The MSc taught me how wellbeing is conceptually understood in science; it’s not just ‘happiness’. Wellbeing encompasses a number of elements that include feeling happy and good, but it’s also about having a meaningful life, achievement, having relationships, being physically healthy, and feeling challenged and engaged.
If people who are on top of their clutter have higher wellbeing than those who aren’t, then what kind of higher wellbeing? Would it be just a general all-round wellbeing, or might there be some elements that stand out? And if some wellbeing elements do stand out, then that could give us some insight in how to help those struggling with clutter. Why? Because there’s a massive research base within positive psychology of particular activities we can do to increase specific elements of our wellbeing.
And what did the data reveal?
I’m not going to tell you (yet!). The results have been written up as a research article and submitted as an MSc dissertation, gaining a high distinction. My amazing supervisor, Dr Rona Hart, and I have now edited this paper and submitted it for publication in a psychology journal. We hope to be able to share the results soon and are evermore indebted to those who took time to complete the questionnaires, contributing their data to the research.