Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 May;49(3):286-297.
doi: 10.1007/s10519-019-09951-0. Epub 2019 Feb 27.

A Genetic Investigation of the Well-Being Spectrum

B M L Baselmans  1   2 , M P van de Weijer  3   4 , A Abdellaoui  3   5 , J M Vink  6 , J J Hottenga  3 , G Willemsen  3 , M G Nivard  3 , E J C de Geus  3   4   7 , D I Boomsma  3   4   7 , M Bartels  3   4   7
Affiliations

A Genetic Investigation of the Well-Being Spectrum

B M L Baselmans et al. Behav Genet. 2019 May.

Erratum in

Abstract

The interrelations among well-being, neuroticism, and depression can be captured in a so-called well-being spectrum (3-phenotype well-being spectrum, 3-WBS). Several other human traits are likely linked to the 3-WBS. In the present study, we investigate how the 3-WBS can be expanded. First, we constructed polygenic risk scores for the 3-WBS and used this score to predict a series of traits that have been associated with well-being in the literature. We included information on loneliness, big five personality traits, self-rated health, and flourishing. The 3-WBS polygenic score predicted all the original 3-WBS traits and additionally loneliness, self-rated health, and extraversion (R2 between 0.62% and 1.58%). Next, using LD score regression, we calculated genetic correlations between the 3-WBS and the traits of interest. From all candidate traits, loneliness and self-rated health were found to have the strongest genetic correlations (rg = - 0.79, and rg= 0.64, respectively) with the 3-WBS. Lastly, we use Genomic SEM to investigate the factor structure of the proposed spectrum. The best model fit was obtained for a two-factor model including the 5-WBS traits, with two highly correlated factors representing the negative- and positive end of the spectrum. Based on these analyses we propose to include loneliness and self-rated health in the WBS and use a 5-phenotype well-being spectrum in future studies to gain more insight into the determinants of human well-being.

Keywords: Flourishing; Genetic correlation; Loneliness; Personality; Self-rated health; Well-being spectrum.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

Baselmans, B.M.L, van de Weijer, M.P., Abdellaoui, A, Vink, J.M., Hottenga, J.J., Willemsen, G., Nivard, M.G., E.J.C. de Geus, Boomsma, D.I., Bartels, M declares that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Phenotypic correlations between the different traits. SWL = satisfaction with life, HAP = happiness, NEU = neuroticism, DEP = depressive symptoms, LON = loneliness, OPEN = openness to experience, CON = conscientiousness, EXTR = extraversion, AGREE = agreeableness, SRH = self-rated health, FLOUR = flourishing
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The amount of variance explained by the 3-WBS polygenic risk score for each of the traits. SWL = satisfaction with life, HAP = happiness, NEU = neuroticism, DEP = depressive symptoms, LON = loneliness, OPEN = openness to experience, CON = conscientiousness, EXTR = extraversion, AGREE = agreeableness, SRH = self-rated health, FLOUR = flourishing
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Genetic correlations between the different traits. MULTI = multivariate 3-WBS, SWL = satisfaction with life, HAP = happiness, NEU = neuroticism, DEP = depressive symptoms, LON = loneliness, OPEN = openness to experience, CON = conscientiousness, EXTR = extraversion, AGREE = agreeableness, SRH = self-rated health
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Path models Genomic SEM CFA with a one and b two factors
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abdellaoui A, Hottenga J-J, de Knijff P, et al. Population structure, migration, and diversifying selection in the Netherlands. Eur J Hum Genet. 2013;21:1277–1285. doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2013.48. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Abdellaoui A, Nivard MG, Hottenga J-J, et al. Predicting loneliness with polygenic scores of social, psychological and psychiatric traits. Genes Brain Behav. 2018 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Achenbach TM, Rescorla LA. Manual for the ASEBA Adult Forms & Profiles. Burlington: ASEBA; 2003.
    1. Baselmans BM, Bartels M. A genetic perspective on the relationship between eudaimonic -and hedonic well-being. Sci Rep. 2018;8:1–10. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-32638-1. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baselmans BM, Jansen R, Ip HF, et al. Multivariate genome-wide analyses of the well-being spectrum. Nat Genet. 2019;51(2):1546–1718. - PubMed

Publication types