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This investigation tested the hypotheses that (1) individuals with higher levels of insight would be both happier and more satisfied with their lives than those with lower levels and (2) that an interaction between self-reflection and insight would affect both happiness and life satisfaction. Participants (N = 208) were community members who completed four self-report instruments. They were divided into three groups according to their self-reflection (SRE) and insight scores. Then a 3 (SRE) × 3 (insight) MANCOVA was performed on satisfaction with life (SWLS) and subjective happiness (SHS) after controlling for age and psychological distress. Results indicated that insight was significantly positively associated with SWLS and SHS, but SRE was not. The interaction between SRE and insight was also not significant. Univariate analyses indicated that participants with the highest levels of insight were both significantly more satisfied with their lives and happier than participants with medium or low levels of insight, but the medium and low insight groups did not differ significantly from each other on either SWLS or SHS. Implications for future research are discussed.

A variety of psychotherapeutic techniques attempt to improve personal experience by encouraging self-reflection and insight. Thinking about one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors is hypothesized to lead to increased self-awareness, more behavioral choices, and possibly opportunities for cognitive or emotional insight. However, empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of therapeutic techniques has repeatedly found that the primary effective factor is the quality of the therapeutic relationship (Orlinksy, Grawe, & Parks, 1994), which calls into question whether other mechanisms are as important to therapeutic outcomes as they are theoretically supposed to be. A related line of thinking that pertains to improving personal experience is the emphasis of positive psychology on finding factors that contribute not only to symptom reduction and remediating psychopathology, but instead promote optimal human experience. Theorists and researchers in this area have begun to investigate the role of personality characteristics and behaviors in improving the quality of individual lives with some surprising findings. For example, self-reflection may have complex effects on well-being (Conway & Giannopoulos, 1993) which leads to further questions about when and with whom self-reflection should be encouraged. For these reasons, it is important to determine whether aspects of subjective well-being are significantly associated with self-reflection and/or insight.