Journal of Happiness Studies最新文献

The quest to unravel what contributes to happiness continues to captivate interest in both everyday experiences and academic discourse. Nonetheless, empirical research on the relative importance of possible candidates and their associations with two key aspects of well-being—eudaimonia (the good life) and hedonia (pleasure)—is limited. This study addresses this gap by exploring the relative strength of 32 predictors from multiple domains on psychological well-being (PWB) and subjective well-being (SWB). Using a machine learning approach on a dataset of 559 Korean adults, we identified distinct primary determinants for each well-being aspect. For PWB, meaning in life, self-esteem, and essentialist beliefs about happiness emerged as the strongest predictors requiring careful consideration. For SWB, depressive symptoms, subjective socioeconomic status, and emotional stability were salient predictors. Our findings highlight potential cultural nuances in the prioritization of happiness and offer valuable insights for policymakers and decision-makers in tailoring interventions and strategies to optimize individual well-being.

This randomized controlled trial evaluated the effectiveness of a 3-week multicomponent positive psychology self-help application on ability to adapt and mental well-being in the following the Covid-19 pandemic in adults with mild to moderate anxiety and depression levels. Outcomes were assessed online at baseline, posttest (three weeks after baseline), and follow-up (12 weeks after baseline). The intervention group (n = 118) received the application after baseline, whereas the control group (n = 116) received the app after completing posttest. Linear mixed models showed significant effects on ability to adapt, mental well-being, anxiety, depression, spiritual well-being, and self-compassion at post-test compared to the control condition (d = 0.56–0.96). Effects in the intervention group were maintained at follow-up. Results suggest that a multicomponent positive psychology self-help application can support adults with distress to recover after a psychologically disruptive pandemic.

Clinical Trial Registration

ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05292560).

Recent experimental findings suggest that a life full of interesting, challenging, and emotionally heightened experiences—what psychologists now refer to as psychologically rich experiences—is valued, not for the happiness it produces (if any) or the sense of meaning it might bestow on our lives, but for its own sake. A psychologically rich life is, as Besser, L., & Oishi, S. (2020). The psychologically rich life. Philosophical Psychology, 33, 1053–1071.) argue, “valuable and choice-worthy on its own,” independent of its relations to other conceptions of prudential value. The hypothesis then represents an implicit challenge to traditional conceptions of well-being, like hedonism, desire satisfaction theory, and even some forms of objective list theory, since such theories deny that psychological richness is “fundamentally” valuable. Since the authors ground their hypothesis on the empirical data, it should be the case that the data indicate that respondents deny that the value they assign to psychological richness rests on its relation to all plausible conceptions of well-being. The data, I argue, do not show this. Moreover, the term ‘experience’—as it figures in the experimental design—is ambiguous. Consequently, we cannot (yet) determine if the objects of respondents’ judgments refer to their psychological reactions to events or the events themselves.

This study aimed to connect the behavioral corporate finance perspective (micro level) with complexity theory via agent-based modeling to analyze the impact of selected psychological factors of chief executive officers (CEOs) on stock market volatility (macro level). Specifically, we wanted to explore whether Polish CEOs’ subjective well-being (SWB) influenced their managerial decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic and how it might be related to the volatility of stock prices during this critical period in Poland. Our study was based on a survey of Polish CEOs who managed companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. In particular, 255 CEOs completed the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Scale, and a business survey on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on company management. Using the results of this survey, we built an agent-based model to investigate how CEOs’ decision-making, stemming from their SWB levels, influences the perception of prices by individual traders and, in turn, how it is translated into aggregate stock market volatility. The results indicate the pathways through which the microscopic-level SWB of CEOs influences market price formation at a macroscopic level. The findings obtained from our model may shed new light on the rational expectations theory applied to stock market volatility during the financial crisis.

People use social comparisons to reduce uncertainty when facing new or stressful situations. This study explores how a stressful experience, the COVID-19 pandemic, changed how people compare their income. It relates these changes to subjective well-being (SWB). We use a repeated cross-sectional dataset of students at two German universities from before and during the pandemic. A novel survey instrument is employed to identify individualized reference groups used for income comparison and to analyze whether the comparison pattern changed. Our results reveal that, while there was little change in the size of the reference groups, there was some difference in the group composition. During the pandemic, survey respondents were more likely to select two types of individuals into their reference groups: relatives and people they only knew from social media. Income comparisons were beginning to have a negative association with SWB, while the relation had been positive before the pandemic. Moreover, upward income comparisons increased.

Subjective well-being (SWB) is a multidimensional construct with three components (i.e., life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) comprising the tripartite model. Yet, despite numerous studies in the field of SWB, the cross-cultural validity of the tripartite structure is still largely unknown. The present study evaluated competing models of SWB’s structure across 16 countries (N = 8860 undergraduate students; age range = 18–29 years; 63.6% female) and examined its measurement invariance using both exact and approximate approaches. The exploratory structural equation model (ESEM) of tripartite SWB that allowed small cross-loadings provided the best fit to the data in the majority of countries, and it demonstrated a high level of approximate invariance, which allows for a comparison of means across countries. A bifactor model with an omitted Positive Affect factor also fit well in all samples making the measurement of the general SWB possible; however, it was less robust for cross-cultural comparisons. The correlations between the three latent SWB factors were consistent across most countries, with a few meaningful exceptions. We conclude that ESEM model represents the tripartite structure of SWB robustly both within and across countries.

In national and international surveys, life satisfaction is often measured by a single item. However, there is a lot of debate in survey research about whether rating scales should be ordered in an ascending order (from negative to positive) or a descending order (from positive to negative). We investigate the effect of scale orientation by randomly assigning both versions in an online survey (N = 3,138). The average reported life satisfaction is 0.7 points lower when the descending version of an 11-point scale is used, as compared to the ascending scale (p < 0.001). We further test the construct validity by correlating each version of the response scales with other measures related to life satisfaction (e.g. happiness, depressive mood, and physical health). Generally speaking, the correlations of the ascending scale are significantly stronger as compared to the descending scale, indicating higher validity. Moreover, we investigate the impact of horizontal versus vertical presentations of the 11-point life satisfaction answer scale. Our results indicate that there are no statistically significant differences between horizontally and vertically presented response scales. We conclude that the order of response scales should be chosen carefully, as it affects the measurement of life satisfaction. Overall, our results suggest using an ascending life satisfaction scale.

Personal growth initiative (PGI) refers to active and intentional participation in the growth process. PGI includes behavioral and cognitive skills and attitudes that are captured by four factors: Readiness for Change, Planfulness, Using Resources, and Intentional Behavior. There is substantial evidence supporting the positive relations between PGI and various domains of well-being. However, a lack of nuance regarding how the four facets of PGI differentially relate to other aspects of optimal functioning, such as coping, persists. Additionally, PGI has been theoretically tied to coping, but there is limited empirical evidence substantiating this link. Thus, the current study examined the relations between PGI and coping styles, strategies, and self-efficacy in a sample of 789 college students through a series of three canonical correlations. The findings indicated different combinations of the four aspects of PGI related significantly to 13 coping styles, three coping strategies, and three forms of coping self-efficacy. These findings have implications for both the theory and operationalization of PGI, such as the viability of the four separate aspects of PGI, as well as for the application of PGI and coping in college settings, including the development of trainings to increase PGI and adaptive aspects of coping.

Recognizing strengths in romantic partners is associated with relationship quality. However, is mere recognition sufficient, or does genuine appreciation play a more pivotal role? We address this question in a mixed-methods study comprising 90 heterosexual couples, randomly allocated into one of three groups: (1) intervention: six weekly 20-minute sessions of mutual appreciation of partners’ strengths used during the week; (2) placebo control: six weekly sessions focused on mutual sharing of paired interactions, and (3) no-treatment control. Participants completed questionnaires measuring marital satisfaction and burnout before, immediately following, and a month following the 6-week intervention. Additionally, before and after the intervention, participants rated two perceptions of partner strengths: (1) the benefits (the utility and effectiveness associated with their use) and (2) the costs (potential drawbacks of their use). The main analyses showed no significant effect of the intervention. However, a non-significant trend was observed among women, but not men, in the intervention group between the initial and post-intervention evaluations of benefits. Qualitative analysis revealed that compared with men, women were significantly more attributed with strengths of social intelligence and love and were nearly twice as likely as men to express appreciation for their partners’ strengths-based behaviors directed toward them. Whether due to women being more attuned to these actions or men being more inclined to demonstrate strengths to their wives, women reported accruing greater benefits from their partners’ strengths than men. Overall, this study emphasizes the contribution of behavioral-based appreciation for the partner’s strengths in enhancing relationship quality, particularly for women.

Positive mental health (PMH) has been shown to be of great importance to adaptive functioning. The aim of this article is to review the literature on PMH as assessed with the PMH-Scale. A literature search identified 85 articles that were published between 2007 and 2023 on PMH as assessed with the PMH-Scale. The identified articles focus on seven thematic areas: (1) psychometric studies; (2) sociodemographic factors; (3) mental disorders; (4) suicidality; (5) coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); (6) influencing factors; (7) treatment. The findings support the predictive power of PMH regarding the cross-cultural course of psychopathology/mental disorders as well as health-related behavior and healthy development. Results on PMH are comparable across cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. The significance of these findings is limited by the fact that only few studies involving experimental manipulation of PMH have been carried out. The present findings emphasize the importance of PMH at the individual and collective level, as well as the urgent need to make PMH part of the routine assessment of mental health in addition to variables of psychopathology.