Journal of Happiness Studies最新文献

In a real-life study using time-based ambulatory assessment, we investigated how to unobtrusively capture within-subject and between-subject variations in flow in everyday life. We compared two observation approaches, momentary states, and coverage, which differed in the reference of flow reports and sampling frequency. Depending on condition, participants (N = 38) answered either ten or five queries per day that referred to the current state or the last two hours (n = 1442 observations in total). We found no effect of either approach on compliance, flow intensity, or flow reports over time. However, the approaches differed with respect to flow probability reports, within-subject variability in flow reports, and perceived burden. In addition, we introduced a reduced three-item version of the Flow Short Scale. Our results indicate acceptable to good reliability as well as concurrent, convergent and discriminant validity of this scale. Based on our findings, we recommend that the choice of observation approach for capturing everyday flow depends on the outcome of interest, the targeted comparison within- or between-subjects, and the expected task variability of the participants. Limitations regarding our sampling procedure and the retrospective assessment of flow experiences are discussed.

Purpose in life is a well-established contributor to positive well-being. However, for a more comprehensive understanding of purpose in life, further exploration is needed about the processes implicated in purpose from a cognitive and affective perspective. This scoping review aims to identify the cognitive and/or affective mechanisms (CAMs) correlating with purpose in life and to examine these relationships based on relevant existing literature. Using search terms related to CAMs and purpose in life, we conducted a comprehensive search across five databases (Web of Science, Medline, Pubmed, Scopus, and psycinfo) to identify those examining the relationship between these constructs. Ninety-nine manuscripts were selected for inclusion. Within these studies, 33 CAMs showed predominantly positive and significant associations with purpose in life. Our findings highlighted the cams empirically and theoretically implicated in purpose development, maintenance, and its association to positive wellbeing. We identified several gaps in current research including issues related to suboptimal measurement of purpose in life, and a lack of longitudinal and intervention studies. Overall, this study represents a foundational step in advancing an understanding CAMs implicated in purpose in life. This scoping review usefully informs the development and validation of future purpose in life measures, and the design of interventions aimed at enhancing purpose in life and wellbeing.

Striving towards personally meaningful goals is positively related to well-being. We investigate a brief writing intervention, instructing individuals to define and reappraise their fears related to personally meaningful goals and/or desired personal changes. 154 participants were randomized into a fear-setting writing intervention plus psychoeducation (n = 92), or a waitlist control group (n = 62). Participants filled out questionnaires at baseline, posttest, and 1-week follow-up. Latent change scores models revealed significantly larger increases in motivation to act (subscale perceived success probability, d = 0.27) and positive affect (d = 0.40) in the intervention compared to the control group from baseline to posttest. Results indicate that the effects persisted at the 1-week follow-up. In addition, we found a significant decrease in fear of failure (subscale fear of shame and embarrassment) from baseline to follow-up in the intervention condition (but not from baseline to the posttest). We found no significant effects of fear-setting for motivation to act (subscale fear of no success), fear of failure (subscale fear of devaluing one?s self-estimate), self-efficacy, negative affect, and optimism. This study provides initial evidence that fear-setting can assist people in changing motivation-related cognitive-affective states related to goal attainment and well-being.

This study investigated the mediating roles of positive adversity beliefs and affect in the relationships between optimism, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and posttraumatic growth (PTG) among adolescents. We conducted three assessment waves 8.5 (T1), 9.5 (T2), and 10 (T3) years after the Wenchuan earthquake. Overall, 449 earthquake survivors (M_age = 13.44, SD = 1.31 years) completed questionnaires regarding optimism (T1), PTSD (T3), PTG (T3), positive adversity beliefs (T2), positive affect (T2), and negative affect (T2). After controlling for adolescents’ gender, age, trauma exposure, school performance, and their parents’ working status, optimism was directly associated with PTSD and indirectly associated with PTSD via positive adversity beliefs, negative affect, and “positive adversity beliefs-negative affect”. Optimism was indirectly associated with PTG via positive adversity beliefs, positive affect, negative affect, “positive adversity beliefs-positive affect”, and “positive adversity beliefs-negative affect”. These findings suggested that PTSD and PTG were influenced by different mechanisms: positive affect fostered PTG and negative affect accelerated both PTSD and PTG. Therefore, posttraumatic psychological services should focus on helping adolescents cultivate optimism and positive beliefs and develop emotion regulation skills.

The current study aims to examine predictors of subjective health, including its relation with happiness, at the individual and family levels. For this purpose, we analyzed data collected from spouses representing each family (9,634 families, N = 19,268). A multilevel analysis was conducted to examine both individual- and family-level variables associated with subjective health evaluations. Individual-level variables were gender, age, education, employment, presence of chronic illness, smoking, alcohol use, and individual happiness. Family-level variables were socioeconomic status, number of children, household size, length of the marriage (in a year), presence of an elderly person who needs care in the household, presence of a disabled person who needs care in the household, and family happiness. The results showed that subjective health is enhanced by being man, younger, employed, highly educated, free from chronic illness, and experiencing greater levels of happiness at the individual level. In addition, poorer subjective health is associated with caring for an elderly or disabled family member and having a higher number of children in the household at the family level. However, individuals had better subjective health at the family level when socioeconomic status was higher, greater family happiness, and greater household size existed. The current study is important since research that simultaneously considers individual- and family-level happiness has been scarce in the literature. Thus, the findings would enhance the current understanding of the link between happiness and health.

The present study sought to determine if dispositional optimism/pessimism and facets of the tripartite model of meaning in life (viz., comprehension, purpose, & mattering) represent important and additive prospective predictors of subsequent well-being (assessed 3 months later) in 166 adults. Results from hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the presence of optimism, but not the absence of pessimism, consistently predicted subsequent positive affect, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness. Moreover, beyond the variance accounted for by future expectancies, comprehension was found to predict life satisfaction, whereas purpose was found to predict positive affect. Mattering was found to predict subjective happiness and, to a weaker extent, positive affect. Overall, these findings not only indicate that the presence of optimism is important for experiencing future well-being in adults, but they go further to clarify which specific facets of meaning in life also play an important additive role in contributing to future well-being in adults.

Describing the dynamical nature of happiness is crucial for understanding why individuals are constantly running on a hedonic treadmill around set levels of well-being. Based on the self-centeredness branch of the ’self-centeredness/selflessness happiness model’, we present a dynamical model that focuses on unfolding the hedonic dimension of happiness dynamics through the use of the approach–avoidance framework. This numerical model enables us to understand and analyze emerging hedonic cycles caused by hedonic motivation and hedonic adaptation. In particular, hedonic motivation leads people to experience hedonic activities, which result in successes or failures and experiences of pleasure and afflictive affects; whereas hedonic adaptation causes individuals to return to a baseline level of pleasure and afflictive affects, more quickly for the former than the latter. The proposed dynamical model is based on the approach–avoidance framework that considers human behavior in two separate regulatory processes that contribute to homeostasis of individuals’ happiness. We analyze these two processes independently and conjointly in order to highlight their effect on happiness levels. The analysis shows how individual characteristics and their combination may result in hedonic cycles, afflictive affects, (dis-)pleasure, and particular happiness dynamics. We also discuss how such a numerical model enables us to perform a multifactorial analysis which is hardly feasible outside the context of a simulation and how it may help us to narrow and design relevant experimental surveys from these preliminary numerical results.

An increasing number of studies emphasize that trust is most relevant to well-being. However, the results of this relationship remain inconclusive. This meta-analysis aims to synthesize the evidence on the association between trust and individual well-being. We searched several electronic databases to identify relevant studies published before September 30, 2022. Studies were included if they reported a Pearson’s correlation coefficient between trust and well-being. And a random-effects model was used. We identified 132 primary studies with a total of 1,060,174 participants. The results provided a moderate correlation between trust and well-being (ρ = 0.255) with 95% CI = [.240, .269]. Furthermore, we explored different trust types, well-being types, individualism, age, and gender as moderators. The results showed that the well-being types moderated the relationship between trust and well-being. Specifically, the strongest is social well-being, while the weakest is physical well-being. Trust types and individualism did not moderate the link between trust and well-being, whereas age and gender did. This study provides the evidence that trust plays an important role in promoting well-being.

This study examined whether self-compassion at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic predicted higher subjective well-being and lower psychopathological symptoms through more functional and less dysfunctional coping. Among 430 adults, self-compassion, coping, life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, and depressive, anxiety, and stress symptoms were assessed longitudinally over 6 weeks (from 04/2020 to 07/2020). Structural equation modeling revealed that self-compassion at T1 predicted more functional and less dysfunctional coping at T2 (controlling for coping at T1) and more positive and less negative affect and lower stress symptoms at T3 (controlling for these measures at T1). More functional and less dysfunctional coping at T2 (controlling for coping at T1) predicted higher subjective well-being and lower psychopathological symptoms at T3 (controlling for these measures at T1), with the sole exception that functional coping was not significantly associated with anxiety symptoms. In addition, we found that less dysfunctional coping mediated (a) nearly one-third (30.77%) of the association between higher self-compassion and less negative affect and (b) nearly half (46.15%) of the association between higher self-compassion and lower stress symptoms. These findings support the idea that a self-compassionate attitude prevents dysfunctional thoughts (e.g., self-blame) and behaviors (e.g., substance use) during stressful times, which in turn reduces negative affect and symptoms of stress.

Managers are increasingly expected to coach their employees. However, managers are often ill equipped and lack the necessary support from their organization to effectively implement coaching behavior. Based on strengths theory, we propose that a strengths spotting intervention could help managers to develop their coaching behavior. In addition, based on theory on emotional contagion and the broaden and build theory, we argue that spotting employees’ signature strengths leads to a stronger increase in managerial coaching behavior over time than an intervention that focuses on spotting lesser strengths. We conducted a field experiment, in which 255 managers (providing 414 data points) were randomly assigned to either a signature strengths or a lesser strengths spotting intervention. In a 1-month follow-up study we found that both interventions contributed equally to managerial coaching behavior. We conclude that online training in strengths spotting is a useful tool that helps managers to develop their coaching behavior.