Psychological research of the good life has typically shown that there is either hedonic or eudaimonic well-being, but more and more researchers believe that there is also a third way of the good life – a psychologically rich life, which is guided by interesting, rich, and perspective-changing experiences. An important factor for our well-being nowadays is also the issue of environmental protection, which increases pessimistic feelings about the future, especially among young people. In my master's thesis, I therefore wanted to study how different ways of the good life are correlated with pro-environmental behavior and optimism and if they can contribute to more pro-environmental behavior despite the growing pessimism of young people. 518 students of various fields of study, aged between 18 and 29, took part in the survey. They completed the Psychologically Rich Life Questionnaire and the Recurring Pro-environmental Behaviour Scale – REBS, which were translated and validated for the Slovenian student population, as well as the Mental Health Continuum – Short Form – MHC-SF and the Life Orientation Test-Revised – LOT-R. The results showed that all three ways of the good life are significantly correlated with pro-environmental behavior. The most correlated with pro-environmental behavior were the dimensions of the traditional ways of the good life and the least correlated was the psychologically rich life. This indicates the importance of a positive emotions for pro-environmental behavior. All three ways of the good life also predicted optimism among selected students. This shows that the presence of all three ways of the good life can increase an optimistic thinking. However, none of the good life pathways moderated the relationship between optimism and pro-environmental behavior, which may be due to the very low correlation between optimism and pro-environmental behavior. Based on the results, we can conclude that when it comes to pro-environmental behavior, it is less important how optimistic the thinking of individuals is and very important that any of the three ways of the good life are present. In order to solve environmental issues, it is not necessary to give up personal well-being, but it could be beneficial if future environmental interventions also promoted all three ways of the good life.
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