[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-82675-en":3,"doc-seo-82675-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},82675,3848291630094,"Emma Wilson","https://eur-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_085a072bc5b1113ac321206ff7593b45",8,"Research & Report","Beyond Satisfaction Learning Associations Between Content, Reviews, and Well-Being","Digital platforms often optimize for user satisfaction using signals such as ratings, likes, and sentiment, treating satisfaction as a stand-in for well-being. Psychological theory defines well-being as multidimensional, beyond short-term positivity. This paper tests whether common satisfaction signals reflect well-being in book reviews, and which content links to distinct well-being outcomes. Findings show weak correlation between ratings/sentiment and most well-being facets, with stronger alignment for immediate hedonic than enduring eudaimonic expression. Review–content connections highlight meaning and accomplishment from values and institutions, while incivility and past-focused language predict lower well-being, motivating richer recommendation targets.","Beyond Satisfaction: Learning Associations Between Content, Reviews, and  \nWell-Being  \nAaron Marker Joel Lehman  \nVanderbilt University University of Oxford and Cosmos Institute  \n[aaron.marker@vanderbilt.edu](aaron.marker@vanderbilt.edu)  \nH. Andrew Schwartz  \nVanderbilt University  \n[hansen.schwartz@vanderbilt.edu](hansen.schwartz@vanderbilt.edu)  \narXiv :2607 .02539v 1 [ cs . SI] 22 Jun 2026  \nAbstract  \nDigital platforms commonly optimize for satisfaction using signals such as ratings, likes, and sentiment, implicitly treating satisfaction as a proxy for user well-being. Psychological theory, however, characterizes well-being as a multidimensional construct that extends beyond satisfaction or short-term positivity. In this paper, we examine whether commonly used satisfaction signals capture expressions of well-being, and what types of content are associated with different well-being outcomes. Our study focuses on book consumption, a convenient domain wherein users engage substantially with fixed pieces of content and sometimes provide nuanced long-form feedback. Our results show that (a) rating scales and sentiment only loosely correlate with most facets of psychological well-being and (b) ratings and sentiment are more closely aligned with immediate and hedonic as opposed to enduring and eudaimonic expressions of well-being. Further, by linking reviews to book content, we find that themes related to values, and institutions like religion (Pearson r = 0 .35) or human drives (r = .26) are associated with higher meaning and accomplishment respectively, while incivility (avg r = − . 15) and past-focused language (avg r = − . 12) are associated with lower wellbeing. These findings motivate richer outcome targets for content recommendation systems beyond satisfaction alone.  \n1 Introduction  \nDigital platforms often optimize for user satisfaction using signals such as ratings, likes, and sentiment. It is not immediately clear whether these signals maximize the user’s best interest. Psychological research characterizes an individual’s wellbeing as a multidimensional construct that extends beyond short-term positive affect to include facets such as meaning, relationships, and accomplishment (Seligman, 2011 ; Diener et al., 2018), broader  \nFigure 1: Well-being is modeled as a latent construct inferred from multiple complementary facets, analogous to an aircraft dashboard that requires integrating multiple indicators rather than relying on any single measure. Star ratings and expressions of well-being capture distinct signals in book reviews, each associated with different concepts in the reviewed book.  \ndimensions potentially unaccounted for by satisfaction signals alone. Differential Language Analysis provides a scalable way to infer psychological constructs from language beyond these coarse measures such as ratings or sentiment.  \nIn this work, we leverage this insight to study how consumed content is associated with expressions of well-being through language. We focus on book consumption as a tractable domain of passive content engagement: readers engage deeply with fixed texts and often produce long-form reviews that capture nuanced reflections on their experience. Using a large corpus of Goodreads reviews paired with book text from the HathiTrust Digital Library, we analyze how readers linguistically express changes in well-being after engaging with a single work. Prior research suggests that reading, particularly fiction, can influence mental health and well-being (Arslan et al., 2022 ; Carney and Robertson, 2022), and a growing recent area of NLP work has examined large-scale analysis of book text (Hobson et al., 2024 ; Troiano and Vossen, 2024) . Reviews provide reflective, user-centered language focused on individual experience, allow-  \ning us to link properties of content to expressed well-being with fewer conversational confounds than interactive platforms. Well-being is not only a subjective experience but is also ","cbCaif5IQ2An2EkT","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaif5IQ2An2EkT","pdf",2633963,1,21,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n# 1 Introduction\n# 2 Related Work","[{\"question\":\"How does the paper distinguish well-being from satisfaction signals?\",\"answer\":\"It treats well-being as a multidimensional construct that extends beyond short-term positive affect, whereas satisfaction signals like ratings and sentiment are commonly used as proxies for well-being.\"},{\"question\":\"What domain and data does the study use?\",\"answer\":\"The study focuses on book consumption and uses a large corpus of Goodreads reviews paired with book text from the HathiTrust Digital Library.\"},{\"question\":\"What are the main findings about ratings and sentiment?\",\"answer\":\"Ratings and sentiment correlate only loosely with most facets of psychological well-being, and they align more with immediate and hedonic than enduring and eudaimonic well-being.\"}]",1784182215,53,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"beyond-satisfaction-learning-associations-between-content-reviews-and-well-being","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/beyond-satisfaction-learning-associations-between-content-reviews-and-well-being/82675/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-17","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"How does the paper distinguish well-being from satisfaction signals?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"It treats well-being as a multidimensional construct that extends beyond short-term positive affect, whereas satisfaction signals like ratings and sentiment are commonly used as proxies for well-being.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What domain and data does the study use?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"The study focuses on book consumption and uses a large corpus of Goodreads reviews paired with book text from the HathiTrust Digital Library.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What are the main findings about ratings and sentiment?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"Ratings and sentiment correlate only loosely with most facets of psychological well-being, and they align more with immediate and hedonic than enduring and eudaimonic well-being.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]