A person’s lifestyle reflects the values they hold, how they spend their time and money, and the ways that they live. Depending on their culture, family, and friends, people’s lifestyles can be very different from each other. Generally, there are no right or wrong lifestyles, but some may be more healthy than others. For example, a person who wants to look cool might try to adopt a rock star lifestyle of wearing expensive clothing and music listening to loud.
In psychology, the concept of a lifestyle was first used by Alfred Adler in his work on personality development. He explained that a lifestyle is the framework of guiding principles and values that people develop in their early years, forming a system of judgement that enables them to interpret their environment. He argued that it is important to consider the lifestyle because it is something that a person carries with them throughout their entire life.
Another psychological perspective on a person’s lifestyle was developed by Milton Rokeach in the 1960s. He linked lifestyles with a person’s value system, which he defined as a hierarchically ordered collection of terminal and instrumental values. These values constituted the person’s overall philosophy and guide his or her choices.
The sociological approach on a person’s lifestyle was developed further by Thorstein Veblen, who explained that people choose specific’schemes of life’ based on their desire to distinguish themselves from social strata they perceive as inferior and on their desire to imitate the lifestyle of those they deem as superior. Max Weber took this viewpoint a step further, asserting that a person’s lifestyle is the distinctive element of their status group that shows the prestige they aspire to.
Health psychology has also addressed the topic of a person’s lifestyle, with particular emphasis on the role of lifestyle in mental and physical well-being. This article focuses on the current understanding of lifestyle from a health psychology perspective, examining the various definitions and results of studies that use the term.
The paper maps current empirical research on a person’s lifestyle along three dimensions to illustrate the wide range of possible perspectives. These include behavioural scope (whether the behaviours analysed are individual or collective), internal and external orientation, and temporal dimension. This allows for a more precise classification of existing and future empirical studies that aim to apply the lifestyle construct and improve orientation in the field. It also helps avoid imprecise comparisons due to methodological differences. In this way, it is hoped that a healthier conceptualisation of a lifestyle can be developed within the health perspective. This will enable the exploration of the concept’s potential to contribute to the development of a salutogenic and ecosystemic framework for health.
