Is it What's in Your Genes that Determines Whether You will be HAPPY?
That is the question my article tries to answer. In the first page or so it makes the statement that happiness is strongly has a strong genetic factor. It goes on to say environment is a factor that is not only hard to factor in but also overlooked. It makes the point by comparing happiness to height. Height is strongly gene related to ones parent. If height is look at on an average of a nation there is an increase within the past generations. They attribute this to availability of food and nutrition. Another example that makes the point that environment is more than a little important is that social well being is strongly dependent on environment. Furthermore they talk of happiness in two realms as a state and as a trait. These distinctions have completely different determinants as far as genes vs. environment. So in conclusion if someone skimmed through the article they might be thoroughly confused. Big picture answer genes definitely determine a baseline happiness level but life can greatly influence how happy you are. Also there is good evidence that one can increase ones happiness in many different ways.
Nes, R. B. (2009). Happiness in behaviour genetics: Findings and implications. Journal of Happiness Studies, 2009
Is it What's in Your Genes that Determines how Happy You Are?
The literature review makes the statement in the first few pages that Happiness has a strong genetic component. It is later stated that Happiness is controlled by the environment in many ways e.g. whether happiness is a trait or a state, happiness like height (whereby the genetic component to a family is strong but environment shows important over a whole society), and finally social well being strongly connected to situations in development and growth. In conclusion there is a good chance if read quickly or nonchalantly the reader would be considerably confused. Yet big picture is the baseline of happiness is determined by genes, yet active engagement in improving happiness is beneficial and environment is also a factor.
Nes, R. B. (2009) Happiness in behavior genetics: Findings and implications. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 11(3), Jun, 2010
Is Happiness the Key to Mental Health? Most of us automatically assume that people with mental disorders are unhappier than those without just because of their illnesses. A study investigates the degree to which people suffering from mental illness are happy or unhappy, which disorders are most damaging to a person's overall happiness, and whether happy mood and outlook can affect the prognosis of a mental disorder. Participants between ages 18 and 64 were interviewed over the phone and asked a single question to measure happiness about how often they had felt happy in the four weeks prior to the interview. Researchers found that although most people with a mental disorder reported experiencing less happiness than those without, many people suffering from a mental disorder were still relatively happy on a regular basis. They also found that the type of disorder had an effect on happiness; happiness is highest among people with substance-abuse disorders, and it is lowest in people with mood disorders. Happiness can also have an effect on the prognosis of mental disorders; happier people are more likely to recover from mental illness than unhappy people.
Bergsma, A. Most People With Mental Disorders are Happy: A 3-Year Follow-Up in the Dutch General Population. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6 (4), July 2011, p. 253-259.
Are there specific words which give us more positive feelings? This review states that there are. Not only are there these specific words, but they are more likely to turn up in certain situations than others. This article looked at a list of Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW), and then matched them within song lyrics, blogs, song titles, and state of the union addresses. There was a much more positive vibe to many song lyrics and titles with words such as: love, baby, and life; whereas state of the union addresses used words like: people, world and war.
Overtime, the use of these words within song lyrics has been shifting downward. Songs seem to be getting less positive since 1960, based on this study. The decrease in popular music’s positivity reflects the population’s relative emotional state. Usually people listen to music which describes how they are feeling. We also see a shift in this on specific dates in history: Christmas, September 11th, and the day Michael Jackson died. Christmas was fairly high in valence, whereas September 11th and the day Michael Jackson died were fairly low. This shows that there is an impact dependent on what’s going on in the world.
Dodds, P.& Danforth, C. (2010). Measuring the Happiness of Large-Scale Written Expression: Songs, Blogs and Presidents. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 11, 441-456. August 2010.
Is Happiness the Key to Mental Health? Most of us automatically assume that people with mental disorders are unhappier than those without just because of their illnesses. A study investigates the degree to which people suffering from mental illness are happy or unhappy, which disorders are most damaging to a person's overall happiness, and whether happy mood and outlook can affect the prognosis of a mental disorder. Participants between ages 18 and 64 were interviewed over the phone and asked a single question to measure happiness about how often they felt happy in the four weeks prior to the interview. Researchers found that although most people with a mental disorder reported experiencing less happiness than those without, many people suffering from a mental disorder are still relatively happy on a regular basis. They also found that the type of disorder has an effect on happiness; happiness is highest among people with substance-abuse disorders, and it is lowest in people with mood disorders. Happiness can also effect the prognosis of mental illness; happier people are more likely to recover from a disorder than those who are frequently unhappy.
Bergsma, A. Most People With Mental Disorders are Happy: A 3-Year Follow-Up in the Dutch General Population. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6 (4), July 2011, p. 253-259.
What color is your casket? Which disease destroyed your body? Who cried at your funeral?
Research strongly suggests that gratitude is strongly correlated with subjective wellbeing. The question of how the grateful achieve their gratefulness for gratitude is explored by this article. Could it be a question of conditioning by your loving parents who glow with gratitude as opposed to the parents who clobber you with guilt for not loving life and the broccoli kids in poor countries would love to have eaten? Could it be related to meeting the grim reaper, being given another stab at life and actually appreciating the cards you have been dealt and seeing all that is good and accepting all that isn’t? Could it be the results of a long spiritual quest in the search of truth, the authentic self and finding that each time you awake is Christmas morning and each day is a gift to unwrap? In one study, researchers found that death reflection, writing about one’s death significantly enhanced gratitude as a state, compared to the group that didn’t. This wasn’t a long term massive study but did give a brief glimpse into the positive benefits of confronting one’s mortality. The question remains, could people develop a more “chronic appreciation of their own mortality if they regularly engaged in such an exercise?” If some people who are being treated for, managing or have recovered from a deadly disease or have been subjected to a near death experience find a chronic sense of gratitude, could it also be triggered by simply writing about one’s death on a frequent basis? The researcher’s in this article do make the claim that “when one confronts their own death in a specific and vivid manner, their feelings of gratitude tend to increase” Who wants to invest a portion of their waking day thinking about the day their death comes in return for a prolonged sense of gratitude?
Jim Morrissey, Red Sox
Araceli Frias, Philip C. Watkins, Amy C. Webber & Jeffrey J. Froh (2011): Death and gratitude: Death reflection enhances gratitude, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6:2, 154-162
Expressing Gratitude Can Make You Feel Better People have the power to make themselves feel better by expressing their gratitude to those around them. A recent study by Toepfer, Kirchy & Peters (2011) focused on three areas of well-being: happiness (positive affect), life satisfaction (cognitive evaluation) and depression (negative affect) in relation to writing letters of gratitude. Findings from the study indicate that writing letters of gratitude can boost feelings of happiness, and life satisfaction while lessening depressive symptoms – and the effects are cumulative. Researchers concluded these findings after getting 219 participants, both men and women, to write one letter of gratitude to a significant person in their life each week for three weeks. Implications from this study confirm that writing can help an individual express and control their emotions, and process particular events in their life, and increase an individual’s psychological well-being.
Questionable Aspects: 1.Given that the letters were dispersed in 3 week intervals, is it possible that the positive feelings one experienced from the second letter was carryover from the first, and the second letter merely maintained the happiness he/she felt from the first letter, but did not accumulate a higher sense of happiness?
2.How long did the positive effects last?
Toepfer, S., Cichy, K., & Peters, P. (2011, April). Letters of gratitude: Further evidence for author benefits. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1-15. doi:10.1007/s10902-011-9257-7
Sharing Positive Experiences Can Strengthen Relationships Who you share your positive experiences with depends on a multitude of factors. Anderson, Winstead and Green (2011) anonymously conducted an open-ended survey asking college 409 college students (190 men and 219 women) to describe positive life experiences. They were also asked to indicate the people they commonly talk to about their positive experiences, and their reasons for doing so. Findings from the study indicate that individuals who share particular commonalities, such as being of the same sex and having similar life histories increases the chance of positive self-disclosure. Immediate relatives, particularly mothers, also are common ‘go to’ people. Students indicated emotional closeness as their main reason for deciding to share their experiences, and emotional distance as their prime reason not to share. Implications from this study suggest that positive self-disclosure is a key factor to strengthening and maintaining relationships within social arenas.
Questionable Aspects: 1. The way students differentiated a ‘positive experience’ from a ‘negative one’ was subjective.
Derlega, V., Anderson, S., Winstead, B., & Greene, K. (2011, March). Positive disclosure among college students: What do they talk about, to whom, and why? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(2), 119-130. Retrieved from http://ejournals.ebsco.com.ursus-proxy-1.ursus.maine.edu/direct.asp?ArticleID=4AD9A037B1397B46DA05
A recent study attempts to explore the relationship between flow and happiness in a sample of 54 older adults. The researchers investigated whether or not the presence of flow on a daily basis was significantly related to low and high arousal and negative affect and level of life satisfaction on that day. The study addresses happiness as a multifaceted construct.
The research suggests that older individuals may seek flow experiences as a strategy to regulate their affect, and maximize positive emotions and to minimize negative emotions. Overall the article suggests that flow is linked to the affective experiences of older adults. Also a persons overall tendency to experience flow may be beneficial beyond the initial effects of experiencing flow. However they cannot state state whether flow experiences causes higher or lower positive affect or increased life satisfaction in older individuals.
Collins, A.L., Sarkisian, N., Winner, E.(2008). Flow and Happiness in Later Life: An Investigation into the Role of Daily and Weekly Flow Experiences. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 10, October 2009
A recent study explores the relationship between happiness and flow in older people. The researchers attempted to discover if the presence and quality of flow on a daily basis was significantly related to low and high arousal, positive and negative affect, and level of life satisfaction on those days. They questioned if the frequency and quality of flow over a seven day period would be associated with affective experiences and life satisfaction.
The research did not reveal whether flow experiences causes higher or lower positive affect or increased life satisfaction. However the results do conclude that older individuals who experience flow may use this as a strategy to regulate affect and to maximize positive emotions.
Collins, A.L., Sarkisian, N., Winner, E.(2008) Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 10. October 2009.
DEBBIE DOWNER LIGHTS UP Depression has long been considered closely related to smoking. Studies suggest that depression is associated with a higher likelihood of beginning smoking and decreased success when trying to quit. However, results are mixed. Some studies have found that depression had no significant correlation to long-term smoking outcomes. Now, a study has sought new correlates of cessation success: positive emotions. Niemiec, Ryan, Patrick, Deci and Williams, at the University of Rochester, New York, have investigated the potential correlates of vitality and autonomous self-regulation with smoking cessation. They define vitality as, "the psychological energy available to an individual that reflects well-being and promotes behaviors that support a healthy lifestyle," and autonomous self-regulation (ASR) as "behaving with the experiences of volition and self-endorsement, ... the basis for optimal functioning." In a 6-month trial, they separated smokers into groups who received training in autonomous self-regulation and a control group who received community care. Both groups were reviewed at 6, 18, and 30 months to examine levels of depression, ASR, vitality, and smoking cessation.
"VITAL" SUCCESS Overall, those in the ASR group fared better. Increased ASR predicted more success in quitting or reducing smoking at 6 months, and smoking fewer cigarettes predicted greater vitality at 6 and 18 months. The study found non-significant changes in the depression levels of all groups, indicating that vitality and ASR may be more crucial to smoking behavior and cessation success than depression.
Niemiec, C. P., Ryan, R. M., Patrick, H., Deci, E. L., & Williams, G. C. (2010). The energization of health-behavior change: Examining the associations among autonomous self-regulation, subjective vitality, depressive symptoms, and tobacco abstinence. Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(2), 122-138. doi:10.1080/17439760903569162
If you are someone who practices yoga then ask yourself if you are passionate about it because it can help, you achieve psychological and physical benefits. If you do not currently practice yoga then you may consider picking it up. If you have, what is called harmonious passion towards the activity of yoga then your well-being can be better off. Based on data collected this seems to be the case. Those who were considered to have obsessive passion saw outcomes that are more negative then those with harmonious passion. Therefore having a more harmonious passion where you choose to be involved in yoga is more beneficial to your well-being in comparison to having obsessive passion where you have the uncontrollable urge to be involved
Carbonneau, N., Vallerand, R. J., & Massicotte, S. (2010). Is the practice of yoga associated with positive outcomes? The role of passion. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(6), 452-465. doi:10.1080/17439760.2010.534107
Could your child’s character predict their own future well-being?
Common sense has always told us that people with more desirable personality traits are likely to make a more positive impact on the world and those around them. Recent research in positive psychology is aiming to find out whether character strengths, which are morally-linked personality traits, can predict future subjective well-being. The study proposes that children who possess character strengths such as honesty, kindness, optimism, enjoyment of learning and teamwork will actually be happier, have better subjective well-being and show less signs of depression than children who do not possess these particular character strengths. For this study, the character strengths were split into five categories. The first category was Transcendence strengths which are those that involve connecting with others. Temperance strengths involve self-regulation and goal setting. Intellectual strengths are related to learning or education. Others-directed strengths are related to positive day to day interactions and getting along with others. The final strength category was leadership which is related to leading, guiding and advising other people. The study was done with 149 adolescents beginning from fall of grade 9 to spring of grade 10 using questionnaires to gather all the data for this study. Overall, the adolescents’ character strengths predicted their subjective well-being, happiness and depression. Particular categories of strengths were linked to different levels of well-being or depression. Others-directed strengths and temperance strengths predicted less depressive symptoms from beginning of 9th grade to end of 10th. Transcendence, temperance and others-directed all predicted higher levels of life satisfaction. It seems like there is more research consistently trying to understand what “type” of people are happier.
Gillham et al (2011)Character Strengths predict subjective well-being in adolescence. Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6(1), Jan, 2011
Do children’s emotional understanding relate to prosocial behavior?
Understanding someone else’s emotions is a critical step in emotional development for children who are emerging from toddlerhood into preschool. Every child must create a “Theory of Mind” to understand the behavior of other humans. But do these developmental steps lead to prosocial orientations? Researchers at Arizona State University tested just that. Specifically, how emotional understanding and theory of mind relate to prosocial orientation. The researchers found that all three variables were very interconnected. Emotional understanding and theory of mind related positively to prosocial orientations when they developed earlier. They also found that earlier prosocial orientation related to later emotional understanding.
While researchers were able to find connections between all three variables, they found that emotional understanding did not consistently relate to all the measures. They also failed to show any true directionality. This was possibly due to a “third variable” influencing their measures.
Eggum, N.D, Eisenberg, N., Kao, K., Spinrad, T.L., Bolnick, R., Hofer, C., Kupfer, A.S., Fabricius, W.V. (2011) Emotion Understanding, theory of mind, and prosocial orientation: Relations over time in early childhood. Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6(1), January, 2011
The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 4, July 2009, 257–259 Multiple dimensions of the good life: Introducing International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives “What Makes Life Good: Science and Mythology” This article looks at positive psychology with the understanding of the pitfalls of universality and cultural specificity as it relates to “what makes life good.” The author looks at five different studies that look at the aspects of well-being and happiness. For a better cultural understand, one group of researchers found that the approach of addressing the question of a “good life’ is better acquired by looking at the linguistic aspects of the question itself. Thus, asking, “How can one live well,” suited some cultures better than others. So the approach had to be semantically and contextually appropriate to each culture to be able to get information. Further research indicates that three groups of orientation exist within various cultures: Dionysian (pleasure), Apollonian (engagement and meaning), and Nemesian (the desire to keep happiness at moderate levels, as it applies to various parts of one’s life). A study done in Italy found that the elements of productive work, social relationships, and personal hobbies equated to social connectedness and a feeling of well-being. Another study looked at the U.S, Russia, and China. It looked at the relationship between a person’s actual-self and their idealized-self. Researchers found that when the two were closely related, the person level of well-being was higher. The amount of overlap of these two constructs matched levels of self-satisfaction. The study also found that a supportive, but autonomous partner was consistent with levels of self-satisfaction within the three countries. Finally a study of language in the newspapers of Finland and Ghana found that satisfaction was higher in Ghana and that language pertaining to communal values, equality, and Justice was more commonly found in Ghana newspapers. This was a longitudinal study that also looked the aspects of evolving consumerism and globalization on the well-being of a culture. Thus, a culture that could maintain newspaper language that referred to communal values, equality, and justice maintained a higher level of well-being.
Research demonstrates that life satisfaction is a key component in achieving positive mental health and can be a determinant of many life out comes. How life satisfaction is measured is the focus of this article. In order to better understand a child or adolescents perceived life satisfaction you must first make sure that the instruments used to measure this is adequate. The study i chose was a meta analysis that took the instruments used in a series of different studies and analyzed each one. Each test looked into the samples, validity, reliability, and over all administration of the test. There were 8 different life satisfaction measurements analyzed. All were found to be adequate, but the study does summarize the positives and negatives to each test. Some of the summaries would go as far as to tell you in what conditions each instrument would excel in order to get the best results. This study proved to be very helpful especially for anyone looking to do a study involving life satisfaction in children and adolescents who are unsure of which model to use. While each model was acceptable improvements are always possible. The study suggests expanding the cultural demographic in which the tests are used and also looking into more testing on children and adolescents with mental or learning disability. It is crucial that we look further into and tweak the existing instruments for measurement of life satisfaction in order to better understand how our youth achieve and maintain subjective well-being and in turn achieving life satisfaction.
Is Adolescent Popularity an accurate depiction of Positive Human Interaction? This article describes a psychology course that combines positive psychology with a topics class. It looks at adolescent popularity and how its an example of positive human interaction. The subject ironically emerged partly as a reaction to the focus on peer rejection. The purpose of the article is to explain the way the class is taught. The author describes each week of the semester and the content that will be taught. The introduction states that adolescents do not use the term "popularity" synonymous with liking/disliking. To be "popular" the individual must fit a certain criteria. Movies such as Mean Girls portray a clear example of how leadership and aggression combine to manipulate peer interactions. The idea of popularity seems to be inevitable in different cultures and the article states how it is a new sub-field that needs to be looked at more closely.
PeterE.L. Marks. Adolescent popularity: A positive psychology course with a developmental foundation. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Volume 6, Number 4 (July 2011), pp. 314-319
What gives positive psychology that POP The positive psychology movement has grown and flourished since it was first recognized in 2001, but hasn’t stayed within the rules and regulations of psychology. It’s applications has spread to other institutions and professions across the board like, school systems, neuroscience, economics, and public health. The article is aimed to find research and scholarship involving positive organizations that is in some way linked to, or the result of, the positive psychology movement. POP (Positive organizational psychology), POB (Positive organizational behavior), and POS (Positive organizational scholarship) have been the titles that new positive research and scholarship have applied to work situations and other organizations/ institutions. POP can be seen as scientific studies on positive subjective experience and traits in the workplace and positive institutions. POB refers to the study and application of an individual’s strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, improved upon and properly managed to improve the workplace because of the increased performance of its workers. And POS is that understanding the drivers of positive behavior in the workplace would enable organizations to rise to new levels of achievement of interest. Methods of research consisted of the search of the terms positive psychology, POP, POB, and POS in several databases, consisting of Academic search premier; Business source premier; ERIC; PsycINFO, and PsycARTICLES. The search was also limited to adults (18+). The initial search came up with over 1300 entries. Of those, 172 of them, 66 empirical and 106 non- empirical, met the following criteria (1) the article was linked to the POB literature; (2) the article was linked to the POS literature; (3) the article reported about a study that applied positive psychology topics in an organizational setting; and (4) the article reported about organizational studies that revisited established/pre-existing topics from positive psychology perspectives The research resulted in finding that the top 3 journals with articles published on POP were Journal of Organizational Behavior with 19 publications, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science with 10 publications, and The Journal of Positive Psychology with 9 publications. Positive leadership, positive organizational development and change (ODC), positive psychology at work, introduction and overview of POB, and Positive psychological capital (the positive and developmental state of an individual as characterized by high self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency), also known as PsyCap, were the top 5 topics that were found to be most popular, each having at least 10 publications written on them. Other common topics consisted of Introduction and overview of POS, Job satisfaction/happiness at work, work engagement, Stress, Flow at work, Compassion, Hope, and Work–life relationships. Over all, the research found that there was an increase in POP peer reviewed journal articles. 3 articles were published in 2001 compared to 35 published in 2008. Even though there is a rise in publications on positive psychology it is still uncertain at this point if this pattern reflects a trend toward an emerging evidence base for POP.
Donaldson, S. I., & Ko, I. (2010). Positive organizational psychology, behavior, and scholarship: A review of the emerging literature and evidence base. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(3), 177-191.
Can we have hedonic happiness and eudaimonic happiness separate from eachother?
Happiness appears to be more complex than we are lead to believe. Happiness come in various forms and is an internal state of a person, showing that different people have different views on what makes them happy. It has always been apparent that happiness comes from different sources, and comes in many forms, but is it beneficial to take all forms of happiness and categorize them into different classifications? Or is it even possible to distinguish completely between the different categories? The answer appears to be a wavering yes and no.
The two types of happiness discussed in this article are hedonic happiness and eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic happiness can be defined by high frequencies of positive affect (pleasant emotions, including joy, happiness and interest) and low frequencies of negative affect (unpleasant emotions) and the determination of how satisfying one’s own life is. Eudaimonic happiness has a much broader definition and can take on many forms, all of which result in living one’s life in full potential aptitude. Things included in eudaimonia are psychological well-being, senses of belonging, competence, and autonomy, flourishing, flow, self-realization, and genuine happiness. Eudaimonia comes from participation in activities that help an individual to realize their skills and potential.
In this article they showed that it if very difficult to study eudaimonia because it has so many levels and definitions, therefore making it hard to develop measures by which to study the validity and criteria. Trying to define eudaimonia in a simple sense would be detrimental to the whole word because it is more complex than just a basic meaning. Taking on so many meanings also makes it problematic to completely separate the two types of happiness. In eudaimonia, according to Aristotle who came up with this whole theory, we become our ideal selves, through virtues, and benefit the people who surround us. It is found that hedonic well-being may cause people to act virtuous, therefore linking the two together. Also, if you are at your full potential and are experiencing all of the components of eudaimonia it would cause more positive affect and higher life satisfaction, which is hedonism. Instead of separating the two they come hand in hand and should be looked at for their overlap as well as individually.
Kashdan, T., Biswas-Diener, R., Kind, L. (2008). Reconsidering happiness: the costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3(4), 219-233.
Manage Smarter, Not harder: A Look at a Good Bosses Ability to Inspire Elevation
It should be said that there are good bosses and bad bosses. This article makes the statement that bad bosses lower productivity. Bad bosses make retention of employees less likely. Furthermore, good bosses put employees into a “upward spiral”. Elevation (the emotional response to high moral ethics), self-sacrificing, and interpersonal fairness was shown within two studies to have a relationship with higher moral as well as retention among employees. One study used a paper model of a particular kind of boss within a real company. The second study looked at surveys of nursing staff within a hospital. The statistics appeared to be a multivariate anova, where many variables were compared to each other. It seems that the hypotheses were proven. Bosses of good moral standing actual increase productivity.
In conclusion Mr. Spacely, Mr. Slate and Mr. Burns had it all wrong not to mention most business psychologists that focus so much on happiness. It is about devoted self-sacrificing managers and bosses that improve the work environment.
Michelangelo Vianello, Elisa Maria Galliani & Jonathan Haidt (2010): Elevation at work: The effects of leaders’ moral excellence, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5:5, 390-411
Childhood obesity has become a big problem in today's society, with the consumption of fast food and soft drinks becoming a major contributing factor in child weight gain. Obesity has also been linked with unhappiness; a study investigates the extent to which fast-food consumption contributes to childhood obesity and the affects it has on overall subjective well-being. Researchers interviewed Taiwanese parents and children using the National Health Interview Survey at Taiwan, which gathers data on health status and behavior. and is answered on a Likert scale. Researchers found a positive correlation between fast-food consumption and childhood obesity, while also finding a negative correlation between fast-food consumption and subjective well-being. These findings show that although fast-food is linked to childhood obesity, it does not seem to affect overall subjective well-being.
Chang, H., Nayga, R. (2010). Childhood Obesity and Unhappiness: The Influence of Soft Drinks and Fast Food Consumption. The Journal of Happiness Studies, 11(3), 261-275.
Positive psychology is on the rise; however the best is yet to come. A recent study evaluated the status of research on positive psychology in the schools both currently and historically. Froh et al. developed a study that was able to evaluate the status of positive psychology research in the major school psychology journals. Colleagues performed a content analysis of articles from four separate journals. Of the four journals, 27% of the articles were focused on positivity. Happiness was the topic of the four journal articles, optimism was the topic of three, and purpose/meaning was not a topic. Froh et al. have urged that school psychologists need to dedicate more attention and contributions to a science and practice that sheds equal light on positive well-being. The emphasis will require the incorporation of new positive psychology constructs, measures and interventions into practice. Future practices should be focused on quality research that is distributed widely. Froh et al. believe that positive psychology research offers the chance of revealing many creative ways to address and understand traditional problems as well as promote optimal function of people. Perhaps the term “positive” is too broad of a concept which does not address all the aspects of optimal functioning. A basic assumption of positive psychology is that all people have strengths that can be developed further. The evaluation of past and present can be concluded that there was and is a large imbalance of literature that acknowledges problems verses strengths.
Froh, J.J., Huebner, E. S., Youssef, A. J., Conte, V. (2011). Acknowledging and Appreciating the Full Spectrum of the Human Condition: School Psychology’s (Limited) Focus on Positive Psychological Functioning. Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 48(2), March 2011.
Psychology has theorized about the many connections between psychopathology and performance within society whether it is academically, socially or at the workplace. The field of positive psychology is beginning to hypothesize whether our levels of happiness or well-being may be related to performing better or achieving more than others who do not report an elevated sense of well-being. One study wanted to find out whether emotional, psychological and social well-being could indicate achievement-related self-regulation. The study was done with 397 college students who were enrolled in introductory level psychology. The students completed the Keyes 2005 measure of subjective well-being, Dweck’s 1999 domain-general measure of implicit theories, the Achievement Goal Questionnaire, the 16-item procrastination scale and the Self-Control measure of Tanguay et al. The study separated the students into three groups based on levels of flourishing which is defined in terms of a high level of well-being. The findings of the study show that a high level of well-being directly predicts a high level of self-regulated learning. Students who were in the highest category of flourishing showed a mastery-approach to goal orientation. The same flourishing group also scored lower on practices of procrastination. The flourishing group also reported higher grades. This study was one of the first to study well-being and the relationship to goal orientations and performance approach so it would definitely be beneficial to do more research in this area. It is important to understand the relationship between a person’s psychological, emotional and social well-being to performance. Are those that are better adjusted and show higher levels of well-being always likely to perform better or learn more efficiently? Understanding this relationship can greatly influence how we educate and how we influence personal well-being in a positive manner to provoke better performance.
Howell, A. (2009) Flourishing: Achievement-related correlates of students’ well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology. Vol 4(1). January 2009, 1-14.
Mental time travel or MTT is a relatively new idea to me, even though I have been doing it ever since I can remember, and would imagine everyone else in existence has as well. Perceiving an outcome for an event that has yet to occur so one can devise a better way to handle it, is just an act of preparedness, isn't it? To call this act time travel seems a bit much. I like the flare time travel adds but other titles such as goal striving or mental simulation seem more apt. Another direction one can travel in time, so to speak, is backwards. So, for a subject in a trial of of MTT to produce any significant positive or negative outcomes, the testing would have to take place in future Mental time traveling.
Out of two hundred or so Subjects about a hundred were tested with the majority being female in 2009's Back to the Future: the effect of daily practice of mental time travel into the future on happiness and anxiety. The procedure was for participants to make a log each night about four possible occurrences during the next day with an instruction of either positive, negative, or neutral. A control group was also established. This went on for two weeks until the researcher was able to gather enough data to test significance. Positive thoughts incurred more happiness than negative or neutral thoughts. While negative, neutral and the control groups appeared insignificant.
Part of the discussion brought up valid points of negative thoughts acting as buffer for future outcomes. In that if a subject knows a negative event will occur they are less likely to get down about it. Positive thoughts of course may make one excited about what is to come, so much so that they build up unattainable hopes. All in all I think mental time travel is beneficial as long as it is done in innocent amounts so as not to incur stress from worrying.
REFERENCE
A.M. Wood, J. Quoidbach, &M. Hansenne (2009). Back to the future: the effect of daily practice of mental time travel into the future on happiness and anxiety. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 4, Iss. 5.
We are all just going to die eventually, might as well party it up while we are in our prime.
Young people may be predicting that as they age life will become less satisfactory. They believe that their youth is the happiest, most worthwhile period of their life. This may help explain why some young people binge drink, and participate in dangerous, unhealthy behaviors. They don’t see the point in preserving their bodies for as long as they can, if they are just going to grow old and be miserable. Young people’s negative view of the aging processes may discourage them for making sensible decisions. They are only focused on enjoying themselves as much as they can while they are in their prime.
Research on happiness over the lifespan has shown that happiness levels don’t necessarily decline with age. In fact many studies show it can increase. The article explained how happiness levels throughout the lifespan are u-shaped. Young people and old people are equally happy, while middle age is the least happy stage. The study described by this article, attempted to answer the question; Are young people who strongly believe that happiness declines with old age particularly likely to engage in risky health behaviors? They tested many subjects ranging from all age groups on happiness level and predicted happiness level at a certain age or recall the happiness level they were at specific age. They also answered questions about their health habits. The results showed there was a significant relationship between believing that happiness declines with old age and current binge drinking by young men.
Garry, J., & Lohan, M. (2009). Mispredicting happiness across the adult lifespan: implications for the risky health behavior of young people. Journald of Happiness Studies, 12(1), 41-49.
In Resilience as the ability to bounce back from stress: A neglected personal resource? the experimenter's test the ever adaptable resilience to the truest meaning of the word. Although there were many limitations such as; age range within studies; and all measures happened concurrently disabling temporal or causal relationships, the study's participants were rich with nationality diversity.
I commend said experimenters for their audacity to take on such an arduous task of measuring resilience. In two groups, both chosen from a pool of just under three hundred undergrads of the University of New Mexico, each participant completed a questionnaire and received course credit.
A Brief Resilience Sale or BRS was used to measure each individuals resilience through by way of self-report. A five point scale, from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, was used to measure five other positive characteristics each with their own test or scale. Optimism was measured with LOTR the Life Orientation Test Revised. The Trait Meta-Mood scale (TMMS) measured mood-clarity. The Scale of Psychological Well-Being recorded purpose in life. While, the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List assessed social support, spirituality was taken into consideration with three very affective questions that had a slightly more unique scale.
Overall this experiment was highly effective and where applicable many if not all results shown indicate that a strong resilience, or ability to bounce back from stress, was necessary for positive emotions or physical regeneration. The only beneficial change I would enact in this experiment is testing different age groups to ensure resilience is a general ability.
B.W. Smith, E.M. Tooley, P.J. Christopher & V.S. Kay (2010) Resilience as the ability to bounce back from stress: A neglected personal resource?, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5:3, 166-176.
We Believe Money can Buy Happiness, Until we actually have some.
In this article, the experimenter performs a study trying to assess whether or not the general public believes that money correlates with happiness. In the study, students from Cornell are asked to fill out a questionaire that contained 21 pairs of variables and they were to rank these in order of strength of correlation. The actual correlation between money and happiness was around 15-18 in the order set, the median position was 14 during this experiment. I believe that this shows not everyone believes as strongly that money correlates with happiness, they have it prioritized fairly accurately.
I believe that this means that there are a number of people who believe that money causes happiness, but there are also a number of people who are completely against the idea. When these numbers are all factored together, we get a fairly accurate idea of how much money actually does cause happiness.
Cone, J. & Gilovich, T. (2010). Understanding Money's Limits: People's beliefs about the income-happiness correlation, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(4), 294-301.
In this article, the experimenter was testing the relations between the emotional health domain of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and the "Big Five" personality factors, which are, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. First, 353,039 United States adults (from every state except Hawaii and Alaska) were interviewed over the phone to collect State emotional health scores. Participants were first asked if they had ever been formally diagnosed with depression. Then, participants were asked whether they learned something or did anything interesting in the previous day. They were also asked whether or not they were treated with respect, laughed often, smiled, and to what degree that person experienced worry, sadness, stress, anger, and happiness (Well-Being 2001).
After determining the well-being of the states, it was determined that states with higher levels of neuroticism were directly correlated to poorer emotional health at the state level.
McCann, S.(2010). Emotional health and the big five personality factors at the American state level, Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 547-560.
In this article, the experimenter was testing the relations between the emotional health domain of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and the "Big Five" personality factors, which are, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. First, 353,039 United States adults (from every state except Hawaii and Alaska) were interviewed over the phone to collect State emotional health scores. Participants were first asked if they had ever been formally diagnosed with depression. Then, participants were asked whether they learned something or did anything interesting in the previous day. They were also asked whether or not they were treated with respect, laughed often, smiled, and to what degree that person experienced worry, sadness, stress, anger, and happiness (Well-Being 2001).
After determining the well-being of the states, it was determined that states with higher levels of neuroticism were directly correlated to poorer emotional health at the state level.
McCann, S.(2010). Emotional health and the big five personality factors at the American state level, Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 547-560.
In this article, the experimenter was testing the relations between the emotional health domain of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and the "Big Five" personality factors, which are, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. First, 353,039 United States adults (from every state except Hawaii and Alaska) were interviewed over the phone to collect State emotional health scores. Participants were first asked if they had ever been formally diagnosed with depression. Then, participants were asked whether they learned something or did anything interesting in the previous day. They were also asked whether or not they were treated with respect, laughed often, smiled, and to what degree that person experienced worry, sadness, stress, anger, and happiness (Well-Being 2001).
After determining the well-being of the states, it was determined that states with higher levels of neuroticism were directly correlated to poorer emotional health at the state level.
McCann, S.(2010). Emotional health and the big five personality factors at the American state level, Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 547-560.
Women assume a negative emotion even when judging smiles!
Women and men are not seeing things through the same eyes when it comes to this study. In this study men and women were shown the faces starting with a big smiley face, slight smiley face, neutral face, slight sad face, and big sad face. The men in this study tend to see the neutral smiley as happy when in turn women saw the neutral smiley face as sad. This sex difference in the view of the smiley faces is not known but it is shown here to exist. The subjects undergraduate psychology students, were simply asked to judge the smiley faces as happy or sad and both were given the exact same pictures of smiley faces. There seems to be a significant difference in the view of how the faces are judged between men and women.
Elfering, A., & Grebner, S. (2010). A smile is just a smile: But only for men. Sex differences in meaning of faces scales. Journal Of Happiness Studies, 11(2), 179-191. doi:10.1007/s10902-008-9130-5
In a study done at the University of Mary Washington, a correlational study was done on the effects of perceived stress and happiness. In this study a group of college age students were given three measures of happiness, The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) measured life satisfaction, the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) measured global happiness, and the Authentic Happiness Inventory(AHI) to measure happiness as proposed by Seligman.The subjects were also given the Percieved Stress Scale to measure the participant’s appraisal of stressful situations. The study found an inverse relation between all the measures of happiness and the measure of stress.
The study found support for an inverse relationship between happiness and stress. But there were some problems with their study. There is limited data on the reliability of the AHI. Also the tests were given in the same order, so there may be an effect from that. The study is correlational so it does not show causation. Lastly the study was done on a subject group made of mostly Caucasian women, so the effect might generalize differently given a different population.
Schiffrin, H.H. & Nelson, S.K.(2010). Stressed and Happy? Investigating the Relationship Between Happiness and Percieved Stress. Journal of Happiness Studies, 11(1), 33-39
Old, Married and Rich Women are Happier Than You Poor College Dudes .... what else is new?
According to this research, people who are married, older, are female (though not by a significant effect) score higher on the Personal Well Being Index (PWI). This article also claims that well being increases with income ‘‘this is due to the ability of discretionary income to act as a flexible resource to defend well-being against potential sources of distress’’. So what else is new? This paper added the domain of religious/spirituality to the equation. Most importantly, the author of the paper attempted to make an important point, and tease spirituality out of the realm of religiousosity . The gist of his message is that spirituality defines “inner resources of the individual may give to the individual a feeling of strength and become a guidance to find significance in life”, while religion has more of an outward based institutionalized definition. A person may be satisfied with their spiritual life but not with their religious life. In order to measure a person’s well being as associated to their religious life or spiritual well being I think that scientists need to come to a conclusion and define these two separate but related aspects of a person’s being. Of course the path will be paved with controversy, judgment, political and most likely be never settled. Unfortunately for science, psychologist Dr. Wilhelm Reich who seemed to be making some headway in carving the path, was arrested by the FBI and had his research confiscated by the FDA and destroyed.
Jim M Red Sox
Spirituality and Subjective Well-Being: Evidences for a New Domain in the Personal Well-Being Index, Journal of Happiness Studies Volume 10, Number 1, 49-69,
This study took a cross-sectional looked at a possible relationship between altruistic behaviors and health and wellbeing in 457 teens with a median age of 15.6. Students were recruited through a Presbyterian Church. Males tended to most altruistic when they were helping family. Females had a strong association between general helping and positive social relations. Helping orientation was associated with a better purpose with regards to one’s life. There was a relationship between female’s better physical health and family helping. However, there was no association for men. Altruistic behavior was positively associated with health for females and with wellbeing in both sexes. Some of the negative findings in the study were telling when it came to gender. For females self-acceptance wasn’t correlated with altruistic behavior. For males, physical or psychosocial health was not associated with altruistic behavior The authors go on to recommend that altruistic teaching be taught in the classrooms of adolescents. However, it is believed that curriculum should be different for male and female. Males would focus on helpfulness with their family. Females would focus on getting out into the world, as this would affect their health better.
Helping Others Shows Differential Benefits on Health and Well-being for Male and Female Teens Carolyn E. Schwartz, Penelope M. Keyl, John P. Marcum, Rita Bode Journal of Happiness Study (2009) 10:431–448
Plan That Picnic! Free time management linked to improved quality of life. by Josieda Lord of the Pats
Productivity researchers have been studying how we manage our time at work for decades; it seems they don't know when to give up. Now, research out of the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan has examined how we manage our free time. Is nothing sacred? Can't we just watch T.V. and play frisbee without being stressed out by researchers watching our every move? Turns out we can: if we plan our time. The study, in which participants responded to scales of free time goal setting, attitudes, management techniques, scheduling and quality of life, found a positive correlation between free time management and improved quality of life. Better yet, the study found no correlation between the amount of free time and quality of life. So Adam in Accounting just got two weeks paid vacation, while you got one? Just make sure you map out how you'll spend that time, and you'll get more out of it than he will. Free time management contributes most strongly to social and psychological quality of life, with goal setting, goal evaluation, and technique linked to the strongest results. Even though the study was correlational rather than causal, try this: start a file of fun things to do in town. Make some plans about how you'll spend your Friday night; you might feel better for it.
Wang, W., Kao, C., Huan, T., & Wu, C. (2011). Free time management contributes to better quality of life: A study of undergraduate students in Taiwan. Journal Of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 561-573. doi:10.1007/s10902-010-9217-7
Married couples can be considered to be a social unit of their own. The Seattle Longitudinal Study looks into the similarities and variability of happiness trajectories in married couples. This 35 year Longitudinal study ran in waves, every 7 years 35 new men and women married couples were added as a new cohort to the study. They believed that happiness trajectories in married couples would fluctuate over time with one another. Participants were given surveys with marital questions included among others. In reference to the study questions like, "Would you describe your life until (year of current study wave) as being..." Answered using a 5 point Likert scale. Results showed that spouses showed non-significant decline in happiness and did not differ much from each other. Spouses were levels of happiness were similar over time and in how much it changed over time whether it be increased or decreased happiness. To show these results were not due to chance they also randomized the partners within their cohorts. The results showed no correlations between the randomized partners. Knowing now that spousal happiness is so closely related in levels and over time, this can help us to look into other factors. For example we can now look into the effects of goal setting, and life events as affecting spouses as a unit.
Gerstorf, D., Hoppmann, C., Warner, S., Willis, S. Spousal Interrelations in Happiness in the Seattle Longitudinal Study: Considerable Similarities in Levels and Chane Over Time. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol.47,1-8.
It has been established that there are two resonating forms of happiness; hedonic happiness which is defined by high frequencies of positive affect and low frequencies of negative affect, and eudaimonic happiness which is defined by a number of things that all lead to living one’s life in full potential capacity. In this study they evaluated the two types of happiness as motives instead of actual achievements so they could be studied independently as predictors of various well-being outcomes. Basically, hedonic happiness is derived from pleasure and comfort seeking and eudaimonic happiness comes from seeking to use and develop the best aspects of oneself by exercising one’s virtues and principles, ultimately attempting to attain the ideal self.
The well-being outcomes that this study largely focused on were positive affect, carefreeness, vitality (operationally defined as a sense of energy and aliveness), and meaning (operationally defined as the extent to which one personally identifies with, understands, and values their activities and experiences). It was hypothesized that both eudaimonia and hedonia would contribute to well-being, but hedonia would be more linked to carefreeness and relaxation because it produces a freedom from concerns, whereas eudaimonia is more focused on building a better self through goals and achievements.
Upon looking at the conclusions, which were based on immediate reactions and a 3-month follow-up, it was evident that hedonic happiness is more short-term and eudaimonic happiness is more long-term. Hedonic happiness related more positively to positive affect in short-term because the activity causes elation during and moments after completion, but does not continue to produce positive affect over time. Eudaimonia was not strongly related to positive affect immediately, but is highly linked with life “meaning” because it reinforces connections with one’s values, goals, and experiences; initiating feelings of inspiration, gratitude and self-transcendence which may over time increase the well-being baseline. Eudaimonia was also shown to reduce negative affect, which may be due to the conception of goals that divert attention away from negative emotions. Both were found to be associated with vitality.
So, the question is: what constitutes a well-rounded state of well-being? It appears that an equal balance of both hedonics and eudaimonics is the answer. Hedonics is all about the activities in life that give us instant pleasure and happiness; they keep our days interesting and take our minds off our daily routines and stressors, if only for a brief period of time. Eudaimonics is all about living life to the fullest, making goals and achieving them, autonomy and competence, and self-actualization. They both go hand-in-hand in order to produce the ultimate state of well-being.
-Christi Ledwith (Patriots)
Huta, V. & Ryan, R. (2010). Pursuing pleasure or virtue: the differential and overlapping well-being benefits of hedonic and eudaimonic motives. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol.11-6, 735-762.
41 comments:
Each research summary needs to be preceded with a title that you have generated which describes the study in a nutshell. Gayton
Is it What's in Your Genes that Determines Whether You will be HAPPY?
That is the question my article tries to answer. In the first page or so it makes the statement that happiness is strongly has a strong genetic factor. It goes on to say environment is a factor that is not only hard to factor in but also overlooked. It makes the point by comparing happiness to height. Height is strongly gene related to ones parent. If height is look at on an average of a nation there is an increase within the past generations. They attribute this to availability of food and nutrition. Another example that makes the point that environment is more than a little important is that social well being is strongly dependent on environment. Furthermore they talk of happiness in two realms as a state and as a trait. These distinctions have completely different determinants as far as genes vs. environment. So in conclusion if someone skimmed through the article they might be thoroughly confused. Big picture answer genes definitely determine a baseline happiness level but life can greatly influence how happy you are. Also there is good evidence that one can increase ones happiness in many different ways.
Nes, R. B. (2009). Happiness in behaviour genetics: Findings
and implications. Journal of Happiness Studies, 2009
Jonathan Bellino "The Bruins"
Is it What's in Your Genes that Determines how Happy You Are?
The literature review makes the statement in the first few pages that Happiness has a strong genetic component. It is later stated that Happiness is controlled by the environment in many ways e.g. whether happiness is a trait or a state, happiness like height (whereby the genetic component to a family is strong but environment shows important over a whole society), and finally social well being strongly connected to situations in development and growth. In conclusion there is a good chance if read quickly or nonchalantly the reader would be considerably confused. Yet big picture is the baseline of happiness is determined by genes, yet active engagement in improving happiness is beneficial and environment is also a factor.
Nes, R. B. (2009) Happiness in behavior genetics: Findings and implications. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 11(3), Jun, 2010
Jonathan Bellino "The Bruins"
Is Happiness the Key to Mental Health?
Most of us automatically assume that people with mental disorders are unhappier than those without just because of their illnesses. A study investigates the degree to which people suffering from mental illness are happy or unhappy, which disorders are most damaging to a person's overall happiness, and whether happy mood and outlook can affect the prognosis of a mental disorder. Participants between ages 18 and 64 were interviewed over the phone and asked a single question to measure happiness about how often they had felt happy in the four weeks prior to the interview. Researchers found that although most people with a mental disorder reported experiencing less happiness than those without, many people suffering from a mental disorder were still relatively happy on a regular basis. They also found that the type of disorder had an effect on happiness; happiness is highest among people with substance-abuse disorders, and it is lowest in people with mood disorders. Happiness can also have an effect on the prognosis of mental disorders; happier people are more likely to recover from mental illness than unhappy people.
Bergsma, A. Most People With Mental Disorders are Happy: A 3-Year Follow-Up in the Dutch General Population. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6 (4), July 2011, p. 253-259.
Lorraine Harmon, The Bruins
Sing me a song about happiness, Mr. President
Are there specific words which give us more positive feelings? This review states that there are. Not only are there these specific words, but they are more likely to turn up in certain situations than others. This article looked at a list of Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW), and then matched them within song lyrics, blogs, song titles, and state of the union addresses. There was a much more positive vibe to many song lyrics and titles with words such as: love, baby, and life; whereas state of the union addresses used words like: people, world and war.
Overtime, the use of these words within song lyrics has been shifting downward. Songs seem to be getting less positive since 1960, based on this study. The decrease in popular music’s positivity reflects the population’s relative emotional state. Usually people listen to music which describes how they are feeling. We also see a shift in this on specific dates in history: Christmas, September 11th, and the day Michael Jackson died. Christmas was fairly high in valence, whereas September 11th and the day Michael Jackson died were fairly low. This shows that there is an impact dependent on what’s going on in the world.
Dodds, P.& Danforth, C. (2010). Measuring the Happiness of Large-Scale Written Expression: Songs, Blogs and Presidents. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 11, 441-456. August 2010.
Chelsea Craig
"Red Sox"
Is Happiness the Key to Mental Health?
Most of us automatically assume that people with mental disorders are unhappier than those without just because of their illnesses. A study investigates the degree to which people suffering from mental illness are happy or unhappy, which disorders are most damaging to a person's overall happiness, and whether happy mood and outlook can affect the prognosis of a mental disorder. Participants between ages 18 and 64 were interviewed over the phone and asked a single question to measure happiness about how often they felt happy in the four weeks prior to the interview. Researchers found that although most people with a mental disorder reported experiencing less happiness than those without, many people suffering from a mental disorder are still relatively happy on a regular basis. They also found that the type of disorder has an effect on happiness; happiness is highest among people with substance-abuse disorders, and it is lowest in people with mood disorders. Happiness can also effect the prognosis of mental illness; happier people are more likely to recover from a disorder than those who are frequently unhappy.
Bergsma, A. Most People With Mental Disorders are Happy: A 3-Year Follow-Up in the Dutch General Population. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6 (4), July 2011, p. 253-259.
Lorraine Harmon, The Bruins
What color is your casket? Which disease destroyed your body? Who cried at your funeral?
Research strongly suggests that gratitude is strongly correlated with subjective wellbeing. The question of how the grateful achieve their gratefulness for gratitude is explored by this article.
Could it be a question of conditioning by your loving parents who glow with gratitude as opposed to the parents who clobber you with guilt for not loving life and the broccoli kids in poor countries would love to have eaten? Could it be related to meeting the grim reaper, being given another stab at life and actually appreciating the cards you have been dealt and seeing all that is good and accepting all that isn’t? Could it be the results of a long spiritual quest in the search of truth, the authentic self and finding that each time you awake is Christmas morning and each day is a gift to unwrap?
In one study, researchers found that death reflection, writing about one’s death significantly enhanced gratitude as a state, compared to the group that didn’t. This wasn’t a long term massive study but did give a brief glimpse into the positive benefits of confronting one’s mortality. The question remains, could people develop a more “chronic appreciation of their own mortality if they regularly engaged in such an exercise?” If some people who are being treated for, managing or have recovered from a deadly disease or have been subjected to a near death experience find a chronic sense of gratitude, could it also be triggered by simply writing about one’s death on a frequent basis? The researcher’s in this article do make the claim that “when one confronts their own death in a specific and vivid manner, their feelings of gratitude tend to increase”
Who wants to invest a portion of their waking day thinking about the day their death comes in return for a prolonged sense of gratitude?
Jim Morrissey, Red Sox
Araceli Frias, Philip C. Watkins, Amy C. Webber & Jeffrey J. Froh (2011): Death and gratitude: Death
reflection enhances gratitude, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6:2, 154-162
Expressing Gratitude Can Make You Feel Better
People have the power to make themselves feel better by expressing their gratitude to those around them. A recent study by Toepfer, Kirchy & Peters (2011) focused on three areas of well-being: happiness (positive affect), life satisfaction (cognitive evaluation) and depression (negative affect) in relation to writing letters of gratitude. Findings from the study indicate that writing letters of gratitude can boost feelings of happiness, and life satisfaction while lessening depressive symptoms – and the effects are cumulative. Researchers concluded these findings after getting 219 participants, both men and women, to write one letter of gratitude to a significant person in their life each week for three weeks. Implications from this study confirm that writing can help an individual express and control their emotions, and process particular events in their life, and increase an individual’s psychological well-being.
Questionable Aspects:
1.Given that the letters were dispersed in 3 week intervals, is it possible that the positive feelings one experienced from the second letter was carryover from the first, and the second letter merely maintained the happiness he/she felt from the first letter, but did not accumulate a higher sense of happiness?
2.How long did the positive effects last?
Toepfer, S., Cichy, K., & Peters, P. (2011, April). Letters of gratitude: Further evidence for author benefits. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1-15. doi:10.1007/s10902-011-9257-7
Sharing Positive Experiences Can Strengthen Relationships
Who you share your positive experiences with depends on a multitude of factors. Anderson, Winstead and Green (2011) anonymously conducted an open-ended survey asking college 409 college students (190 men and 219 women) to describe positive life experiences. They were also asked to indicate the people they commonly talk to about their positive experiences, and their reasons for doing so. Findings from the study indicate that individuals who share particular commonalities, such as being of the same sex and having similar life histories increases the chance of positive self-disclosure. Immediate relatives, particularly mothers, also are common ‘go to’ people. Students indicated emotional closeness as their main reason for deciding to share their experiences, and emotional distance as their prime reason not to share. Implications from this study suggest that positive self-disclosure is a key factor to strengthening and maintaining relationships within social arenas.
Questionable Aspects:
1. The way students differentiated a ‘positive experience’ from a ‘negative one’ was subjective.
Derlega, V., Anderson, S., Winstead, B., & Greene, K. (2011, March). Positive disclosure among college students: What do they talk about, to whom, and why? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 6(2), 119-130. Retrieved from http://ejournals.ebsco.com.ursus-proxy-1.ursus.maine.edu/direct.asp?ArticleID=4AD9A037B1397B46DA05
-Bianca Sturchio
why are there two posts for you Bellino?
Why do you have two posts Bellino of the same article? -Christina Valeriani
Are grandparents happier than grandchildren?
A recent study attempts to explore the relationship between flow and happiness in a sample of 54 older adults. The researchers investigated whether or not the presence of flow on a daily basis was significantly related to low and high arousal and negative affect and level of life satisfaction on that day. The study addresses happiness as a multifaceted construct.
The research suggests that older individuals may seek flow experiences as a strategy to regulate their affect, and maximize positive emotions and to minimize negative emotions. Overall the article suggests that flow is linked to the affective experiences of older adults. Also a persons overall tendency to experience flow may be beneficial beyond the initial effects of experiencing flow. However they cannot state state whether flow experiences causes higher or lower positive affect or increased life satisfaction in older individuals.
Collins, A.L., Sarkisian, N., Winner, E.(2008). Flow and Happiness in Later Life: An Investigation
into the Role of Daily and Weekly Flow Experiences. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 10, October 2009
-Lauren Goudreau "Red Sox"
Are Grandparents happier than grandchildren?
A recent study explores the relationship between happiness and flow in older people. The researchers attempted to discover if the presence and quality of flow on a daily basis was significantly related to low and high arousal, positive and negative affect, and level of life satisfaction on those days. They questioned if the frequency and quality of flow over a seven day period would be associated with affective experiences and life satisfaction.
The research did not reveal whether flow experiences causes higher or lower positive affect or increased life satisfaction. However the results do conclude that older individuals who experience flow may use this as a strategy to regulate affect and to maximize positive emotions.
Collins, A.L., Sarkisian, N., Winner, E.(2008) Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol 10. October 2009.
-Lauren Goudreau "Red Sox"
DEBBIE DOWNER LIGHTS UP
Depression has long been considered closely related to smoking. Studies suggest that depression is associated with a higher likelihood of beginning smoking and decreased success when trying to quit. However, results are mixed. Some studies have found that depression had no significant correlation to long-term smoking outcomes. Now, a study has sought new correlates of cessation success: positive emotions. Niemiec, Ryan, Patrick, Deci and Williams, at the University of Rochester, New York, have investigated the potential correlates of vitality and autonomous self-regulation with smoking cessation. They define vitality as, "the psychological
energy available to an individual that reflects well-being and promotes behaviors that support a healthy lifestyle," and autonomous self-regulation (ASR) as "behaving with the experiences of volition and self-endorsement, ... the basis for optimal functioning." In a 6-month trial, they separated smokers into groups who received training in autonomous self-regulation and a control group who received community care. Both groups were reviewed at 6, 18, and 30 months to examine levels of depression, ASR, vitality, and smoking cessation.
"VITAL" SUCCESS
Overall, those in the ASR group fared better. Increased ASR predicted more success in quitting or reducing smoking at 6 months, and smoking fewer cigarettes predicted greater vitality at 6 and 18 months. The study found non-significant changes in the depression levels of all groups, indicating that vitality and ASR may be more crucial to smoking behavior and cessation success than depression.
Niemiec, C. P., Ryan, R. M., Patrick, H., Deci, E. L., & Williams, G. C. (2010). The energization of health-behavior change: Examining the associations among autonomous self-regulation, subjective vitality, depressive symptoms, and tobacco abstinence. Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(2), 122-138. doi:10.1080/17439760903569162
Josieda Lord (Pats)
Can Being Passionate About Yoga be Beneficial?
If you are someone who practices yoga then ask yourself if you are passionate about it because it can help, you achieve psychological and physical benefits. If you do not currently practice yoga then you may consider picking it up. If you have, what is called harmonious passion towards the activity of yoga then your well-being can be better off. Based on data collected this seems to be the case. Those who were considered to have obsessive passion saw outcomes that are more negative then those with harmonious passion. Therefore having a more harmonious passion where you choose to be involved in yoga is more beneficial to your well-being in comparison to having obsessive passion where you have the uncontrollable urge to be involved
Carbonneau, N., Vallerand, R. J., & Massicotte, S. (2010). Is the practice of yoga associated with positive outcomes? The role of passion. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(6), 452-465. doi:10.1080/17439760.2010.534107
Christina Valeriani "the pats"
Could your child’s character predict their own future well-being?
Common sense has always told us that people with more desirable personality traits are likely to make a more positive impact on the world and those around them. Recent research in positive psychology is aiming to find out whether character strengths, which are morally-linked personality traits, can predict future subjective well-being. The study proposes that children who possess character strengths such as honesty, kindness, optimism, enjoyment of learning and teamwork will actually be happier, have better subjective well-being and show less signs of depression than children who do not possess these particular character strengths. For this study, the character strengths were split into five categories. The first category was Transcendence strengths which are those that involve connecting with others. Temperance strengths involve self-regulation and goal setting. Intellectual strengths are related to learning or education. Others-directed strengths are related to positive day to day interactions and getting along with others. The final strength category was leadership which is related to leading, guiding and advising other people. The study was done with 149 adolescents beginning from fall of grade 9 to spring of grade 10 using questionnaires to gather all the data for this study. Overall, the adolescents’ character strengths predicted their subjective well-being, happiness and depression. Particular categories of strengths were linked to different levels of well-being or depression. Others-directed strengths and temperance strengths predicted less depressive symptoms from beginning of 9th grade to end of 10th. Transcendence, temperance and others-directed all predicted higher levels of life satisfaction. It seems like there is more research consistently trying to understand what “type” of people are happier.
Gillham et al (2011)Character Strengths predict subjective well-being in adolescence. Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6(1), Jan, 2011
Jessica Hews
Celtics
Do children’s emotional understanding relate to prosocial behavior?
Understanding someone else’s emotions is a critical step in emotional development for children who are emerging from toddlerhood into preschool. Every child must create a “Theory of Mind” to understand the behavior of other humans. But do these developmental steps lead to prosocial orientations? Researchers at Arizona State University tested just that. Specifically, how emotional understanding and theory of mind relate to prosocial orientation. The researchers found that all three variables were very interconnected. Emotional understanding and theory of mind related positively to prosocial orientations when they developed earlier. They also found that earlier prosocial orientation related to later emotional understanding.
While researchers were able to find connections between all three variables, they found that emotional understanding did not consistently relate to all the measures. They also failed to show any true directionality. This was possibly due to a “third variable” influencing their measures.
Eggum, N.D, Eisenberg, N., Kao, K., Spinrad, T.L., Bolnick, R., Hofer, C., Kupfer, A.S., Fabricius, W.V. (2011) Emotion Understanding, theory of mind, and prosocial orientation: Relations over time in early childhood. Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol 6(1), January, 2011
Justin Roux "The Celtics"
The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 4, No. 4, July 2009, 257–259
Multiple dimensions of the good life:
Introducing International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives
“What Makes Life Good: Science and Mythology”
This article looks at positive psychology with the understanding of the pitfalls of universality and cultural specificity as it relates to “what makes life good.” The author looks at five different studies that look at the aspects of well-being and happiness.
For a better cultural understand, one group of researchers found that the approach of addressing the question of a “good life’ is better acquired by looking at the linguistic aspects of the question itself. Thus, asking, “How can one live well,” suited some cultures better than others. So the approach had to be semantically and contextually appropriate to each culture to be able to get information.
Further research indicates that three groups of orientation exist within various cultures: Dionysian (pleasure), Apollonian (engagement and meaning), and Nemesian (the desire to keep happiness at moderate levels, as it applies to various parts of one’s life). A study done in Italy found that the elements of productive work, social relationships, and personal hobbies equated to social connectedness and a feeling of well-being.
Another study looked at the U.S, Russia, and China. It looked at the relationship between a person’s actual-self and their idealized-self. Researchers found that when the two were closely related, the person level of well-being was higher. The amount of overlap of these two constructs matched levels of self-satisfaction. The study also found that a supportive, but autonomous partner was consistent with levels of self-satisfaction within the three countries.
Finally a study of language in the newspapers of Finland and Ghana found that satisfaction was higher in Ghana and that language pertaining to communal values, equality, and Justice was more commonly found in Ghana newspapers. This was a longitudinal study that also looked the aspects of evolving consumerism and globalization on the well-being of a culture. Thus, a culture that could maintain newspaper language that referred to communal values, equality, and justice maintained a higher level of well-being.
Jacqueline Nizer
Youth Life Satisfaction Measures: a review
Research demonstrates that life satisfaction is a key component in achieving positive mental health and can be a determinant of many life out comes. How life satisfaction is measured is the focus of this article. In order to better understand a child or adolescents perceived life satisfaction you must first make sure that the instruments used to measure this is adequate.
The study i chose was a meta analysis that took the instruments used in a series of different studies and analyzed each one. Each test looked into the samples, validity, reliability, and over all administration of the test.
There were 8 different life satisfaction measurements analyzed. All were found to be adequate, but the study does summarize the positives and negatives to each test. Some of the summaries would go as far as to tell you in what conditions each instrument would excel in order to get the best results. This study proved to be very helpful especially for anyone looking to do a study involving life satisfaction in children and adolescents who are unsure of which model to use.
While each model was acceptable improvements are always possible.
The study suggests expanding the cultural demographic in which the tests are used and also looking into more testing on children and adolescents with mental or learning disability.
It is crucial that we look further into and tweak the existing instruments for measurement of life satisfaction in order to better understand how our youth achieve and maintain subjective well-being and in turn achieving life satisfaction.
Is Adolescent Popularity an accurate depiction of Positive Human Interaction?
This article describes a psychology course that combines positive psychology with a topics class. It looks at adolescent popularity and how its an example of positive human interaction. The subject ironically emerged partly as a reaction to the focus on peer rejection. The purpose of the article is to explain the way the class is taught. The author describes each week of the semester and the content that will be taught. The introduction states that adolescents do not use the term "popularity" synonymous with liking/disliking. To be "popular" the individual must fit a certain criteria. Movies such as Mean Girls portray a clear example of how leadership and aggression combine to manipulate peer interactions. The idea of popularity seems to be inevitable in different cultures and the article states how it is a new sub-field that needs to be looked at more closely.
PeterE.L. Marks. Adolescent popularity: A positive psychology course with a developmental foundation. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Volume 6, Number 4 (July 2011), pp. 314-319
Gina Marmanik (Bruins)
What gives positive psychology that POP
The positive psychology movement has grown and flourished since it was first recognized in 2001, but hasn’t stayed within the rules and regulations of psychology. It’s applications has spread to other institutions and professions across the board like, school systems, neuroscience, economics, and public health. The article is aimed to find research and scholarship involving positive organizations that is in some way linked to, or the result of, the positive psychology movement. POP (Positive organizational psychology), POB (Positive organizational behavior), and POS (Positive organizational scholarship) have been the titles that new positive research and scholarship have applied to work situations and other organizations/ institutions. POP can be seen as scientific studies on positive subjective experience and traits in the workplace and positive institutions. POB refers to the study and application of an individual’s strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, improved upon and properly managed to improve the workplace because of the increased performance of its workers. And POS is that understanding the drivers of positive behavior in the workplace would enable organizations to rise to new levels of achievement of interest.
Methods of research consisted of the search of the terms positive psychology, POP, POB, and POS in several databases, consisting of Academic search premier; Business source premier; ERIC; PsycINFO, and PsycARTICLES. The search was also limited to adults (18+). The initial search came up with over 1300 entries. Of those, 172 of them, 66 empirical and 106 non- empirical, met the following criteria (1) the article was linked to the POB literature; (2) the article was linked to the POS literature; (3) the article reported about a study that applied positive psychology topics in an organizational setting; and (4) the article reported about organizational studies that revisited established/pre-existing topics from positive psychology perspectives
The research resulted in finding that the top 3 journals with articles published on POP were Journal of Organizational Behavior with 19 publications, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science with 10 publications, and The Journal of Positive Psychology with 9 publications. Positive leadership, positive organizational development and change (ODC), positive psychology at work, introduction and overview of POB, and Positive psychological capital (the positive and developmental state of an individual as characterized by high self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resiliency), also known as PsyCap, were the top 5 topics that were found to be most popular, each having at least 10 publications written on them. Other common topics consisted of Introduction and overview of POS, Job satisfaction/happiness at work, work engagement, Stress, Flow at work, Compassion, Hope, and Work–life relationships. Over all, the research found that there was an increase in POP peer reviewed journal articles. 3 articles were published in 2001 compared to 35 published in 2008. Even though there is a rise in publications on positive psychology it is still uncertain at this point if this pattern reflects a trend toward an emerging evidence base for POP.
Donaldson, S. I., & Ko, I. (2010). Positive organizational psychology, behavior, and scholarship: A review of the emerging literature and evidence base. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(3), 177-191.
-Brandon Dion (Celtics)
Can we have hedonic happiness and eudaimonic happiness separate from eachother?
Happiness appears to be more complex than we are lead to believe. Happiness come in various forms and is an internal state of a person, showing that different people have different views on what makes them happy. It has always been apparent that happiness comes from different sources, and comes in many forms, but is it beneficial to take all forms of happiness and categorize them into different classifications? Or is it even possible to distinguish completely between the different categories? The answer appears to be a wavering yes and no.
The two types of happiness discussed in this article are hedonic happiness and eudaimonic happiness. Hedonic happiness can be defined by high frequencies of positive affect (pleasant emotions, including joy, happiness and interest) and low frequencies of negative affect (unpleasant emotions) and the determination of how satisfying one’s own life is. Eudaimonic happiness has a much broader definition and can take on many forms, all of which result in living one’s life in full potential aptitude. Things included in eudaimonia are psychological well-being, senses of belonging, competence, and autonomy, flourishing, flow, self-realization, and genuine happiness. Eudaimonia comes from participation in activities that help an individual to realize their skills and potential.
In this article they showed that it if very difficult to study eudaimonia because it has so many levels and definitions, therefore making it hard to develop measures by which to study the validity and criteria. Trying to define eudaimonia in a simple sense would be detrimental to the whole word because it is more complex than just a basic meaning. Taking on so many meanings also makes it problematic to completely separate the two types of happiness. In eudaimonia, according to Aristotle who came up with this whole theory, we become our ideal selves, through virtues, and benefit the people who surround us. It is found that hedonic well-being may cause people to act virtuous, therefore linking the two together. Also, if you are at your full potential and are experiencing all of the components of eudaimonia it would cause more positive affect and higher life satisfaction, which is hedonism. Instead of separating the two they come hand in hand and should be looked at for their overlap as well as individually.
Kashdan, T., Biswas-Diener, R., Kind, L. (2008). Reconsidering happiness: the costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3(4), 219-233.
-Christi Ledwith
Patriots
Manage Smarter, Not harder: A Look at a Good Bosses Ability to Inspire Elevation
It should be said that there are good bosses and bad bosses. This article makes the statement that bad bosses lower productivity. Bad bosses make retention of employees less likely. Furthermore, good bosses put employees into a “upward spiral”. Elevation (the emotional response to high moral ethics), self-sacrificing, and interpersonal fairness was shown within two studies to have a relationship with higher moral as well as retention among employees. One study used a paper model of a particular kind of boss within a real company. The second study looked at surveys of nursing staff within a hospital. The statistics appeared to be a multivariate anova, where many variables were compared to each other. It seems that the hypotheses were proven. Bosses of good moral standing actual increase productivity.
In conclusion Mr. Spacely, Mr. Slate and Mr. Burns had it all wrong not to mention most business psychologists that focus so much on happiness. It is about devoted self-sacrificing managers and bosses that improve the work environment.
Michelangelo Vianello, Elisa Maria Galliani & Jonathan Haidt (2010): Elevation at work: The effects of leaders’ moral excellence, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5:5, 390-411
Jonathan Bellino "The Bruins"
Fast Food Makes You Happy
Childhood obesity has become a big problem in today's society, with the consumption of fast food and soft drinks becoming a major contributing factor in child weight gain. Obesity has also been linked with unhappiness; a study investigates the extent to which fast-food consumption contributes to childhood obesity and the affects it has on overall subjective well-being. Researchers interviewed Taiwanese parents and children using the National Health Interview Survey at Taiwan, which gathers data on health status and behavior. and is answered on a Likert scale. Researchers found a positive correlation between fast-food consumption and childhood obesity, while also finding a negative correlation between fast-food consumption and subjective well-being. These findings show that although fast-food is linked to childhood obesity, it does not seem to affect overall subjective well-being.
Chang, H., Nayga, R. (2010). Childhood Obesity and Unhappiness: The Influence of Soft Drinks and Fast Food Consumption. The Journal of Happiness Studies, 11(3), 261-275.
^Lorraine Harmon is on the Bruins team
Up, Up, and Away
Positive psychology is on the rise; however the best is yet to come. A recent study evaluated the status of research on positive psychology in the schools both currently and historically. Froh et al. developed a study that was able to evaluate the status of positive psychology research in the major school psychology journals. Colleagues performed a content analysis of articles from four separate journals. Of the four journals, 27% of the articles were focused on positivity. Happiness was the topic of the four journal articles, optimism was the topic of three, and purpose/meaning was not a topic. Froh et al. have urged that school psychologists need to dedicate more attention and contributions to a science and practice that sheds equal light on positive well-being. The emphasis will require the incorporation of new positive psychology constructs, measures and interventions into practice. Future practices should be focused on quality research that is distributed widely. Froh et al. believe that positive psychology research offers the chance of revealing many creative ways to address and understand traditional problems as well as promote optimal function of people. Perhaps the term “positive” is too broad of a concept which does not address all the aspects of optimal functioning. A basic assumption of positive psychology is that all people have strengths that can be developed further. The evaluation of past and present can be concluded that there was and is a large imbalance of literature that acknowledges problems verses strengths.
Froh, J.J., Huebner, E. S., Youssef, A. J., Conte, V. (2011). Acknowledging and Appreciating the Full Spectrum of the Human Condition: School Psychology’s (Limited) Focus on Positive Psychological Functioning. Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 48(2), March 2011.
Lauren Goudreau “Red Sox”
Could higher well-being mean higher grades?
Psychology has theorized about the many connections between psychopathology and performance within society whether it is academically, socially or at the workplace. The field of positive psychology is beginning to hypothesize whether our levels of happiness or well-being may be related to performing better or achieving more than others who do not report an elevated sense of well-being. One study wanted to find out whether emotional, psychological and social well-being could indicate achievement-related self-regulation. The study was done with 397 college students who were enrolled in introductory level psychology. The students completed the Keyes 2005 measure of subjective well-being, Dweck’s 1999 domain-general measure of implicit theories, the Achievement Goal Questionnaire, the 16-item procrastination scale and the Self-Control measure of Tanguay et al. The study separated the students into three groups based on levels of flourishing which is defined in terms of a high level of well-being. The findings of the study show that a high level of well-being directly predicts a high level of self-regulated learning. Students who were in the highest category of flourishing showed a mastery-approach to goal orientation. The same flourishing group also scored lower on practices of procrastination. The flourishing group also reported higher grades. This study was one of the first to study well-being and the relationship to goal orientations and performance approach so it would definitely be beneficial to do more research in this area. It is important to understand the relationship between a person’s psychological, emotional and social well-being to performance. Are those that are better adjusted and show higher levels of well-being always likely to perform better or learn more efficiently? Understanding this relationship can greatly influence how we educate and how we influence personal well-being in a positive manner to provoke better performance.
Howell, A. (2009) Flourishing: Achievement-related correlates of students’ well-being. The Journal of Positive Psychology. Vol 4(1). January 2009, 1-14.
Jessica Hews
"Celtics"
Posted for: Scott A. Reiner
Mental Time Travel
Mental time travel or MTT is a relatively new idea to me, even though I have been doing it ever since I can remember, and would imagine everyone else in existence has as well. Perceiving an outcome for an event that has yet to occur so one can devise a better way to handle it, is just an act of preparedness, isn't it? To call this act time travel seems a bit much. I like the flare time travel adds but other titles such as goal striving or mental simulation seem more apt. Another direction one can travel in time, so to speak, is backwards. So, for a subject in a trial of of MTT to produce any significant positive or negative outcomes, the testing would have to take place in future Mental time traveling.
Out of two hundred or so Subjects about a hundred were tested with the majority being female in 2009's Back to the Future: the effect of daily practice of mental time travel into the future on happiness and anxiety. The procedure was for participants to make a log each night about four possible occurrences during the next day with an instruction of either positive, negative, or neutral. A control group was also established. This went on for two weeks until the researcher was able to gather enough data to test significance. Positive thoughts incurred more happiness than negative or neutral thoughts. While negative, neutral and the control groups appeared insignificant.
Part of the discussion brought up valid points of negative thoughts acting as buffer for future outcomes. In that if a subject knows a negative event will occur they are less likely to get down about it. Positive thoughts of course may make one excited about what is to come, so much so that they build up unattainable hopes. All in all I think mental time travel is beneficial as long as it is done in innocent amounts so as not to incur stress from worrying.
REFERENCE
A.M. Wood, J. Quoidbach, &M. Hansenne (2009). Back to the future: the effect of daily practice of mental time travel into the future on happiness and anxiety. The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 4, Iss. 5.
We are all just going to die eventually, might as well party it up while we are in our prime.
Young people may be predicting that as they age life will become less satisfactory. They believe that their youth is the happiest, most worthwhile period of their life. This may help explain why some young people binge drink, and participate in dangerous, unhealthy behaviors. They don’t see the point in preserving their bodies for as long as they can, if they are just going to grow old and be miserable. Young people’s negative view of the aging processes may discourage them for making sensible decisions. They are only focused on enjoying themselves as much as they can while they are in their prime.
Research on happiness over the lifespan has shown that happiness levels don’t necessarily decline with age. In fact many studies show it can increase. The article explained how happiness levels throughout the lifespan are u-shaped. Young people and old people are equally happy, while middle age is the least happy stage.
The study described by this article, attempted to answer the question; Are young people who strongly believe that happiness declines with old age particularly likely to engage in risky health behaviors? They tested many subjects ranging from all age groups on happiness level and predicted happiness level at a certain age or recall the happiness level they were at specific age. They also answered questions about their health habits. The results showed there was a significant relationship between believing that happiness declines with old age and current binge drinking by young men.
Garry, J., & Lohan, M. (2009). Mispredicting happiness across the adult lifespan: implications for the risky health behavior of young people. Journald of Happiness Studies, 12(1), 41-49.
Gina Marmanik
Bruins
Posted for: Scott A. Reiner
Stress Resilience
In Resilience as the ability to bounce back from stress: A neglected personal resource? the experimenter's test the ever adaptable resilience to the truest meaning of the word. Although there were many limitations such as; age range within studies; and all measures happened concurrently disabling temporal or causal relationships, the study's participants were rich with nationality diversity.
I commend said experimenters for their audacity to take on such an arduous task of measuring resilience. In two groups, both chosen from a pool of just under three hundred undergrads of the University of New Mexico, each participant completed a questionnaire and received course credit.
A Brief Resilience Sale or BRS was used to measure each individuals resilience through by way of self-report. A five point scale, from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, was used to measure five other positive characteristics each with their own test or scale. Optimism was measured with LOTR the Life Orientation Test Revised. The Trait Meta-Mood scale (TMMS) measured mood-clarity. The Scale of Psychological Well-Being recorded purpose in life. While, the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List assessed social support, spirituality was taken into consideration with three very affective questions that had a slightly more unique scale.
Overall this experiment was highly effective and where applicable many if not all results shown indicate that a strong resilience, or ability to bounce back from stress, was necessary for positive emotions or physical regeneration. The only beneficial change I would enact in this experiment is testing different age groups to ensure resilience is a general ability.
B.W. Smith, E.M. Tooley, P.J. Christopher & V.S. Kay (2010) Resilience as the ability to bounce back from stress: A neglected personal resource?, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5:3, 166-176.
We Believe Money can Buy Happiness, Until we actually have some.
In this article, the experimenter performs a study trying to assess whether or not the general public believes that money correlates with happiness. In the study, students from Cornell are asked to fill out a questionaire that contained 21 pairs of variables and they were to rank these in order of strength of correlation. The actual correlation between money and happiness was around 15-18 in the order set, the median position was 14 during this experiment. I believe that this shows not everyone believes as strongly that money correlates with happiness, they have it prioritized fairly accurately.
I believe that this means that there are a number of people who believe that money causes happiness, but there are also a number of people who are completely against the idea. When these numbers are all factored together, we get a fairly accurate idea of how much money actually does cause happiness.
Cone, J. & Gilovich, T. (2010). Understanding Money's Limits: People's beliefs about the income-happiness correlation, The Journal of Positive Psychology, 5(4), 294-301.
Chelsea Craig
Is Your State Happy?
In this article, the experimenter was testing the relations between the emotional health domain of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and the "Big Five" personality factors, which are, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. First, 353,039 United States adults (from every state except Hawaii and Alaska) were interviewed over the phone to collect State emotional health scores. Participants were first asked if they had ever been formally diagnosed with depression. Then, participants were asked whether they learned something or did anything interesting in the previous day. They were also asked whether or not they were treated with respect, laughed often, smiled, and to what degree that person experienced worry, sadness, stress, anger, and happiness (Well-Being 2001).
After determining the well-being of the states, it was determined that states with higher levels of neuroticism were directly correlated to poorer emotional health at the state level.
McCann, S.(2010).
Emotional health and the big five personality factors at the American state level, Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 547-560.
Nick Randall
Is Your State Happy?
In this article, the experimenter was testing the relations between the emotional health domain of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and the "Big Five" personality factors, which are, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. First, 353,039 United States adults (from every state except Hawaii and Alaska) were interviewed over the phone to collect State emotional health scores. Participants were first asked if they had ever been formally diagnosed with depression. Then, participants were asked whether they learned something or did anything interesting in the previous day. They were also asked whether or not they were treated with respect, laughed often, smiled, and to what degree that person experienced worry, sadness, stress, anger, and happiness (Well-Being 2001).
After determining the well-being of the states, it was determined that states with higher levels of neuroticism were directly correlated to poorer emotional health at the state level.
McCann, S.(2010).
Emotional health and the big five personality factors at the American state level, Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 547-560.
Nick Randall
Is Your State Happy?
In this article, the experimenter was testing the relations between the emotional health domain of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index and the "Big Five" personality factors, which are, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. First, 353,039 United States adults (from every state except Hawaii and Alaska) were interviewed over the phone to collect State emotional health scores. Participants were first asked if they had ever been formally diagnosed with depression. Then, participants were asked whether they learned something or did anything interesting in the previous day. They were also asked whether or not they were treated with respect, laughed often, smiled, and to what degree that person experienced worry, sadness, stress, anger, and happiness (Well-Being 2001).
After determining the well-being of the states, it was determined that states with higher levels of neuroticism were directly correlated to poorer emotional health at the state level.
McCann, S.(2010).
Emotional health and the big five personality factors at the American state level, Journal of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 547-560.
Nick Randall
Women assume a negative emotion even when judging smiles!
Women and men are not seeing things through the same eyes when it comes to this study. In this study men and women were shown the faces starting with a big smiley face, slight smiley face, neutral face, slight sad face, and big sad face. The men in this study tend to see the neutral smiley as happy when in turn women saw the neutral smiley face as sad. This sex difference in the view of the smiley faces is not known but it is shown here to exist. The subjects undergraduate psychology students, were simply asked to judge the smiley faces as happy or sad and both were given the exact same pictures of smiley faces. There seems to be a significant difference in the view of how the faces are judged between men and women.
Elfering, A., & Grebner, S. (2010). A smile is just a smile: But only for men. Sex differences in meaning of faces scales. Journal Of Happiness Studies, 11(2), 179-191. doi:10.1007/s10902-008-9130-5
Christina Valeriani
Does Stress Impede Happiness?
In a study done at the University of Mary Washington, a correlational study was done on the effects of perceived stress and happiness. In this study a group of college age students were given three measures of happiness, The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) measured life satisfaction, the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) measured global happiness, and the Authentic Happiness Inventory(AHI) to measure happiness as proposed by Seligman.The subjects were also given the Percieved Stress Scale to measure the participant’s appraisal of stressful situations. The study found an inverse relation between all the measures of happiness and the measure of stress.
The study found support for an inverse relationship between happiness and stress. But there were some problems with their study. There is limited data on the reliability of the AHI. Also the tests were given in the same order, so there may be an effect from that. The study is correlational so it does not show causation. Lastly the study was done on a subject group made of mostly Caucasian women, so the effect might generalize differently given a different population.
Schiffrin, H.H. & Nelson, S.K.(2010). Stressed and Happy? Investigating the Relationship Between Happiness and Percieved Stress. Journal of Happiness Studies, 11(1), 33-39
Justin Roux - Celtics
Old, Married and Rich Women are Happier Than You Poor College Dudes .... what else is new?
According to this research, people who are married, older, are female (though not by a significant effect) score higher on the Personal Well Being Index (PWI). This article also claims that well being increases with income ‘‘this is due to the ability of discretionary income to act as a flexible resource to defend well-being against potential
sources of distress’’. So what else is new?
This paper added the domain of religious/spirituality to the equation. Most importantly, the author of the paper attempted to make an important point, and tease spirituality out of the realm of religiousosity . The gist of his message is that spirituality defines “inner resources of the individual may give to the individual a feeling of strength and become a guidance to find significance in life”, while religion has more of an outward based institutionalized definition. A person may be satisfied with their spiritual life but not with their religious life.
In order to measure a person’s well being as associated to their religious life or spiritual well being I think that scientists need to come to a conclusion and define these two separate but related aspects of a person’s being. Of course the path will be paved with controversy, judgment, political and most likely be never settled. Unfortunately for science, psychologist Dr. Wilhelm Reich who seemed to be making some headway in carving the path, was arrested by the FBI and had his research confiscated by the FDA and destroyed.
Jim M
Red Sox
Spirituality and Subjective Well-Being: Evidences for a New Domain in the Personal Well-Being Index, Journal of Happiness Studies
Volume 10, Number 1, 49-69,
Paul Bavineau
Feeling Better Altruistically
This study took a cross-sectional looked at a possible relationship between altruistic behaviors and health and wellbeing in 457 teens with a median age of 15.6. Students were recruited through a Presbyterian Church.
Males tended to most altruistic when they were helping family. Females had a strong association between general helping and positive social relations. Helping orientation was associated with a better purpose with regards to one’s life. There was a relationship between female’s better physical health and family helping. However, there was no association for men. Altruistic behavior was positively associated with health for females and with wellbeing in both sexes.
Some of the negative findings in the study were telling when it came to gender. For females self-acceptance wasn’t correlated with altruistic behavior. For males, physical or psychosocial health was not associated with altruistic behavior
The authors go on to recommend that altruistic teaching be taught in the classrooms of adolescents. However, it is believed that curriculum should be different for male and female. Males would focus on helpfulness with their family. Females would focus on getting out into the world, as this would affect their health better.
Helping Others Shows Differential Benefits on Health
and Well-being for Male and Female Teens
Carolyn E. Schwartz, Penelope M. Keyl,
John P. Marcum, Rita Bode
Journal of Happiness Study (2009) 10:431–448
Plan That Picnic!
Free time management linked to improved quality of life.
by Josieda Lord of the Pats
Productivity researchers have been studying how we manage our time at work for decades; it seems they don't know when to give up. Now, research out of the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan has examined how we manage our free time. Is nothing sacred? Can't we just watch T.V. and play frisbee without being stressed out by researchers watching our every move? Turns out we can: if we plan our time. The study, in which participants responded to scales of free time goal setting, attitudes, management techniques, scheduling and quality of life, found a positive correlation between free time management and improved quality of life. Better yet, the study found no correlation between the amount of free time and quality of life. So Adam in Accounting just got two weeks paid vacation, while you got one? Just make sure you map out how you'll spend that time, and you'll get more out of it than he will. Free time management contributes most strongly to social and psychological quality of life, with goal setting, goal evaluation, and technique linked to the strongest results. Even though the study was correlational rather than causal, try this: start a file of fun things to do in town. Make some plans about how you'll spend your Friday night; you might feel better for it.
Wang, W., Kao, C., Huan, T., & Wu, C. (2011). Free time management contributes to better quality of life: A study of undergraduate students in Taiwan. Journal Of Happiness Studies, 12(4), 561-573. doi:10.1007/s10902-010-9217-7
Are You and Your Spouse On The Same Level?
Jacqueline Nizer
Married couples can be considered to be a social unit of their own. The Seattle Longitudinal Study looks into the similarities and variability of happiness trajectories in married couples. This 35 year Longitudinal study ran in waves, every 7 years 35 new men and women married couples were added as a new cohort to the study. They believed that happiness trajectories in married couples would fluctuate over time with one another. Participants were given surveys with marital questions included among others. In reference to the study questions like, "Would you describe your life until (year of current study wave) as being..." Answered using a 5 point Likert scale. Results showed that spouses showed non-significant decline in happiness and did not differ much from each other. Spouses were levels of happiness were similar over time and in how much it changed over time whether it be increased or decreased happiness. To show these results were not due to chance they also randomized the partners within their cohorts. The results showed no correlations between the randomized partners. Knowing now that spousal happiness is so closely related in levels and over time, this can help us to look into other factors. For example we can now look into the effects of goal setting, and life events as affecting spouses as a unit.
Gerstorf, D., Hoppmann, C., Warner, S., Willis, S. Spousal Interrelations in Happiness in the Seattle Longitudinal Study: Considerable Similarities in Levels and Chane Over Time. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol.47,1-8.
The Constitution of Well-being
It has been established that there are two resonating forms of happiness; hedonic happiness which is defined by high frequencies of positive affect and low frequencies of negative affect, and eudaimonic happiness which is defined by a number of things that all lead to living one’s life in full potential capacity. In this study they evaluated the two types of happiness as motives instead of actual achievements so they could be studied independently as predictors of various well-being outcomes. Basically, hedonic happiness is derived from pleasure and comfort seeking and eudaimonic happiness comes from seeking to use and develop the best aspects of oneself by exercising one’s virtues and principles, ultimately attempting to attain the ideal self.
The well-being outcomes that this study largely focused on were positive affect, carefreeness, vitality (operationally defined as a sense of energy and aliveness), and meaning (operationally defined as the extent to which one personally identifies with, understands, and values their activities and experiences). It was hypothesized that both eudaimonia and hedonia would contribute to well-being, but hedonia would be more linked to carefreeness and relaxation because it produces a freedom from concerns, whereas eudaimonia is more focused on building a better self through goals and achievements.
Upon looking at the conclusions, which were based on immediate reactions and a 3-month follow-up, it was evident that hedonic happiness is more short-term and eudaimonic happiness is more long-term. Hedonic happiness related more positively to positive affect in short-term because the activity causes elation during and moments after completion, but does not continue to produce positive affect over time. Eudaimonia was not strongly related to positive affect immediately, but is highly linked with life “meaning” because it reinforces connections with one’s values, goals, and experiences; initiating feelings of inspiration, gratitude and self-transcendence which may over time increase the well-being baseline. Eudaimonia was also shown to reduce negative affect, which may be due to the conception of goals that divert attention away from negative emotions. Both were found to be associated with vitality.
So, the question is: what constitutes a well-rounded state of well-being? It appears that an equal balance of both hedonics and eudaimonics is the answer. Hedonics is all about the activities in life that give us instant pleasure and happiness; they keep our days interesting and take our minds off our daily routines and stressors, if only for a brief period of time. Eudaimonics is all about living life to the fullest, making goals and achieving them, autonomy and competence, and self-actualization. They both go hand-in-hand in order to produce the ultimate state of well-being.
-Christi Ledwith
(Patriots)
Huta, V. & Ryan, R. (2010). Pursuing pleasure or virtue: the differential and overlapping well-being benefits of hedonic and eudaimonic motives. Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol.11-6, 735-762.
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