Eudaemonia, a motivational driver for humans, is the state of wellbeing and contentment that arises from a life lived with personal and social meaning and purpose. Through the lens of a jeweller’s reflective practice, using a grounded theory approach, this research considers why and how wearing an object influences the achievement of this eudaemonic state. To do this, two types of worn objects, jewellery and worn personal alarms, were compared and contrasted. These objects were selected since contextual scoping had revealed that they had the potential to elicit feelings that were at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum.

Through a series of semi-structured interviews, data was sequentially generated, collected and iteratively analysed from four participants, each with differing experiential perspectives of both jewellery and social alarm wearing. The interview data was transcribed and qualitatively analysed using an open coding approach, leading to the generation of emerging conceptual principles, supported by a model. The emerging insights proposed six inductively identified parameters that had the potential to dynamically interact to create and influence why and how wearing an object affects peoples’ emotional status.

These insights were then tested and iterated through a facilitated workshop for worn alarm service providers who also had jewellery wearing experience.
The refined emerging conceptual principles were

• Willingly wearing an object is a personal and intimate act created and curated by the wearer, motivated by their quest for contentment.
• The selection of an object to wear depends on the inherent meaning and perceived eudaemonic utility of it within the situation that the wearer is proposing to engage wearing it in.
• Although the term jewellery is usually used aesthetically and functionally to describe a worn object, in the context of object wearing, it has a further definition; the term defines a way of wearing an object that results in a positively changed state of being due to the confluence of meaning and motivational need inherent in the action of wearing it.

These insights also enabled refinement of an emerging model (see below) which posits that the wearing of any object may be influenced by six dynamic and interactive factors; a person’s emotional state, their emotional need, what they perceive is the worn object’s meaning, the type of engagement they curate to wear the object, what the resultant perceived effect of wearing the object is and ultimately, whether or not this lead to self-actualisation, contributing to their sense of eudaemonia.

Further research is now required to continue the investigation and development of these emerging insights.