Blackwell Reference Online

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Carol Ryff is the Director of the Institute on Aging and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research centers on the study of psychological well-being, an area in which she has developed multidimensional assessment scales (translated into more than 25 different languages). Her article on psychological well-being, published in 1989 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , is a classic in the field of well-being. It is considered by many to be among the seminal articles that launched the study of the eudaimonia tradition of well-being within the discipline of psychology. Subsequent research by Carol Ryff and colleagues has addressed how psychological well-being varies with age, gender, socioeconomic status, ethnic/minority status, cultural context, as well as by the experiences, challenges, and transitions individuals confront as they move through the life course. Two primary themes characterize her most recent work. First, she has investigated whether psychological well-being is protective of good physical health during life transitions and stress. Second, she is among the leading researchers investigating psychosocial health and its linkages to biological markers in ongoing longitudinal investigations linking positive psychosocial factors to neuroendocrine, immune, cardiovascular, and neural circuitry biomarkers. The guiding theme ... log in or subscribe to read full text