Coping and co-creation: one attempt and one route to well-being

All life strives to be well, but not all life is well. In this theoretical article we systematically specify the evolutionary core cognition of well-being in general living agents and we apply that to humans. We identify two strategies for the creation and protection of the conditions required for well-being and describe the associated behavioral ontologies. One strategy, coping, is for survival and the other strategy, co-creation, is for thriving. We summarize core cognition and the ontologies in two tables with defined key terms.Coping and co-creation correspond to two complementary ontologies of cognition that follow their own internal logic fine tuned by learned from real-world experiences. While both strategies are essential, the successful interplay of their strengths leads to the dominance of one of them: co-creation.We define adequacy in terms of improving or protecting viability, and we show that the four combinations of a coping and co- creation adequacy or inadequacy underlie the structure of identity in humans. The combinations also dictate how individuals attempt to protect and create the conditions for well-being, and their likelihood of success.The notion of ontological security, as it is known in literature, is an accurate description of the coping mode’s restricted capacity for the creation and protection of well-being. Ontological security leads to a self-limiting form of well-being that has been described as “abnormal normality”.Psychological safety provides the preconditions for high well-being and a safe environment promoting the healthy development of coping and co-creation adequacy.