Developing the HEEBS (Hedonic, Eudaimonic, and Extrinsic Behaviour Scales)

For millennia, well-being has been conceived in two ways: eudaimonia, characterised by the virtuous striving towards true potentials, and hedonia, characterised by pleasure, fun, and happiness. Alternatively, some individuals seek well-being through extrinsic means, such as wealth, fame, or power. Whilst scales exist to compare these three categories in terms of motivations for behaviours, there is no scale for comparing these categories in terms of actual behaviours, independent of motivation and experience. Developing these scales is important because well-being is partly shaped by our behaviours, not simply by the intensity and quality of our motivations or experiences of those behaviours. The Hedonic, Eudaimonic and Extrinsic Activity Model (HEXAM) is proposed, extending the Eudaimonic Activity Model by integrating hedonic and extrinsic practices in line with theory. A pool of 85 behavioural items was developed and administered to a test sample of 303 participants. Factors contributing to eudaimonic, hedonic, and extrinsic behaviour were extracted, and compared to well-being outcome indexes and motivational scales. Future directions include the assessment of the HEXAM in a confirmatory factor analysis study, and integrating the roles of age, gender, personality, and socio-cultural context into the model.