<p>How much progress have we made in operationalizing Quality of Life and Well-Being? While these constructs are widely used in the social sciences, their inherently multidimensional nature—encompassing social, environmental, economic, and psychological dimensions—continues to pose significant methodological challenges. One key difficulty arises from the tendency to equate indicators with quantitative measures. At the same time, subjective indicators are largely shaped by positive psychology, which has strongly influenced how subjectivity is operationalized across disciplines. This scoping review of 285 articles published between 1990 and 2023 in three key academic journals examines mainly how subjective and objective indicators are used across social science disciplines. By proposing a framework for operationalizing Quality of Life and Well-Being, we emphasize the crucial role of multiple units of observation in understanding multidimensionality. The findings indicate that a considerable source of bias in Quality of Life and Well-Being research arises from disciplinary foundations that skew collective understanding of what “matters” in QOL/WB. Additionally, the epistemological framework for selecting specific indicators and dimensions remains unclear, suggesting that multidimensionality serves as a label of inclusiveness rather than a theoretically grounded principle. By utilizing our framework, we aim to elucidate multidimensionality not only as a methodological characteristic of Quality of Life and Well-Being but also as a heuristic and epistemological lens—one that reveals the interconnectedness of indicators, theories, and units of analysis in the examination of these core constructs.</p>