Time, cognition, and culture: A three-dimensional self-system model of subjective well-being and interdependent happiness

This research proposes a “time–cognition–culture” self-system model to examine whether and under what conditions Future Self-Continuity (FSC) is associated with well-being among Chinese undergraduate students across three studies ( N = 1010). Study 1 experimentally showed that increasing FSC enhanced both Subjective Well-Being (SWB) and Interdependent Happiness (IH). In Study 2, PROCESS analyses showed that Self-Concept Clarity (SCC) moderated the associations between FSC and both well-being outcomes, such that the positive associations were stronger among individuals with higher SCC; however, the corresponding latent-variable interaction for SWB was positive but did not reach conventional statistical significance. Study 3 showed that self-construal qualified the FSC × SCC interaction. The clearest conditional patterns were observed for independent self-construal in relation to SWB and interdependent self-construal in relation to IH. Overall, these findings suggest that the association between FSC and well-being may vary as a function of SCC, with this moderation pattern further qualified by self-construal.