Background: Global climate change is expected to significantly increase temperatures in Indonesia by 2030. Thus, the Indonesian people’s physical, psychological, and social well-being is at stake. In such conditions, a self-transcendent moral identity is expected to promote adaptation and survival in harmony with the world around and to well-being (Cloninger, Mens Sana Monograph 11:16–24, 2013). In this context, past studies in Western societies addressing affectivity as patterns of information within a complex adaptive system (i.e., profiles based on high/low positive/negative affect) have helped to discern which individuals might be able to regulate their subjective well-being and health even in difficult situations. The fact that moral identity is associated with personality traits that are strongly associated with subjective well-being indicates that individuals with distinct affective profiles (i.e., self-fulfilling, high affective, low affective, and self-destructive) should differ with regard to moral identity.

Aim: Our aim was to investigate the association between moral identity and subjective well-being in the framework of the affective profiles model in an Indonesian convenience sample.

Methods: In the present study, a total of 336 Indonesians self-reported affect, moral identity, temporal life satisfaction (i.e., past, present, and future), and harmony in life. We calculated the percentiles for participants’ positive and negative affect scores and combined them as high and low in order to assign each participant into one of the four affective profiles. Besides common linear correlations, we also conducted matched comparisons: individuals with similar levels of affect in one dimension and different levels in the other.

Results: The matched comparisons showed that high positive affect was positively associated with moral identity only when negative affect was low and that high negative affect was negatively associated with moral identity only when positive affect was high. Moreover, high positive affect was positively related to high levels of harmony in life independently of negative affect levels. Consequentially, high negative affect was negatively related to low levels of harmony in life independently of positive affect levels. In addition, high positive affect was positively associated with past, present, future, and total temporal life satisfaction, but only when negative affect was low. Furthermore, both present and total temporal life satisfaction was negatively associated with high levels of negative affect, but only when positive affect was also high.

Conclusions: At the general level, affectivity and moral identity were related to the social component of subjective well-being, harmony in life, rather than to its cognitive component, life satisfaction. High levels of positive affect seem to promote a high moral self-presentation, while high levels of negative affect in combination with high levels of positive affect might influence the individual to see these specific moral traits as disadvantageous. Even the results regarding life satisfaction partially supported that, in the Indonesian culture, individuals with a high affective profile seem to be at greater risk in the face of current and future challenges. Hence, in contrast to past studies in Western cultures, increases in negative affect, which is likely to happen under stressful situations during climate crises, might lead to low moral identity if the individual is high in positive affect.