Passion Does Make a Difference in People's Lives: A Look at Well-Being in Passionate and Non-Passionate Individuals

The purpose of the present research was to examine the differences in well-being between passionate and non-passionate individuals of various age groups. The results of two studies (total n = 885) provided support for the hypothesis that being harmoniously passionate for an activity contributes significantly to both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, while being obsessively passionate for an activity or having no passion at all does not contribute to well-being. Furthermore, results from Study 2 showed that only harmoniously passionate people experienced an increase in subjective vitality over a 1-year period compared to obsessively passionate and non-passionate people who did not differ from each other. These results also held true after controlling for the effect of age and gender. It would thus appear that passion does make a difference in people's lives, as long as such passion is harmonious in nature.