five personality types: Average, with mid-range scores on all traits; Introverted-Open, with high Openness and low Extraversion and Agreeableness; Introverted-Reactive, with low Conscientiousness and Extraversion and high Neuroticism; Expressive, with high Openness and Extraversion; and Conventional, with low Openness and, to a lesser extent, low Agreeableness and Neuroticism. Membership probabilities for the five personality profiles showed distinct patterns of association with the aforementioned variables, providing further insight into their characteristics. Expressive and Average type membership was associated with only beneficial outcomes, though the magnitude of these associations differed, while the Introverted-Reactive type was linked to lower well-being and various psychological vulnerabilities. The Introverted-Open and Conventional types displayed a nuanced profile, characterized by a combination of both adaptive and maladaptive attributes. These findings build on previous personality typology research by identifying empirically derived profiles in a Korean sample and offer insights for developing targeted, person-centered well-being interventions.

Societal gender role norms play a crucial role in shaping men's and women's career aspirations. However, prior research documenting this key role of gendered norms has primarily focused on heterosexual women and men in the global North-West. Previous studies documenting differences in career interests by sexual orientation suggest that gender role norms might affect lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) women and men less strongly than heterosexuals. This large-scale, preregistered study sought to document group differences in norm perceptions, career interests and their relationship. To this end, 18,351 university students (n = 3318 LGB, n = 15,033 heterosexual) from 46 countries completed a self-report survey about their gender, sexual orientation, perceptions of societal gender role norms, as well as their personal gender role beliefs and career interests. Analyses revealed that, compared to heterosexual individuals, LGB individuals reported significantly less stereotypical career interests and endorsed less traditional gender role beliefs about careers. As predicted, perceptions of societal gender role norms predicted career interests for heterosexual but not for LGB participants. Moreover, LGB participants showed a weaker relationship between societal gender role norms and own gender role beliefs than straight participants did. Interestingly, we found no evidence that this effect was conditional on the level of LGBT acceptance in different countries sampled. We discuss implications of this new evidence for understanding occupational gender segregation from an intersectional perspective.

Neutral acceptance, the view that death is an integral part of life, is distinct from the mere absence of death anxiety, yet its psychological antecedents remain poorly understood. Drawing on an existential perspective, we propose that authenticity fosters neutral acceptance by alleviating existential guilt over a life not fully lived. Across three studies, we found converging evidence for this proposition. Study 1 (N = 489) documented a cross-sectional association between authenticity and neutral acceptance, controlling for demographic covariates. Using a two-wave longitudinal design, Study 2 (N = 252) showed that authenticity prospectively predicted neutral acceptance, but not vice versa. Study 3 (N = 296) provided experimental evidence consistent with a positive indirect effect of an authenticity induction on neutral acceptance through state authenticity. Ultimately, a life fully owned may be easier to relinquish with neutrality.

The experiential advantage refers to the well-being people derive from experiences over material goods. This research took a psychological needs approach and tested whether well-being predicts seeing purchases and products as being able to offer experiences. Five studies, using trait and state measures of well-being and sampling people in Asia and North America, supported this hypothesis. Controlled studies found that people higher in trait well-being viewed purchases as more experiential (Studies 1 and 5). Momentary well-being, whether measured or manipulated, showed a similarly positive impact of higher well-being on experiential perceptions (Studies 2-4). The effect was specific to perceptions of the experiential nature of products, not their materiality, and was most consistent for the positive affect component of well-being. Combined with prior findings, results suggest a self-reinforcing, benevolent cycle: experiences improve well-being, and well-being orients people to the experiential, need-satisfying aspects of products, which may then further support well-being.

Economic inequality is a key challenge of our time. Prior research investigating the relationship between economic inequality and mental health has yielded inconclusive results, particularly when relying on objective indicators (e.g., Gini coefficients). While some studies have found a negative relationship, others have shown no significant association. A growing body of work suggests that these inconsistencies may reflect the fact that objective indicators do not adequately capture how inequality is experienced and appraised by individuals. In the present study, we examined the relationship between perceptions of increasing economic inequality and psychological distress in two East Asian countries—China and South Korea. Through two secondary data analyses, we consistently found that individuals’ subjective perception of increasing economic inequality was associated with greater psychological distress. Notably, this subjective perception yielded a larger effect than objective inequality as measured using Gini coefficients. Furthermore, among the objective measures of economic inequality, we found that wealth inequality—specifically, house-price Gini coefficient—was more strongly associated with psychological distress compared to income inequality. We speculate that this may be because wealth inequality is more visible in people's immediate environments. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the mental health effects of economic inequality, emphasizing the importance of subjective and context-specific experiences of economic inequality.

Recent studies indicate a robust relationship between subjective well-being (SWB) and exercise behavior. Past research has successfully uncovered various mechanisms through which exercise boosts SWB. However, little is known about how SWB influences exercise. The present research proposes that SWB affects individuals’ beliefs about exercise benefits, which in turn impact their exercise behavior. In particular, we hypothesize that happier individuals believe in both the psychosocial benefits (i.e., benefiting one’s emotional, cognitive, and social health) and physical benefits of exercise more than less happy individuals, with a larger gap in psychosocial benefits (Hypothesis 1). Furthermore, we hypothesize that beliefs about psychosocial (vs. physical) benefits play a more significant mediating role in the relationship between happiness and exercise (Hypothesis 2). We tested the hypotheses across three studies involving 997 participants from the United States and South Korea. Studies 1 and 2 developed and validated a scale to measure both the psychosocial and physical benefits of exercise. Study 3 tested and confirmed the mediation hypothesis. The findings suggest that happier individuals exercise more, primarily because they perceive psychosocial benefits more. We discuss the implications, limitations, and potential avenues for future research.

Previous research indicates that individuals from lower social class backgrounds are prone to experiencing lower levels of subjective well-being (SWB). In the present research, we sought to examine the role of essentialist beliefs about happiness (EBH) in moderating the strength of the association between social class and SWB. We carried out investigations in four samples recruited from South Korea (total N = 6,149). In Studies 1 A, 1B, and 2, we found that the endorsement of nonessentialist (vs. essentialist) beliefs about happiness—the belief that happiness can be cultivated with effort and is not immutable or biologically determined—attenuated class-based disparities in SWB. In (preregistered) Study 3, we manipulated EBH and found a similar pattern of results. Together, our findings suggest that nonessentialist beliefs can buffer individuals of lower social class backgrounds against poor SWB, indicating that the happiness gap between the upper and lower social strata of society is not inevitable.

Despite the growing demand for care economy employees (e.g., nurses, teachers, and social workers), men remain underrepresented in these careers. While economically developed countries support more equal rights for women and men, their labor markets are highly gender segregated (Charles, 1992, 2003). We conducted a focused investigation of this paradoxical pattern in the care economy, testing whether gender gaps in care economy career interest are larger in more economically developed countries and, if so, what psychological and cultural factors underlie these patterns. We examined these questions with labor data from 70 countries (Study 1) and a preregistered study of career interests among 19,240 university students from 49 countries (Study 2). Although more economically developed countries tend to promote greater gender equality, our results reveal that the gender gap in care economy representation (Study 1) and interest (Study 2) is especially large in such countries. We did not observe parallel patterns for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics representation or interest. Results from Study 2 supported an integrated theoretical account of this development paradox in care economy interest: Cross-national variation in the gender gap in care economy interest was predicted by country-level variation in economic development and individualism/collectivism but not by self-expression values or country-level gender equality, countering prior (controversial) claims of a gender equality paradox. Furthermore, larger gender gaps in communal values (e.g., men's lower valuing of helping and caring for others) were a proximal predictor of larger gender gaps in care economy interest in highly economically developed countries. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

ABSTRACTMeaning and pleasure, albeit closely tied, are often distinguished in their temporality. The present research aims to deepen the understanding of temporality of meaning and pleasure by examining whether long‐term orientation (LTO) positively predicts the preference for meaning‐oriented behaviours but negatively predicts the preference for pleasure‐oriented behaviours. Four studies (N = 1251) revealed supporting evidence for meaning but less consistent pattern for pleasure. Study 1 demonstrated that LTO was more consistently associated with the preference for meaningful activities (e.g., helping someone) than pleasurable activities (e.g., watching TV). Studies 2–3B further revealed that experimentally induced LTO increased the preference for meaningful activities while attenuating the preference for clearly pleasurable activities (e.g., getting drunk) only, indirectly through the LTO cultural values—tradition and planning. Our findings advance the understanding of how the pursuit of meaning and pleasure is mapped onto a wider scale of temporal orientation.

Spontaneous thoughts are a window into one's mind, as they offer rich information about ongoing psychological processes and value systems. We accessed the contents of these thoughts using a free association paradigm combined with natural language processing techniques to examine how happiness is associated with what people think about and prioritize in daily life. Our analyses revealed that participants (n = 210 from the US/UK) with higher subjective well-being, particularly those with more frequent positive affect, generated thoughts semantically more similar to 'friend,' but not to 'money.' A similar pattern was also found in an independent sample (n = 350 from South Korea), showing consistency of the findings across different cultural contexts. Notably, the semantic similarity of participants’ generated thoughts to 'friend' predicted the extent to which participants prioritized social relationships over monetary gains in a realistic dilemma task. By exploring individuals’ minds with a computational approach, our work elucidates how the value of social relationships is manifested in spontaneous thought contents and everyday decisions, providing significant insights into the sources of happiness.

Perceived isolation (i.e., loneliness) has been linked to an immune response gene profile known as the conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA), but little is known about how positive social relations might affect human genome function. We analyzed two studies of Korean adults to determine whether the positive qualities of an individual's general social relations with others (warmth, satisfaction, and trust; as measured by the Positive Relations with Others [PRWO] subscale of the The Ryff Scales of Psychological Well-being) might be inversely associated with CTRA gene expression. In Study 1 (53 participants, mean age = 72 years, 47% female), PRWO were significantly associated with reduced CTRA profiles, even after controlling for loneliness. Similarly, in Study 2 (152 participants, mean age = 45 years, 50% female), PRWO were significantly associated with reduced CTRA profiles, particularly in the context of higher collectivism. These findings suggest that gene regulatory correlates of social flourishing extend beyond the absence of loneliness, and may contribute to health advantages associated with social well-being. Loneliness and social flourishing may not simply represent opposite ends of a single continuum but rather function as related yet distinct processes affecting human molecular well-being.

Spontaneous thoughts are a window into one’s mind, as they offer rich information about ongoing psychological processes and value systems. We accessed the contents of these thoughts using a free association paradigm combined with natural language processing techniques to examine how happiness is associated with what people think about and prioritize in daily life. Our analyses revealed that participants (n = 210 from the US/UK) with higher subjective well-being, particularly those with more frequent positive affect, generated thoughts semantically more similar to ‘friend,’ but not to ‘money.’ A similar pattern was also found in an independent sample (n = 350 from South Korea), showing consistency of the findings across different cultural contexts. Notably, the semantic similarity of participants’ generated thoughts to ‘friend’ predicted the extent to which participants prioritized social relationships over monetary gains in a realistic dilemma task. By exploring individuals’ minds with a computational approach, our work elucidates how the value of social relationships is manifested in spontaneous thought contents and everyday decisions, providing insights into the sources of happiness. Using free association and natural language methods, we show that individuals with higher subjective well-being generate thoughts semantically closer to ‘friend’ but not to ‘money,’ highlighting the value of social relationships in happiness.

Positive anticipatory experiences are key to daily well-being. However, the brain's functional architecture underlying real-world positive anticipatory experiences and well-being remains unexplored. In the present study, we combined an ecological momentary assessment and resting-state functional neuroimaging to identify the neural predictors of real-world positive anticipatory experiences and explore their relationships with subjective well-being (SWB). With a model-based approach, we quantified participants' accuracy in predicting positive events and the degree to which participants' affective states were influenced by the positive anticipation. We found that individuals with higher accuracy in predicting upcoming positive events showed greater SWB, and this relationship was mediated by greater positive anticipatory feelings. Importantly, functional connectivity of the dorsal and ventral striatal-hippocampal networks significantly predicted the accuracy and positive anticipatory feelings, respectively. These functional networks were further predictive of SWB. Our findings provide novel and ecologically valid evidence that the interaction between neural systems for reward-processing and memory plays an important role in real-life positive anticipatory experiences and everyday SWB.

Research shows that significant well-being disparities emerge between individuals who experience major negative events and those who undergo major positive events. However, such differences may vary among individuals. Drawing from the theory of the need for cognitive closure (NFC), we theorize and test whether NFC, which captures seizing and freezing on salient information to reach a fast conclusion, intensifies the differences in affective well-being between those who experience negative or positive events. Across three studies (total N = 2,399), we provide converging evidence that supports our theoretical claim. We first found that participants with high (vs. low) NFC show a greater affective well-being gap between those who recalled their past negative and positive major events (Study 1). We also discovered consistent patterns when participants were provided with negative or positive major event scenarios (Study 2). Lastly, we further substantiated our findings by utilizing a longitudinal study of the 20th presidential election in South Korea (Study 3). Over a 6-week period, the well-being gaps between the supporters of the election winner and the runner-up were more pronounced among individuals with higher NFC. Overall, our findings have implications for identifying a novel psychological trait that influences the affective well-being gaps following significant events in one’s life.

In spite of extensive research that links the absence of pain with happiness, it remains puzzling why possessing beliefs equating the absence of pain with happiness (negative hedonic beliefs) undermine experienced happiness and what underlying mechanisms can explain this paradox. We conducted five studies to address these questions. The participants who had more negative hedonic beliefs exhibited decreased well-being, including subjective well-being and psychological well-being, alongside heightened depression and physical symptoms (Study 1a), an effect that persisted after controlling for behavioral inhibition/activation systems (Study 1b). Hypersensitivity to negative experiences, which reflects a reduced inclination to engage in negative experiences, even when positives exist, mediated the links between negative hedonic beliefs and poor well-being both cross-sectionally (Study 2) and longitudinally (Study 3). Moreover, the propensity to avoid negative experiences was observed in behavioral intention, primarily due to heightened anticipated negative affect when an event was manipulated to include negative aspects (Study 4). Together, the effort to eliminate negative experiences, as adhered to by individuals with negative hedonic beliefs, tends to prevent them from recognizing the potential benefits of unpleasant experiences, inadvertently depriving themselves of opportunities for the enhancement of their well-being.