Journal of Happiness Studies最新文献

Awe has been proposed to promote prosocial behavior (PSB) through the quiet ego. However, this view lacks empirical research support. The present study verified and expanded this view through longitudinal and experimental studies. In Study 1, we induced state awe through video clips and provided experimental support for the mediating role of the quiet ego in the link between awe and PSB and SWB. In addition, Study 2 included a measure of the small self, a traditional mediating variable in awe research, and did not find that the small self mediates the effect of awe on PSB and SWB. In Study 2, we conducted three follow-up surveys of 788 junior high school students at intervals of six and three months and verified the mediating role of the quiet ego in the link between awe and PSB and subjective well-being (SWB) at the trait level. These findings offer preliminary support for a new theoretical framework for comprehending the positive effects of awe and enrich research exploring the antecedent variables of the quiet ego.

Due to the dominant presence of studies and reviews exploring the impact of light on physical and mental illness, studies specifically investigating the effect of light on wellbeing are often overshadowed. The aim of this review is to give an overview of specifically these studies conducted on light and wellbeing, and to summarize the reported effects. After a literature search in PubMed, PsycInfo, and Web of Science, 74 studies were found eligible to be included in this systematic review, i.e. they included surveys assessing wellbeing, happiness, life satisfaction, positive affect, or quality of life. Of these 74 studies, 30 were included in the meta-analysis and assessed for their risk of bias. The meta-analysis showed a pooled effect size of 0.46 (CI = 0.29–0.62), indicating that light has a small-to-moderate positive effect on wellbeing. After removing outliers and studies with a high risk of bias, the sensitivity analysis showed the pooled effect size to be robust (0.53, CI = 0.35–0.72). Although the sensitivity analysis indicated a robust effect, the results might still be biased due to the relatively small sample sizes, risk of bias in the designs (due to e.g. difficulties handling confounders and the reporting of the outcomes), and publication bias. We encourage future studies to replicate these positive results in larger samples, and to give extensive details about the light design and statistical outcomes, to increase the number of studies that can be included in these types of systematic reviews.

Does money bring happiness? To answer this question, I study the consequences of income fluctuations caused by commodity price changes on well-being patterns in regions specializing in export agriculture. Using nationally representative survey data in a difference-in-differences framework, I investigate the effects of the 2010/11 short-term increase in the global price of cotton. I demonstrate that it can be viewed as a positive income shock for the cotton-producing communities of Tajikistan. The main results indicate that the net subjective well-being effects of the cotton price increase are negative: exposure to the shock at the aggregate level is associated with a notable decrease in the reported levels of financial and life satisfaction. To explain this paradox, I consider split sample analyses, which suggest that the shock led to within-community occupational sorting and that its well-being effects are negative among households that were in the agriculture sector before the shock and barely positive for newly become farmers. Observing the increasing volume of remittances in the world and their significance to the economy of Tajikistan, I also study how remittances affect the relationship between income volatility and happiness. Further estimations reveal that family remittances are not significantly affected by and can partially mediate the negative effects of short-term income changes. The mediating effects of remittances only affect financial satisfaction, suggesting that a mere compensation of losses does not fully restore the quality of life.

The current study examines the relationship between achievement goals (mastery-approach, performance-approach, performance-avoidance, and mastery-avoidance goals) and flourishing (emotional, social, and psychological well-being) in three countries with comparable human development but with different cultural values: USA, Japan, and the Netherlands. Previous research provided an indication for the relationships between achievement goals and well-being but does not allow to draw conclusions on these relationships across cultures. We used a comparable sample of adults (N = 919) of the three countries to examine differences between those countries in the relationship between achievement goals and well-being. Results showed that the relationships between mastery-approach goals and well-being were the same for the three countries while different relationships were found for performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. These findings could be partly explained by the cultural value of competitiveness and collectivism.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the Multi-Component Positive Psychology Intervention (MPPI) on adolescents’ risky behaviors and psychological flexibility. The study utilized a convergent parallel design, a mixed-method research design. While the quantitative phase included a 2 × 3 factorial design, the qualitative phase included a descriptive phenomenology approach. The study group consisted of 26 adolescents (experimental group = 13, control group = 13) selected using the simultaneous/nested sampling method (Ranj_age=14–17, M_age=15.35, SD_age=1.09). While the adolescents in the experimental group received a ten-week MPPI program online, the adolescents in the control group were administered no interventions. Quantitative data were collected through the Risky Behavior Scale and the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory-Short Form. Qualitative data were collected through individual interviews conducted with the adolescents after the experimental procedure. The quantitative results showed that MPPI enabled a significant decrease in adolescents’ antisocial behaviors, suicide tendency, risky behaviors total and psychological inflexibility scores and an increase in their psychological flexibility scores. This effect was found to continue in the follow-up measurements taken three months later. On the other hand, MPPI was found to have no significant effects on reducing adolescents’ alcohol use, smoking, nutrition habits, and school dropout scores. Qualitative findings indicated the positive effects of MPPI on decreasing adolescents’ risky behaviors and increasing their psychological flexibility levels. Findings from quantitative and qualitative data assessing the effectiveness of MPPI were found to support each other.

Objectives

The study aimed to identify different trajectories of personal growth (PG) following the transition to parenthood, as well as factors that predict these trajectories.

Method

Parents (n = 788) completed self-report questionnaires in three phases: when infants were 3–12 months-old, six months later and again six months later. Latent Class Growth Analyses (LCGA) and Growth Mixture Modeling (GMM) were used to identify latent subgroups of individuals based on common trajectories of PG. Stepwise multinominal regression models were used to identify significant determinants of personal growth trajectories.

Results

Four trajectories were found: (1) constructive; (2) high-stable; (3) low-stable; and (4) moderately delayed. Being a woman and higher coping versatility were related to the high-stable trajectory, higher economic status was related to the low-stable trajectory, and higher parental distress was related to the moderately-delayed trajectory.

Conclusions

The study offers insights into growth in first-time parents of young infants by distinguishing between four trajectories and showing that economic status, as well as the psychological variables of parental distress and coping flexibility, might differentiate between different growth patterns. The results contribute to the theoretical understanding of the complex experience of personal growth, which, in turn, can serve professionals in the design of appropriate personalized interventions for new parents.

Previous research has established the central role of an individuals’ locus of control (LoC) in influencing subjective well-being. However, earlier studies have predominantly omitted an exploration of potential moderating factors at the country-level and have rarely delved into the influence of LoC on an important yet often-overlooked dimension of well-being—namely, subjective well-being inequality. Addressing these gaps, this study examines the association between individuals’ LoC and subjective well-being, considering both the mean and inequality aspects. Additionally, it explores the moderating influence of country’s social values, particularly the individualism-collectivism dimension. Utilizing data from the Integrated Values Survey, comprising 170,000 observations across 37 countries from 1996 to 2022, our study confirms a strong positive relationship between LoC and subjective well-being while also unveiling a strong negative relationship with subjective well-being inequality. Moreover, it demonstrates that country’s social values exert significant moderation effects on the relationship between LoC and subjective well-being, affecting both the mean level and inequality aspects, albeit in opposing directions. By employing the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, our findings support the importance of structural effects. Understanding how increasing LoC shapes people’s wellbeing in a society holds implications for policymaking and contributes to ongoing discussions on collective choice and inequality.

There exists a significant difference between the life satisfaction of people with and without disabilities, to the disadvantage of the former. The present work investigates the association between environmental accessibility and life satisfaction by disability status. The environmental accessibility index is built based on the results of the 2012 Eurobarometer survey on accessibility, while empirical analyses are conducted using data from the EU-SILC 2013, which includes an ad hoc module on wellbeing. We test the following hypotheses using Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions: 1. Coeteris paribus, environmental accessibility is associated with a reduction of the difference between the life satisfaction of people without disabilities and people with disabilities; 2. The negative association of environmental accessibility with the difference in life satisfaction by disability status is greater in absolute value among women and people in the lowest income quartile. Both hypotheses are fully supported.

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on life satisfaction has been a topic of worldwide research, mostly indicating a drop in individual’s life satisfaction with some differences between subgroups. However, literature on related mechanisms is scarce. This study examines whether the sense of social belonging is a mechanism that explains pandemic-related changes in life satisfaction across different age groups. Using a rich longitudinal data set of the adult cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study and employing fixed effects panel regression models, we show that the COVID-19 pandemic is, on average, negatively associated with individual life satisfaction and social belonging. Yet, mediation and sensitivity analysis questions the general importance of social belonging as a relevant mechanism irrespective of individuals’ age. The results also suggest that the negative effects of the pandemic on social belonging were indeed significant for individuals with average or high pre-pandemic social belonging, while individuals with low pre-pandemic social belonging experienced an increase in their sense of social belonging. This leads to an expanded discussion of which groups of people are most affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and what other mechanisms can be hypothesized to explain this negative impact on people's life satisfaction.

A consistent empirical finding is that Scandinavian countries by international standards score steadily high in terms of subjectively reported levels of happiness and life satisfaction. Intrigued by previous findings in Denmark (Lolle and Goul Anderson in Metode Og Forskningsdesign 1:95–119, 2013, in Journal of Happiness Studies 6:1–14)), this paper confirms that this is partly due to language effects. In this paper, Sweden serves as a case study that, similar to the Danish study, seeks to determine whether it is possible to establish semantic equivalence between translated survey items. By using randomized experiments on a representative sample of Swedish citizens with fluent skills in English, we test the effects of different designs in question wordings and response scale labels implemented by international surveys. The results reveal significant differences in answers on happiness. While the mean differences are very small, the distribution of answers is substantial enough to confirm a strong semantic threshold between the English term happy the Swedish term lycklig. Hence, it requires something more to be “very happy” in Swedish than in English. Notably, language appears to have a lesser impact on the distribution of responses across language groups when using a numbered response scale with endpoint labels, indicating that a particular question design either mitigates or intensifies translational effects. Happiness, it is concluded, is not easily translated and survey practitioners should bear this caveat in mind when operationalizing the concept across countries and cultures.