The field of subjective well-being (SWB) is primarily concerned with people's evaluation of their lives; however, it includes
a wide range of concepts, from momentary moods to global life satisfaction judgments. We propose a framework that integrates
these diverse constructs. Our sequential temporal framework of subjective well-being describes experiences of well-being from
the events and circumstances that cause evaluative reactions, through the emotional reactions to these events, to recall of
these reactions, and finally to global judgments of well-being based on the previous stages. The hypothesized processes that
translate the various steps in the sequence into one another are described, and supporting evidence is reviewed. We outline
the implications of our framework for understanding subjective well-being, and discuss the research that is needed to further
explore the proposed framework.
Key words emotion - subjective well-being - mood - happiness