Applied Research in Quality of Life最新文献

Service-learning is globally recognized as an impactful pedagogical approach in higher education. This study reviews literature from the past two decades on university course-based, credit-bearing academic service-learning in the Chinese mainland. It reveals a steady growth in service-learning courses across all regions of the Chinese mainland since 2006, with fifty-two courses documented in the academic literature by 2023. The courses span various disciplines and service populations and have shown positive impacts on university students’ cognitive skills, peer and community connectedness, development of self, disciplinary, and career identities, as well as social responsibility. The study observes the presence of heterogeneous research designs, incomplete reporting of course information, variability in writing styles, structure, and content across different journals and disciplines, indicating an early stage in the field’s development. This underscores the need for systematic documentation of course designs and processes and outcome evaluation with research rigor. The paper discusses the implications for the local development of service-learning practices and the advancement of research in this domain in light of the growing global interest in this educational approach.

This study explores the intricate dynamics between Planfulness in Personal Growth Initiative and Psychological well-being, emphasizing the mediating roles of General Self-Efficacy, the Presence of Meaning in Life, and the moderating impact of gender. A sample of 1,089 Greek adults was analyzed using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, General Self-Efficacy Scale, Personal Growth Initiative Scale, and Meaning in Life Questionnaire. The study employed a comprehensive analytical strategy, including correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and covariance and variance analysis, to examine the interrelationships among the constructs. The results revealed significant positive correlations between Planfulness in Personal Growth Initiatives and Psychological Well-being. GSE and MLQ_P significantly mediated this relationship. Higher Planfulness was associated with increased self-efficacy and a stronger sense of life's meaning, contributing to enhanced psychological well-being. Gender differences were observed, with more pronounced effects in women than men. The study also identified a moderate covariance between GSE and MLQ_P, suggesting their interdependent influence on psychological well-being. The findings illuminate the critical roles of Planfulness, self-efficacy, and meaning in life in enhancing psychological well-being, with gender differences playing a significant role in these dynamics. These insights contribute to the theoretical understanding of psychological well-being and have practical implications in various sectors, including education, organizational management, mental health, and policy formulation.

This paper describes the quality of the working environment in the US, Europe and Korea in 2010 and 2015. Based on the job demands-resources model (Journal of Applied Psychology 86:499–512, 2001), we define job strain as a situation where job demands exceed job resources. We find that perceived intimidation and discrimination at work is one of the most powerful predictors of mental and physical health, job satisfaction and job motivation. In 2015, about one third of employees were strained at work across countries. Over the 2010–15 period, job strain has slightly declined, falling in a majority of countries.

As we enter the era of globalization, it is becoming crucial to understand the unique experience that multicultural adolescents have to go through. As such, this study examined the moderating effect of Bicultural Acceptance Attitude between Acculturative Stress and Life Satisfaction. A nationwide sample of 1,857 youth(M_age = 11.05, SD = .03; 52.3% male) is analyzed, using the 2nd wave(2021) data of the 2nd term Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study(MAPS) provided by the National Youth Policy Institute of South Korea(NYPI). The hypothesis was tested through SPSS PROCESS macro and the Johnson-Neyman method. Findings have revealed that Acculturative Stress is negatively associated with Life Satisfaction, and the Bicultural Acceptance Attitude worked as a protective factor in its relationship. The bicultural acceptance attitude had a significant effect on the relationship between acculturative stress and life satisfaction only when its value was -6.77 or above (upper 4.15%, lower 95.85%). These findings contribute to alleviating the impact of Acculturative Stress as a risk factor on Life Satisfaction among multicultural adolescents.

Childhood psychological maltreatment is an essential concept that can have an impact on an individual’s physical and psychological health. The majority of studies on childhood psychological maltreatment used a cross-sectional design. The fact that this concept, which has a long-term effect on an individual’s life, has not been investigated in longitudinal research has produced a gap in the literature. Our study aimed to examine the longitudinal relationship between childhood psychological maltreatment, cognitive flexibility, and subjective vitality. The role of cognitive flexibility in the relation between childhood psychological maltreatment and subjective vitality was investigated in a Turkish sample (N = 270). In order to explain the relationship, a cross-lagged panel study in two waves was conducted. The results revealed that cognitive flexibility longitudinally mediates the relationship between childhood psychological maltreatment and subjective vitality. This research indicates that childhood psychological maltreatment reduces cognitive flexibility, which in turn influences subjective vitality.

Although loneliness is associated with lower levels of subjective well-being, little is known about the precise nature of this association. Theoretical arguments have indicated a negative effect of loneliness on well-being, but there are alternative explanations, such as the possibility that chronically unhappy people select themselves into loneliness. This study investigates whether loneliness is detrimental to subjective well-being by considering selection as a competing explanation. The analyses were based on three waves of panel data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2017–2021, containing 85,083 observations from 31,223 individuals aged 16 to 103 years). Subjective well-being was measured using a single item capturing life satisfaction. Loneliness was measured both directly using a single item and indirectly using the three-item UCLA Loneliness Scale. First, pooled ordinary least squares (POLS) models were estimated to confirm previous cross-sectional findings. Subsequently, fixed-effects (FE) models were used to account for the possibility that chronically unhappy people select themselves into loneliness. The results of the POLS models showed that lonely people reported significantly lower levels of life satisfaction. This association persisted in the FE model, and the remaining association can be interpreted as evidence of the negative effect of loneliness on well-being. Further analyses showed that the results were similar for men and women and for younger and older people. Moreover, the results were remarkably robust across the two measures of loneliness and model specifications. Overall, the results support the claim that loneliness is detrimental to well-being. Thus, intervention strategies aimed at reducing loneliness may also be effective in improving well-being in the general population.

The global expansion of educational systems has led to a growing prevalence of overeducation. Despite the well-documented overeducation-depression nexus in the developed world, scholars have paid much less attention to this relationship in developing countries. This study utilized data from the China Labor-Force Dynamis Survey (CLDS) 2016 and China’s 1% Population Sample Survey 2015 to explore the mechanisms linking overeducation to depressive symptoms and identify factors buffering the strength of this association. Employing causal inference methods, including instrumental variable regression and propensity score matching, we find a positive impact of overeducation on depressive symptoms. Mediation analysis shows that low personal income and perceived fairness of earnings act as mediators, aligning with perspectives of wage penalty and distributive justice within the context of overeducation. Moreover, interaction effects suggest a stronger association between overeducation and depressive symptoms among individuals with less job autonomy, partially due to their lower likelihood of perceiving their earnings as fair. This study integrates status inconsistency theory and distributive justice theory, offering valuable insights for future research and policy formulation to address mental health challenges linked to educational mismatch in the workforce.

Among studies conceptualizing quality of life (QoL) as the subjective measure of one’s well-being, evidence suggests a link between cognitive impairment and diminished quality of life. However, the direction of the association is not clear, and most studies have employed a global measure of cognition, which can mask subtle domain-specific declines. In this study, we aim at examining the longitudinal associations between memory and QoL in a representative sample of adults and older adults in Europe and Israel, employing data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The sample was composed by 56,616 respondents aged 50 or older at the beginning of the study period. A Parallel-Process Latent Growth Model (PP LGM) of memory and QoL conditioned on the effects of age, gender, educational level, physical inactivity, depressive symptomatology and social activity participation, was tested. Results displayed a trajectory of decline for both memory and QoL, with higher initial levels of memory associated with higher initial levels of QoL, and steeper decline in memory associated with steeper decline in QoL. Moreover, a positive effect of initial memory onto QoL trend over time was found, indicating that better memory is associated to better QoL in the future, but the opposite did not occur. Results also provide evidence of gender differences. All in all, this work found evidence supporting the longitudinal effect of memory on QoL, which may have consequences for intervention implementation, given that actions for alleviating age-related memory impairment could also have a positive impact onto older adults’ QoL.

Previous studies have found links of intimate partner violence exposure and child maltreatment with school bullying among children and adolescents. However, little is known about how exposure to family violence may influence child and adolescent bullying perpetration and the mediating mechanism underlying this relationship. This study aimed to examine the relationship between exposure to family violence and school bullying perpetration, as well as the mediating roles of parental support and depression in this relationship. The sample consisted of 3,199 Chinese primary and secondary school students from grades four through twelve (mean age 13.4 years, 50.8% boys). Participants responded to validated self-report questionnaires in 2021. Generalized structural equation modeling was analyzed. The study found that exposure to family violence was significantly and positively associated with school bullying perpetration. Furthermore, parental support and depression, in this order, mediated the effect of exposure to family violence on bullying perpetration. Moreover, the overall mediating effect on traditional bullying perpetration is larger than that on cyber bullying perpetration. Less parental support and depression acted as risk factors for the negative effect of exposure to family violence on child and adolescent bullying perpetration. The importance of these two factors can motivate future intervention initiatives to prevent bullying perpetration from an integrated perspective.

Meaning in life (MIL) plays a critical role in promoting physical and mental health. Given the multidimensional nature of MIL, further research is needed to distinguish between different MIL components. The present study focused on three similar but distinct multidimensional measures (the Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale, MEMS; the Multidimensional MIL Scale, MMILS; the Quadripartite Existential Meaning Scale, QEMS), aiming to validate the Chinese versions of these measures and to compare their predictive effects on subjective well-being, indicated by positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. Data were collected from two Chinese samples. Sample 1 (N = 393) was used for factor analysis, while Sample 2 (N = 447) was used for the evaluation of measurement invariance, reliability, and predictive relationships of different MIL measures on subjective well-being. Results showed that all three MIL measurements (MEMS, QEMS, and modified MMILS) demonstrated good reliability and validity and positively predicted subjective well-being. Moreover, QEMS showed significant incremental validity in predicting both positive affect and negative affect when controlling for the effects of the other MIL measures. These findings suggest that compared with MEMS and MMILS, QEMS may be a more suitable multidimensional MIL measure in the Chinese context. Further research is needed to examine these findings in other cultural contexts.