The Convergence of Positivity: Are Happy People All Alike?
AbstractMore than a century ago Leo Tolstoy noted that happy families tend to be more similar to each other than unhappy families. Was this just a cognitive illusion, driven by his mind ’s predisposition to see positive entities as more similar to each other, or did he make a profound observation about the world? If it is true, is the phenomenon limited to happiness, or is it a characteristic of positive traits more generally? This question has received attention in multiple fiel ds, but not in psychology. We ran five studies, testing the more general hypothesis that people who share some positive individual-difference t...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 16, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Do Wisdom and Well-Being Always Go Hand in Hand? The Role of Dialogues with Oneself
AbstractRecently, it has been demonstrated that wisdom positively predicted well-being. The paradox is that the development of wisdom is strongly linked to adverse experiences that can make a person feel “wiser but sadder”. This paper aims to test whether two types of dialogues with oneself, i.e. integrative and identity internal dialogues moderate the relationships of critical life experiences and reminiscence/reflectiveness (as components of wisdom) with psychological well-being. To check this , 202 women and 217 men completed four measures: Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale, Psychological Well-Being Scales, Internal Dialog...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 15, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Climbing the Career Ladder Does Not Make You Happy: Well-being Changes in the Years Before and After Becoming a Leader
AbstractSubjective well-being tends to be higher in leaders vs. non-leaders. However, do these differences come from selection effects (e.g., because higher subjective well-being predisposes for occupational success) or from within-person well-being changes before and after becoming a leader? This question remains largely unresolved. Previous research suggests that becoming a leader might be a double-edged sword and affect subjective well-being positively but also negatively (e.g., due to more power but also more stress). Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (N = 25,674), we examined (a) well-being dif...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Appreciative Joy: A Critical Review of Empirical Research
AbstractAppreciative joy refers to feeling happy for others with appreciative and unenvious attitudes and is emphasized in Buddhist and Chinese culture. Empirical studies on appreciative joy have recently appeared in multiple disciplines in psychology, and it is time to summarize their findings and potential limitations. In terms of interpersonal attitudes, studies have supported that appreciative joy and appreciative joy meditation (AJM) activate altruism, promote cooperation, counter envy and influence interpersonal perceptions. As for subjective well-being, studies have consistently supported appreciative joy and AJM co...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Digital Flourishing: Conceptualizing and Assessing Positive Perceptions of Mediated Social Interactions
AbstractRecent research started to apply concepts of well-being to the context of computer mediated communication (e.g., social media, instant messaging). While much research investigates negative perceptions of mediated social interactions (e.g., “problematic” or “addictive” social media use), a multi-dimensional measure that taps into users? positive perceptions is sorely lacking. The present research therefore develops the first comprehensive measure ofdigital flourishing, defined as positive perceptions of mediated social interactions. Building on a qualitative pre-study that aided the construction of the Digit...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 10, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Employment Disruption and Wellbeing Among Young Adults: A Cross-National Study of Perceived Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown
This study examined to what extent and how job loss and income loss due to the pandemic influenc ed young adults’ perception of their present financial wellbeing, future financial wellbeing, and psychological wellbeing by using cross-sectional survey data collected from six countries (China, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and the United States). Results showed that the impact of income loss and job loss on all three types of wellbeing were mediated by young adults’ negative perception of the COVID-19 lockdown restriction (i.e., perceived as a misfortune). Cross-country differences existed in the key variables. T...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 7, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Daily Adolescent Purposefulness, Daily Subjective Well-Being, and Individual Differences in Autistic Traits
This study addresses these gaps in the literature using a daily diary approach to track adolescents (N = 204;Mage = 16.42 years; 70.1% female) across approximately 70 days of enrollment inGripTape, a U.S.-based out-of-school time program that supports engagement with personally meaningful activities. We found that on days teens felt more purposeful than usual, they tended to report greater SWB. Moreover, we failed to find evidence that subclinical autistic traits, an individual difference that corresponded with lower daily SWB ratings, moderated the observed daily benefits of feeling more purposeful than usual. With one of...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 7, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Placing Adolescents on a Trajectory to Happiness: The Role of Family Assets and Intentional Self-Regulation
AbstractBased on the positive youth development perspective, we develop a series of models including family assets, intentional self-regulation, and happiness to analyze the paths between the intercepts and slopes of the constructs. A sample of 1214 school children (Mage = 12.89,SD = 0.51) was followed from their 1st–3rd year of junior high school. The results showed that Chinese adolescents have good, stable family assets, which positively predict the increased trajectory of their intentional self-regulation (ISR) and happiness. Additionally, the initial level and chan ge rates of ISR played a mediating role rat...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - February 2, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Which Decision Theory Describes Life Satisfaction Best? Evidence from Annual Panel Data
AbstractWe use an annual household panel to conduct a comparative analysis of which decision theory explains life satisfaction better. We consider expected utility theory and prospect theory. We consider the effects of three domains on life satisfaction: income, health, and (un)employment. Using a fixed effects estimator we find that life satisfaction contains features of both expected utility theory and prospect theory. However, the elements of expected utility theory are stronger predictors of life satisfaction. Life satisfaction depends positively on income, good health, and employment. It also depends positively on inc...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - January 31, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Honey, There ´s Something on My Mind… Adverse Consequences of Negative and Positive Work Rumination on Attention to the Partner, and the Advantage of Talking About it
AbstractIn the contemporary 24/7 working society, the separation of work and private life is increasingly turning into an unrealizable ideal. Ruminating about work outside the work context lets work spill over into private lives and affects the dynamics of workers ’ private relationships. Although negative work rumination was linked to couples’ reduced relationship satisfaction, little is known about the mechanism of action and the impact of positive work rumination. Drawing on the load theory of selective attention, we hypothesize that both negative and positive work rumination occupy attentional resources and thus re...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - January 31, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Optimal Functioning in Society: A Conceptualization, a Measure, and a Look at Determinants
AbstractThis research presents the conceptualization and validation of a new scale assessing a multidimensional perspective on well-being named “Optimal Functioning in Society” (OFIS; Vallerand, 2013). The concept of OFIS refers to high levels of psychological, physical, and relational well-being, high performance in one’s main field of endeavor, and contribution to society. Three studies conducted with workers (Study 1&3) and students (Study 2) supported the psychometric properties (i.e., factor structure, reliability, convergent validity, temporal consistency) of the OFIS scale. Further, two assessments of its ...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - January 28, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
How Does (In)congruence in Perceived Adolescent –Parent Closeness Link to Adolescent Socioemotional Well-Being? The Mediating Role of Resilience
AbstractIn general, a supportive relationship with parents facilitates children ’s socioemotional well-being (SEWB). However, adolescents and parents often present discrepant views on their relationship quality, and these discrepancies could lead to meaningful impacts on adolescent adjustment as depicted in the operations triad model. Few studies have investigated how the deg ree and direction of (in)congruence in perceived adolescent–parent closeness is associated with SEWB and the potential mediation role of resilience in accounting for these associations during the transition from childhood to adolescence. In the pr...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - January 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Home Alone: Widows ’ Well-Being and Time
AbstractUsing data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE, 2004 –17) and time diaries from Poland (2013), the U.S. (2006–16), the U.K. (2014–15) and France (2009–10), we examine differences between widowed and partnered older women in well-being and its development in widowhood. Most importantly, our analysis accounts for time use, an aspect which has no t been studied previously. We trace the evolution of well-being of women who become widowed by comparing them with their matched non-widowed ‘statistical twins’ and examine the role of an exceptionally broad set of potential moderator...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - January 20, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
How Stable are Life Domain Evaluations over Time? A 20-Year Study
AbstractThe purpose of this study was to examine the stability of satisfaction with eight domains of life as well as satisfaction with life in general. The study used a nationally representative Australian sample collected during 20 years between 2001 and 2020 (N = 33,341). Using the Multi-Trait-Multi-State model, the total variance in each item was partitioned into three components: common consistency (proportion of variance attributable to stable influences), occasion specificity (proportion of variance attributable to situational influences or person-situation interactions), and measurement error (proportion of variance...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - January 18, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Assessing the Income and Subjective Wellbeing Relationship Across Sub-national Developmental Contexts
This study was conducted in the South African context using the National Income Dynamics Study datasets and municipal panel data with multilevel regression models to account for both municipal and individual level characteristics. The study finds that both absolute and relative income are significant predictors of SWB in both the developed and underdeveloped contexts. The absolute income effect is muted in low socioeconomically developed context in comparison to their more developed counterparts, explained by a non-monetized system of production and consumption in the less developed contexts. However, the relative income g...
Source: Journal of Happiness Studies - January 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
