Are Changes in the Perception of Major Life Events Associated With Changes in Subjective Well-Being?

After experiencing a major life event, people differ in the extent and duration of event-related changes in subjective well-being (SWB). Some of these individual differences can be explained by individual differences in how people perceive major life events. But how events are perceived does not only vary between individuals, it also changes over time. We therefore examined the longitudinal interplay between perceived event characteristics and SWB using two short-term longitudinal studies conducted with German-speaking participants (NStudy1 = 619, 73% female; NStudy2 = 691, 71% female). In both studies, perceived event characteristics and SWB were assessed at two measurement occasions 3 months apart. We used bivariate latent change score models to estimate correlated changes of these constructs. Perceiving events as increasingly externally controlled and as increasingly social status threatening over time was consistently associated with a decrease in life satisfaction. Furthermore, perceiving events as increasingly challenging over time was consistently associated with a decrease in positive affect and an increase in negative affect. Our results indicate that the development of SWB and perceived event characteristics is intertwined, and they highlight the importance of assessing perceived event characteristics longitudinally to gain a better understanding of event-related changes in SWB.