Temporal aspects of well-being.

This thesis investigates the proposition that aspects of time influence well-being. In particular, it is theorised that a person's well-being is dynamically influenced by the temporal characteristics of social time, body time, and experiential time. Two intensive time-sampling studies were used to investigate this theory. The first was a study of sixty-one shiftworking nurses, who used a pocket computer to provide measures of sleep, affect and cognitive performance two hourly and daily for four weeks. The second was a study of thirty employed healthy volunteers who used the same instrument to provide similar measures for two weeks. The development and validation of the pocket computer as a research instrument is described. Ten investigations, five from each study, are reported. Each investigation tested hypotheses relating to a specific empirical research question and examined the influence of a different temporal characteristic on well-being. In general, the first study showed that changing the timing of people's activities affects their well-being. The second study showed that there are reciprocal relations between body time, experiential time and well-being. Individual findings have relevance to the understanding of work schedules, occupational health, the chronobiology of depression, affect regulation, and nonlinear affective processes. The thesis concludes by speculatively reformulating the temporal theory of well-being in the light of new evidence concerning consciousness, emotion and neurophysiology. The reformulated theory proposes stronger relations between time and well-being and is intended to provide a framework for future research in the area.