Journal of Positive Psychology最新文献

Objective: The tendency toward unrealistically optimistic self-serving biases, known as trait self-enhancement, has been associated with both adaptive benefits and negative social consequences. This study explored these potential benefits and costs in the context of conjugal bereavement.

Method: The study included 94 individuals who had experienced the death of a spouse 1.5-3.0 years prior. The sample (62 female, 32 male) ranged in age from 37 to 60 (M = 51.45, SD = 6.08). To examine benefits, we used relatively objective measures of overall adjustment: structured clinical interviews and ratings from participants' close friends and relatives. To examine social adjustment, we examined friends'/relatives' ratings of the quality of social interactions and the possible mediating roles of perceived loneliness and friend/relative ratings.

Results: Trait self-enhancement was uniformly associated with positive adjustment: relatively lower symptom totals, and friend/relative ratings of both overall better adjustment and better social adjustment. Self-enhancers' low loneliness was found to mediate reduced symptoms. Also, friends'/relatives' ratings of social functioning appeared to mediate self-enhancers' reduced loneliness.

Conclusions: These findings provide further empirical data to challenge the longstanding assumption that inaccurate self-perception is inherently maladaptive. Authentic benefits may result from mistaken perceptions of oneself by influencing the experience of loneliness and how one is seen by close friends/relatives. Self-enhancement may be an adaptation that provides clinically relevant advantages.

Seligman recently introduced the PERMA model with five core elements of psychological well-being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. We empirically tested this multidimensional theory with 516 Australian male students (age 13-18). From an extensive well-being assessment, we selected a subset of items theoretically relevant to PERMA. Factor analyses recovered four of the five PERMA elements, and two ill-being factors (depression and anxiety). We then explored the nomological net surrounding each factor by examining cross-sectional associations with life satisfaction, hope, gratitude, school engagement, growth mindset, spirituality, physical vitality, physical activity, somatic symptoms, and stressful life events. Factors differentially related to these correlates, offering support for the multidimensional approach to measuring well-being. Directly assessing subjective well-being across multiple domains offers the potential for schools to more systematically understand and promote well-being.

This applied case study centers on two aspects of Peterson's research as introduced into a large K-12 school in Australia: (i) creating enabling institutions and (ii) applications of character strengths. The paper describes five character strengths initiatives. Four of the strengths initiatives have been integrated into existing school experiences such as English curriculum, school sport, student leadership, and counseling. The fifth initiative involved a brand new program which introduced a Positive Education Curriculum for years K-10. We describe these five initiatives and then explain how students at the school may experience these in a more holistic and integrated way. We hope that this article will act as a fitting tribute to the legacy of Christopher Peterson.

This mixed-methods pilot study examined the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of a web-based gratitude exercise (the 'Three Good Things' exercise (TGT)) among 23 adults in outpatient treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD). Participants were randomized to TGT or a placebo condition. The intervention was feasible with high rates of completion. Participants found TGT acceptable and welcomed the structure of daily emails; however, they found it difficult at times and discontinued TGT when the study ended. Participants associated TGT with gratitude, although there were no observed changes in grateful disposition over time. TGT had a significant effect on decreasing negative affect and increasing unactivated (e.g., feeling calm, at ease) positive affect, although there were no differences between groups at the 8 week follow up. Qualitative results converged on quantitative findings that TGT was convenient, feasible, and acceptable, and additionally suggested that TGT was beneficial for engendering positive cognitions and reinforcing recovery.

Self-compassion has been associated with well-being in adult samples, but has rarely been assessed in adolescents. In this study, 90 students ages 11-18 completed an online survey assessing self-compassion, life satisfaction, perceived stress and positive and negative affect. Findings indicated that older female adolescents had lower self-compassion than either older male adolescents or early adolescents of either gender, and self-compassion was associated significantly with all dimensions of emotional well-being with the exception of positive affect. Additionally, phase of adolescence, but not gender, was found to moderate the relationship between self-compassion and dimensions of well-being; for older adolescents, the inverse relationship between self-compassion and negative affect was stronger. Lastly, the influence of the various components of self-compassion was investigated and discussed.

Positive affect predicts improved glycemic control and longevity in adults with type 2 diabetes. We tested DAHLIA, a self-paced online intervention for type 2 diabetes that teaches positive affect skills such as savoring, gratitude, and acts of kindness. Participants (n=49) were randomized to the 5-week DAHLIA course or an emotion-reporting waitlist control. DAHLIA was understood and accepted by participants and showed good retention (78%). At post-intervention, DAHLIA participants showed a significantly greater decrease in depression than controls (-4.3 vs. +0.6 points on the CES-D, p =.05). Secondary analyses found that this effect was considerably stronger in intervention recipients recruited online than those recruited in person. Intervention recipients recruited online also showed significantly increased positive affect, reduced negative affect, and reduced perceived stress. There were no effects on measures of diabetes-specific efficacy or sense of burden, or preliminary measures of health behaviors. This successful feasibility and efficacy trial provides support for a larger trial focusing more specifically on health behavior.

Are helping professionals who have experienced the same types of struggles as their clients more engaged at work? In the current investigation, we examine this question in samples of police detectives (with and without a history of violent victimization) and mental health workers (with and without a history of mental illness). Our results indicate that police detectives who have experienced violent victimization and mental health professionals who have experienced the same mental illness as their clients do indeed exhibit greater work engagement than their colleagues who lack these parallel life experiences. The link between a professional's firsthand experience of his/her client's hardships and work engagement appears to be partially explained by higher levels of grit among police detectives and by a greater sense of life-narrative continuity among mental health professionals.

Low positive and high negative affect predict low rates of smoking abstinence among smokers making a quit attempt. Positive Psychotherapy can both increase positive affect and decrease negative affect and therefore may be a useful adjunct to behavioral smoking counseling. The purpose of the present study was to assess the feasibility and acceptability of a Positive Psychotherapy for Smoking Cessation (PPT-S) intervention that integrates standard smoking cessation counseling with nicotine patch and a package of positive psychology interventions. We delivered PPT-S to 19 smokers who were low in positive affect at baseline. Rates of session attendance and satisfaction with treatment were high, and most participants reported using and benefiting from the positive psychology interventions. Almost one-third of participants (31.6%) sustained smoking abstinence for 6 months after their quit date. Future studies to assess the relative efficacy of PPT-S compared to standard smoking cessation treatment are warranted.

Much research has now documented the substantial influence of safety climate on a range of important outcomes in safety critical organizations, but there has been scant attention to the question of what factors might be responsible for positive or negative safety climate. The present paper draws from positive organizational behavior theory to test workplace and individual factors that may affect safety climate. Specifically, we explore the potential influence of authentic leadership style and psychological capital on safety climate and risk outcomes. Across two samples of offshore oil-workers and seafarers working on oil platform supply ships, structural equation modeling yielded results that support a model in which authentic leadership exerts a direct effect on safety climate, as well as an indirect effect via psychological capital. This study shows the importance of leadership qualities as well as psychological factors in shaping a positive work safety climate and lowering the risk of accidents.

A number of theoretical perspectives suggest that expectancy violations (EVs) threaten a person's sense of meaning and prompt efforts to reinstate meaning. Yet, little to no research has explicitly examined whether EVs predict actual efforts to search for meaning. The current research redresses this gap in the literature among a sample of breast cancer survivors. The results revealed that EVs, but not life satisfaction, positively predicted the search for meaning. By comparison, the presence of meaning was predicted by both EVs and life satisfaction. Further, EVs predicted an increased search for meaning among participants who simultaneously believed that their life had high levels of meaning. Thus, personal EVs may offer a compelling framework for understanding what prompts searches for meaning.