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Stoicism and the Good Life 1 Running head: STOICISM AND THE GOOD LIFE 1 1 Stoicism and the good life 1 1 2 Johannes Alfons Karl & Ronald Fischer 1 3 Victoria University of Wellington 4 Author Note 5 The pre-registration, material, and analytical code for this study can be found on the 6 OSF (https://osf.io/bkqgs/?view_only=0bdc04bf606b41b9a1ac4ba0c7658990) 7 Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Johannes Alfons Karl, 8 Kelburn Parade. E-mail: [email protected] STOICISM AND THE GOOD LIFE 2 9 Abstract 10 Ancient philosophy identified a wide range of possible approaches to life which are 11 supposed to enable wellbeing. The stoic approach to life focused on emotional restraint and 12 an overall orientation towards meaning in life. While few individuals are explicit adherents 13 to stoicism, individuals can also adopt an approach to life representing a naive stoic 14 ideology. While in the past this approach has been largely investigated in relation to ideals 15 of masculinity, recently the focus has widened to examine how stoic ideology might be 16 related to wellbeing across individuals. While initial research focusing on hedonic 17 conceptualizations of wellbeing has found substantial negative effects of stoic ideology, no 18 study so far has examined the differential effects that stoic ideology might have on 19 eudaimonic and hedonic wellbeing. In this pre-registered study, 636 participants reported 20 their stoic ideology, eudaimonic and hedonic wellbeing, as well as their orientations to 21 happiness. Overall, we found that the recently developed measure of stoic ideology showed 22 good measurement properties and we confirmed the negative effects of stoic beliefs on 23 hedonic wellbeing observed in previous studies. Additionally, we found that in contrast to 24 our hypothesis stoic ideology significantly negatively predicted eudaimonic wellbeing and 25 eudaimonic wellbeing orientation, as well as engagement in life. This indicates that a naive 26 endorsement of stoic ideology might be detrimental to individuals’ wellbeing independent 27 of the specific aspect. 28 Keywords: stoicism; wellbeing; orientations to happiness 29 Word count: 3952 STOICISM AND THE GOOD LIFE 3 30 Stoicism and the good life 31 What is a good life? Over the course of human history many different answers to this 32 question have been suggested. One school of thought that rose to answering this question 33 were the Stoics. Stoic philosophy, as most ancient Greek schools, lectured on a range of 34 topics from meta-physics to logic but is today possibly best known for their propositions in 35 the field of ethics. While few people explicitly follow stoic doctrine in modern times, stoic 36 ideology is still implicitly embraced by individuals (Pathak, Wieten, & Wheldon, 2017; 37 Sherman, 2011). For example, Stoic ideology has long been endorsed by military personnel 38 to reduce combat stress (Sherman, 2011). 39 Stoic Ideology. One of the reasons why stoicism might be so salient in the 40 military is due to the traditional gender skew of this field. Stoicism in the past has been 41 thought to be strongly tied to traditional conceptualizations of masculinity (Perry, Stacy, 42 & Pepper, 2019; Scoats & Robinson, 2020), with research indicating some support for this 43 view (Pathak et al., 2017), nevertheless, the differences between male and female 44 respondents was not as substantial as expected (Pathak et al., 2017). Currently it is 45 unclear whether these gender differences are by-products of measurement artifacts or 46 whether actual differences in stoic ideology are captured. Therefore, one of our aims is to 47 provide further information on differences between gender in our sample. 48 This is especially important as stoicism and the resulting lack in help seeking has 49 been identified as potential source of male health issues and low wellbeing. While stoicism 50 in males has been investigated in the past through the lens of illbeing, stoicism has also 51 been related to wellbeing. Stoic thought has profoundly influenced Cognitive Behavioral 52 Therapy (Robertson, 2016, 2019) and plays an important role in the treatment of anxiety 53 and depression (Watts, Turnell, Kladnitski, Newby, & Andrews, 2015). Stoic philosophy 54 has long influenced psychology, but little attention has been paid how individuals differ in 55 their endorsement of stoic ideologies (for a thorough review of ancient stoicism and modern STOICISM AND THE GOOD LIFE 4 56 revivals we recommend Becker, 2017). Initial scales measuring stoicism mostly focused on a 57 single dimensional construct assessed by past behaviors (for a review of past scales see 58 Pathak et al., 2017). Recently a scale of stoic ideology has been developed, the 59 Pathak-Wieten Stoicism Ideology Scale (PWSIS; Pathak et al., 2017), allowing for the 60 assessment of individuals implicit endorsement of stoic ideology. This scale assesses stoic 61 ideology comprised of four facets, Stoic Taciturnity (the belief that emotions should not be 62 expressed), Stoic Serenity (the belief that strong emotions should not be felt), Stoic 63 Endurance (the belief that physical suffering should be endured), and Death Acceptance 64 (accepting mortality, rather than fearing it). The PWSIS captures essential elements of 65 Stoic philosophy, mostly focusing on emotion expression. Importantly, the PWSIS captures 66 what could be called naive stoic ideologies, in the sense that it is not expected that 67 individuals scoring high on it have systematic knowledge of Stoicism as ordered school of 68 thought. The fact that the PWSIS measures these naive ideologies precludes the 69 investigation of some aspects of stoic thinking that are important in the philosophical 70 system, such as the emphasis on vices and virtues or emphasis on emotional control in 71 stressful situations (this was originally a facet of the PWSIS, but showed unfavorable 72 psychometric properties). So, what does this stoic ideology imply for individuals’ 73 wellbeing? Past research has shown negative relationship of stoicism and life satisfaction as 74 well as positive relationships between stoicism and depression (Bei et al., 2013; Murray et 75 al., 2008). Overall, this might lead to the conclusion that embracing stoic ideologies 76 reduces wellbeing. But what exactly is meant with wellbeing? 77 Eudaimonic and Hedonic Wellbeing. The two major dimensions of wellbeing 78 identified in philosophy and psychology are hedonia and eudaimonia (Ryan & Deci, 2001). 79 Hedonic wellbeing is defined by subjective happiness, positive feelings, and the absence of 80 negative feelings. Overall, hedonic wellbeing could be summarized as a life full of pleasure 81 and free of pain. This is contrasted by eudaimonic wellbeing which emphasizes on meaning 82 and purpose in life. The distinction of eudaimonic and hedonic wellbeing have been shown STOICISM AND THE GOOD LIFE 5 83 to differentiate between a wide range of validation variables such as long-term orientation 84 (Huta & Ryan, 2010; Joshanloo, Jovanović, & Park, 2020; Vittersø & Søholt, 2011). 85 Neverthless, eudaimonia and hedonia tend to be correlated at very high levels (see for 86 examples: Fowers, Mollica, & Procacci, 2010; Extremera, Ruiz-Aranda, Pineda-Galán, & 87 Salguero, 2011; Yoon et al., 2015). Taken together that while eudaimonic and hedonic 88 wellbeing are not necessarily opposite, they can be the results of different underlying 89 psychological processes (Huta, 2016). 90 Stoicism and Wellbeing. Viewed through a stoic lens, eudaimonia should be 91 preferred over hedonia. Late stoic writers such as Epictetus outlined a philosophy with the 92 telos (end) of eudaimonia (meaning, flourishing) which can be achieved by living a virtuous 93 life (Ierodiakonou, 2015; Long, 2002). A virtuous life was determined as a life following 94 reason, dedicated to fulfilling ones role in life. Based on this conceptualization of virtue, 95 Stoics divided everything into three categories: virtue (acts in accordance with reason), 96 vice (acts contrary to reason), and indifferents (all acts not classified as vice or virtue). 97 While there is no gradient from vice to virtue, Stoics differentiate indifferents in preferred 98 indifferents (enabling reason, such as health), disprefered indifferents (diminishing reasons, 99 such as pain), and absolute indifferents (the color of your wall) (for a discussion of 100 indifferents in stoic thought see Inwood, 2003; Becker, 2017). This division implied a rank 101 order of importance: virtues are preferable over indifferents, indifferents over vices 102 (Inwood, 2003). This leads to adherents of Stoicism sometimes prioritizing acts over 103 hedonic wellbeing or health if they enable reason and are beneficial to eudaimonic 104 wellbeing (Becker, 2003, 2017). While the stoic view of wellbeing has received substantial 105 discussion in philosophy (for an in-depth discussion see Inwood, 2003), it has received only 106 limited empirical attention in psychology. 107 The link between stoicism and wellbeing has been largely investigated through a 108 hedonic lens (e.g, Murray et al., 2008) and was found to negatively relate to life satisfaction 109 and positively to depression (Bei et al., 2013; Murray et al., 2008). While this negative STOICISM AND THE GOOD LIFE 6 110 effect might be true for hedonic wellbeing, Stoicism is an explicitly eudaimonic theory of 111 wellbeing, prioritizing meaning over pleasure. For example, adherents to stoic philosophy, 112 naive or explicit, try to avoid strong emotions, positive as well as negative, but this
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