A genetic perspective on the relationship between eudaimonic –and hedonic well-being

Abstract Whether hedonism or eudaimonism are two distinguishable forms of well-being is a topic of ongoing debate. To shed light on the relation between the two, large-scale available molecular genetic data were leveraged to gain more insight into the genetic architecture of the overlap between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Hence, we conducted the first genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of eudaimonic well-being (N = ～108K) and linked it to a GWAS of hedonic well-being (N = ～ 222K). We identified the first two genome-wide significant independent loci for eudaimonic well-being and 6 independent loci for hedonic well-being. Joint analyses revealed a moderate phenotypic correlation (r = 0.53), but a high genetic correlation (rg = 0.78) between eudaimonic and hedonic well-being. For both traits we identified enrichment in the frontal cortex -and cingulate cortex as well as the cerebellum to be top ranked. Bi-directional Mendelian Randomization analyses using two-sample MR indicated some evidence for a causal relationship from hedonic well-being to eudaimonic well-being whereas no evidence was found for the reverse. Additionally, genetic correlations patterns with a range of positive and negative related phenotypes were largely similar for hedonic –and eudaimonic well-being. Our results reveal a large genetic overlap between hedonism and eudaimonism.