Objective: Based on the theory of perceived organizational support (POS), conservation of resource (COR) and job demands-resources (JD-R) model, this study establishes a moderated mediation model to test the role of job satisfaction in mediating the relationship between perceived organizational support and job burnout, as well as the role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy in moderating the above mediating process. Method: A total of 784 police officers were surveyed with the Perceived Organizational Support Scale, the Job Burnout Questionnaire, the Regulatory Emotional (...) Self-Efficacy Scale, and the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. Results: (1) After controlling for gender, seniority, age, police classification, education, and marital status, regression analysis showed a significant negative correlation between perceived organizational support and burnout (r = -0.42, p < 0.01), and the former had a significant negative predictive effect on job burnout (β = -0.42, p < 0.001). (2) The mediating effect test shows that job satisfaction plays a partial role in mediating the relationship between perceived organizational support and job burnout. (3) Through the analysis of the moderated mediation model test, regulatory emotional self-efficacy moderates the first half of the path of “perceived organizational support → job satisfaction → job burnout". Conclusion: Perceived organizational support not only directly affects police job burnout but also indirectly affects police job burnout through job satisfaction. Regulatory emotional self-efficacy enhances the influence of organizational support on job satisfaction. This study indicates the combined effect of perceived organizational support, job satisfaction and regulatory emotional self-efficacy on job burnout and has certain guiding significance for alleviating police job burnout. Keywords: Perceived organizational support, Job burnout, Job satisfaction, Regulatory emotional self-efficacy, Moderated mediation. (shrink)

This paper explores the nature of emotions by considering what appear to be two differing, perhaps even conflicting, approaches to affectivity—an evolutionary functional account, on the one hand, and a phenomenological view, on the other. The paper argues for the centrality of the notion of function in both approaches, articulates key differences between them, and attempts to understand how such differences can be overcome.

Research suggests that contact with nature can be beneficial, for example leading to improvements in mood, cognition, and health. A distinct but related idea is the personality construct of subjective nature connectedness, a stable individual difference in cognitive, affective, and experiential connection with the natural environment. Subjective nature connectedness is a strong predictor of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors that may also be positively associated with subjective well-being. This meta-analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between nature connectedness and happiness. Based (...) on 30 samples ( n = 8523), a fixed-effect meta-analysis found a small but significant effect size ( r = 0.19). Those who are more connected to nature tended to experience more positive affect, vitality, and life satisfaction compared to those less connected to nature. Publication status, year, average age, and percentage of females in the sample were not significant moderators. Vitality had the strongest relationship with nature connectedness ( r = 0.24), followed by positive affect ( r = 0.22) and life satisfaction ( r = 0.17). In terms of specific nature connectedness measures, associations were the strongest between happiness and inclusion of nature in self ( r = 0.27), compared to nature relatedness ( r = 0.18) and connectedness to nature ( r = 0.18). This research highlights the importance of considering personality when examining the psychological benefits of nature. The results suggest that closer human-nature relationships do not have to come at the expense of happiness. Rather, this meta-analysis shows that being connected to nature and feeling happy are, in fact, connected. (shrink)

We investigated the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap) on supervisory-rated innovative performance and job stress. Data collected from a diverse sample (N = 237 paired responses) of employees from various organizations in Pakistan provided good support for the hypotheses. The results indicate that PsyCap is positively related to innovative job performance and negatively related to job stress. High PsyCap individuals were rated as exhibiting more innovative behaviours by their supervisors than low PsyCap individuals. Particularly, we found that high PsyCap individuals (...) were more likely to generate, acquire support for, and implement novel ideas in their workplace. Similarly, individuals with high PsyCap reported lower levels of job stress as compared to their low PsyCap counterparts. (shrink)

Philosophy lacks criteria to evaluate its philosophical theories. To fill this gap, this essay introduces nine criteria to compare worldviews, classified in three broad categories: objective criteria (objective consistency, scientificity, scope), subjective criteria (subjective consistency, personal utility, emotionality), and intersubjective criteria (intersubjective consistency, collective utility, narrativity). The essay first defines what a worldview is and exposes the heuristic used in the quest for criteria. After describing each criterion individually, it shows what happens when each of them is violated. From the (...) criteria, it derives assessment tests to compare and improve different worldviews. These include the is-ought, ought-act, and is-act first-order tests; the critical and dialectical second-order tests; the mixed-questions and first-second-order third-order tests; and the we-I, we-it, and it-I tests. The essay then applies these criteria and tests to a concrete example, comparing the Flying Spaghetti Monster deity with Intelligent Design. For another application, it draws more general fruitful suggestions for the dialogue between science and religion. (shrink)

There are roughly two philosophical literatures on “happiness,” each corresponding to a different sense of the term. One uses ‘happiness’ as a value term, roughly synonymous with well-being or flourishing. The other body of work uses the word as a purely descriptive psychological term, akin to ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’. An important project in the philosophy of happiness is simply getting clear on what various writers are talking about: what are the important meanings of the term and how do they connect? (...) While the “well-being” sense of happiness receives significant attention in the contemporary literature on well-being, the psychological notion is undergoing a revival as a major focus of philosophical inquiry, following on recent developments in the science of happiness. This entry focuses on the psychological sense of happiness (for the well-being notion, see the entry on well-being). The main accounts of happiness in this sense are hedonism, the life satisfaction theory, and the emotional state theory. Leaving verbal questions behind, we find that happiness in the psychological sense has always been an important concern of philosophers. Yet the significance of happiness for a good life has been hotly disputed in recent decades. Further questions of contemporary interest concern the relation between the philosophy and science of happiness, as well as the role of happiness in social and political decision-making. (shrink)

The current study evaluated the degree to which nature-based physical activity influenced two distinct types of psychological wellbeing: hedonic wellbeing and eudaimonic wellbeing. The type of motivation an individual experiences for physical activity, and the extent to which individuals have a sense of relatedness with nature, have been shown to influence the specific type of psychological wellbeing that is experienced as a result of NPA. However, the role of these two variables in the relationship between NPA and psychological wellbeing has (...) not been examined. Thus, this study assessed the potential mediating influence of motivational quality and nature relatedness on the relationships between NPA and hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, respectively. Participants completed an online survey assessing hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing, NPA, intrinsic motivation, autonomous extrinsic motivation, and nature relatedness. Data were analysed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling. Results showed that motivational quality and nature relatedness both fully mediated the relationships between NPA and hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing. Specifically, intrinsic motivation positively mediated the relationship between NPA and hedonic wellbeing. Autonomous extrinsic motivation and nature relatedness positively mediated the relationship between NPA and eudaimonic wellbeing. These findings suggest that the associations between NPA and eudaimonic wellbeing and hedonic wellbeing, respectively, are driven by different mechanisms relating to an individual’s underlying motivation and sense of connection to nature. These findings suggest that promoting distinct types of wellbeing through NPA requires distinct approaches. Emphasising enjoyment, pleasure, and positive kinaesthetic experiences within NPA may be more conducive to hedonic wellbeing, while highlighting opportunities for connecting with nature or experiencing valued outcomes of NPA may be more conducive to eudaimonic wellbeing. (shrink)

Entrepreneurship is important in economic growth and development. This study explores the likelihood that societal-level well-being and country-level self-expression values positively influence individual entrepreneurship across countries. Self-expression values mediate and reinforce the effect of societal well-being on entrepreneurship. Well-being is not simply an individual-level expression of positive emotions or an individual’s accumulated human capital alone. It is also a country’s stock of psychological as well as social resource and a macrolevel culture-specific emotion supporting entrepreneurship. This study provides a multidimensional approach (...) to exploring the effects of societal well-being and country-level self-expression values on entrepreneurship. The proposed conceptual model uses three theoretical propositions to delineate an indirect effect of societal well-being mediated through country-level self-expression values. The study also compiles measures of societal well-being terms from secondary data sets for use in cross-country comparative empirical research into entrepreneurship. (shrink)

Congenital amusia in its most common form is a disorder characterized by a musical pitch processing deficit. Although pitch is involved in conveying emotion in music, the implications for pitch deficits on musical emotion judgements is still under debate. Relatedly, both limited and spared musical emotion recognition was reported in amusia in conditions where emotion cues were not determined by musical mode or dissonance. Additionally, assumed links between musical abilities and visuo-spatial attention processes need further investigation in congenital amusics. Hence, (...) we here test to what extent musical emotions can influence attentional performance. Fifteen congenital amusic adults and fifteen healthy controls matched for age and education were assessed in three attentional conditions: executive control, alerting, and orienting while music expressing either joy, tenderness, sadness, or tension was presented. Visual target detection was in the normal range for both accuracy and response times in the amusic relative to the control participants. Moreover, in both groups, music exposure produced facilitating effects on selective attention that appeared to be driven by the arousal dimension of musical emotional content, with faster correct target detection during joyful compared to sad music. These findings corroborate the idea that pitch processing deficits related to congenital amusia do not impede other cognitive domains, particularly visual attention. Furthermore, our study uncovers an intact influence of music and its emotional content on the attentional abilities of amusic individuals. The results highlight the domain-selectivity of the pitch disorder in congenital amusia, which largely spares the development of visual attention and affective systems. (shrink)

Our ambivalent attitudes toward the notion of ‘a life worth living’ present a philosophical puzzle: Why are we of two minds about the birth of a severely disabled child? Is the child’s life worth living or not worth living? Between these two apparently incompatible evaluative judgments, which is true? If one judgment is true and the other false, what makes us continue to find both evaluations appealing? Indeed, how can we manage to hold these inconsistent judgments simultaneously at all? I (...) critically examine two solutions to this puzzle: the hidden-indexical account and Velleman’s anti-realist account. I propose an alternative explanation which appeals to (a) state-given, as opposed to object-given, reasons for belief and (b) the distinction between belief and acceptance. I argue that (1) the fact that a severely disabled life is not worth living provides object-given reason to believe that that life is not worth living, but (2) after the birth of a severely disabled child, the psychological utility of positive evaluation gives us a state-given reason to believe that that child’s life is worth living, and a reason to accept that, in our relation with the child, her life is worth living. I conclude by drawing a practical lesson about wrongful life suits. (shrink)

Mindfulness can be understood as the mental ability to focus on the direct and immediate perception or monitoring of the present moment with a state of open and nonjudgmental awareness. Descriptions of mindfulness and methods for cultivating it originated in eastern spiritual traditions. These suggest that mindfulness can be developed through meditation practice to increase positive qualities such as awareness, insight, wisdom, and compassion. In this article we focus on the relationships between mindfulness, with associated meditation practices, and the cognitive (...) neuroscience of attention and awareness. Mindful awareness is related to distributed attention, phenomenal consciousness, and momentary self-awareness, as characterized by recent findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience as well as in influential consciousness models. Finally, we outline an integrated neurocognitive model of mindfulness, attention, and awareness, with a key role of prefrontal cortex. (shrink)

Within the discipline of psychology, the conventional history outlines the development of two fundamental approaches to the scientific study of emotion—“basic emotion” and “appraisal” traditions. In this article, we outline the development of a third approach to emotion that exists in the psychological literature—the “psychological constructionist” tradition. In the process, we discuss a number of works that have virtually disappeared from the citation trail in psychological discussions of emotion. We also correct some misconceptions about early sources, such as work by (...) Darwin and James. Taken together, these three contributions make for a fuller and more accurate account of ideas about emotion during the century stretching from 1855 to just before 1960. (shrink)

Research on the relationship between emotions and job performance is ubiquitous, yet few scholars have examined the combined effects of different emotions. Drawing on the broaden-and-build theory and conservation of resources theory, we propose that employees’ daily emotion fluctuations will affect their service performance in opposite directions. Furthermore, we propose these effects will be moderated by psychological [i.e., regulatory emotional self-efficacy ] and physiological characteristics of the employees. Based on the experience sampling method, data obtained from 187 frontline employees of (...) 35 bank branches over 18 consecutive days supports our hypotheses. (shrink)

Individuals with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) suffer chronic impairment across cognitive, physical and psycho-social domains, and the experience of anxiety, isolation and apathy has been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. A qualitative evaluation was conducted of 14 individuals with ABI who had participated in series of COVID adapted group-based intervention(s) that had been designed to improve wellbeing. Eight themes were identified: Facilitating Safety, Fostering Positive Emotion, Managing and Accepting Difficult Emotions, Promoting Meaning, Finding Purpose and Accomplishment, Facilitating Social Ties, (Re)Connecting (...) to Nature, and Barriers to Efficacy. Findings are discussed with respects to recent theoretical developments in positive psychology and wellbeing science and support the use of online and outdoor interventions to enhance wellbeing in individuals living with ABI during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper makes a unique contribution to second wave positive psychology (PP2.0) through the application of recent advances in wellbeing science to an ABI population during the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, this paper lays the foundation for new interventions that not only reduce impairment and distress, but also create opportunities for meaning and enhanced wellbeing in people living with chronic conditions and those individuals living with ABI in particular. (shrink)

There is a longstanding discussion on whether happiness is culturally relative or not. The available data suggest that all humans tend to assess how much they like their lives. The evaluation draws both on affective experience, which is linked to gratification of universal human needs and on cognitive comparison, which is framed by cultural standards of the good life. The overall appraisal seems to depend more on the former than on the latter source of information. Conditions for happiness appear to (...) be quite similar across the world and so are the consequences of enjoying life or not. There is more cultural variation in the valuation of happiness and in beliefs about conditions for happiness. The greatest variation is found in how happy people are. (shrink)

The study examines the necessity and sufficiency of gratitude for supporting workplace happiness among Indian university teachers. It also explores the mediating effect of psychological capital and social capital in the relationship between gratitude and workplace happiness. The moderating effect of spiritual climate is investigated. A survey of 726 university staff in India was undertaken to examine the relationship between gratitude and workplace happiness. A series of statistical tests involving correlation, multiple regression, and necessary condition analysis was undertaken from the (...) data set. The mediation effect of psychological capital and social capital was investigated using bootstrapping estimates using PROCESS Macro in SPSS. Also, the moderation effect of spiritual climate was explored using PROCESS Macro in SPSS. The results reveal that gratitude is both a sufficient and necessary condition for workplace happiness. It also suggests a significant mediating effect of psychological capital and social capital. Also, a significant effect of spiritual climate amid the relationship between gratitude and workplace happiness is concluded. The study is one of the first studies that explore the relationship between gratitude and workplace happiness. It examines the mechanism through which gratitude influences happiness in the workplace. (shrink)

Federations are concerned about attracting new sportsmen and sportswomen and increasing the number of members. The purpose of this research was to describe karate federations' strategies for attracting and retaining members through happiness. The analysis was carried out by designing a structural equation modeling, which allowed to analyze the main variables that influenced the happiness of the karate athlete and consequently to study their effect on people's loyalty to sports federations. In particular, Partial least squares SEM was applied in an (...) overall model when it was possible to understand the happiness role in relation with other traditional relevant variables on loyalty. The data were obtained through primary sources employing a survey sent to the autonomous federations in the discipline of karate, obtaining a sample of 682 federated members in Spain. The results of the model revealed that consumer satisfaction, engagement, and meaningful influence on consumer happiness, but engagement was the most important and relevant variable for affecting this variable. Finally, consumer satisfaction and consumer happiness influence loyalty, and consumer satisfaction was the most important variable, but consumer happiness showed a real alternative for improving loyalty in karate sports federations. Then, one of the implications of this work was that it helped to explain how the federations can be managed to achieve loyal consumers together with a more considerable increase in the number of federated members. (shrink)

Mental health is a term which encompasses “a positive sense of well-being, or the capacity to enjoy life and deal with the challenges we face”. Both risk and protective factors have previously been found to be associated with Arab immigrants’ mental health. Some documented risk factors for poor mental health include economic stressors, weak English language proficiency, and trauma, whereas documented protective factors for optimal mental health include trait resilience. Given the risks that Arab immigrants face before and after migration, (...) effective coping strategies are vital for their success in a new country. The way that a person chooses to cope with stressors is embedded in a person’s culture, values, and customs. Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach with Arab-Canadian immigrants, this study examined self-reported risk and protective factors in relation to mental health, and the relation between acculturation and coping. Qualitative interviews, conducted after the quantitative study, addressed the following research questions: What was each participant’s lived experience in his or her home country? What challenges did participants face after arriving to Canada? Which factors helped immigrants settle in Canada? What are Arab-Canadian immigrants’ approaches to coping? Participants in the quantitative study included 172 1st generation Arab Canadian immigrants with origins from any of the 22 countries in the Arab League of States. Participants were recruited from the community and a psychology participant pool in southwestern Ontario. Qualitative interview participants were a subsample from the quantitative study. For both the quantitative and qualitative components of the study, participants were on average 29 years old and were most often Iraqi, Muslim, and females with some university education. All participants completed either an online or in person set of questionnaires that addressed their mental health, various risk and protective factors, and coping strategies. Next, a subsample of these participants with a range of mental health outcomes participated in a qualitative interview to further elucidate quantitative findings. Results from the quantitative study suggested that younger age at immigration, female gender, weak English language skills, socioeconomic problems, immigration problems, self-criticism coping, and avoidance coping were associated with more negative mental health indicators, whereas trait resilience and support from others coping were associated with more positive mental health indicators. Additionally, higher levels of Arab cultural orientation were associated with higher levels of collective coping, whereas higher levels of Canadian acculturation were associated with higher levels of engagement coping. Qualitative interview results revealed the following themes with respect to understanding participants’ lives in their native countries: Poor Quality of Life, Religious Lifestyle, Relocation Prior to Settling in Canada, and Simplicity. Additionally, participants immigrated to Canada in order to Improve Quality of Life. Common risk and protective factors were categorized into the following themes: Cultural, Economic, Personal Connections, and Trait Resilience. With respect to coping, participants described using the following coping strategies: Proactive Reflective Coping, Support from Other, and Faith. These results have several implications for policy and practice. Given that immigrants are at high risk for mental health problems, these results can support Canada’s goal to successfully integrate immigrants into Canadian society by informing policy makers of potential risk and protective factors in this group. By improving the quality of life of adult Arab immigrants, these individuals will be empowered to provide better care and advocacy for themselves and their relatives. If immigrants are better able to cope with their symptoms, they are less likely to require costly interventions later on. (shrink)

People share their emotions on social media and evidence suggests that in times of crisis people are especially motivated to post emotional content. The current Coronavirus pandemic is such a crisis. The online sharing of emotional content during the Coronavirus crisis may contribute to societal value change. Emotion sharing via social media could lead to emotional contagion which in turn could facilitate an emotional climate in a society. In turn, the emotional climate of a society can influence society’s value structure. (...) The emotions that spread in the current Coronavirus crisis are predominantly negative, which could result in a negative emotional climate. Based on the dynamic relations of values to each other and the way that emotions relate to values, a negative emotional climate can contribute to societal value change towards values related to security preservation and threat avoidance. As a consequence, a negative emotional climate and the shift in values could lead to a change in political attitudes that has implications for rights, freedom, privacy and moral progress. Considering the impact of social media in terms of emotional contagion and a longer-lasting value change is an important perspective in thinking about the ethical long-term impact of social media technology. (shrink)

The Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests and the corresponding psychometric explanations dominate both the scientific and popular views about human intelligence. Though the IQ tests have been in currency for long, there exists a gap in what they are believed to measure and what they do. While the IQ tests index the quality of cognitive functioning in selected domains of mental repertoire, the applied settings often inflate their predictive value leading to an interpretive gap. The present article contends that studying the (...) influence of motivational and affective processes on cognitive functioning would help to evolve a more psychologically comprehensive account of the IQ tests and bridge the interpretive gap. To conclude, the article suggests possible future research directions that could strengthen the predictive value of the IQ tests. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: How can we think about a universal ethics that could be adopted by any intelligent being, including the rising population of cyborgs, intelligent machines, intelligent algorithms or even potential extraterrestrial life? We generally give value to complex structures, to objects resulting from a long work, to systems with many elements and with many links finely adjusted. These include living beings, books, works of art or scientific theories. Intuitively, we want to keep, multiply, and share such structures, as well as (...) prevent their destruction. Such objects have value not because more information would simply mean more value. Instead, they have value because they require a long computational history, numerous interactions for their construction that we can assimilate to a computation, and they display what we call organized complexity. To propose the foundations of a universal ethics based on the intrinsic value of organized complexity, we first discuss conceptions of complexity, and argue that Charles Bennett’s logical depth is certainly a first approximation of what we are looking for. We then put forward three fundamental imperatives: to preserve, augment and recursively promote organized complexity. We show a broad range of applications with human, non-human and non-living examples. Finally, we discuss some specific issues of our framework such as the distribution of complexity, of managing copies and erasures, and how our universal ethics tackles classical ethical issues. In sum, we propose a clear, homogenous and consistent ethical foundation that can integrate many universal ethics desiderata. (shrink)

The number of people suffering from type 2 diabetes has been growing recently. This chronic disease is connected with lower perceived quality of life and experiencing a lot of stressful situations. Some of these situations can be anticipated. Thus, it is possible to prepare oneself for future difficult situations by using proactive coping strategies. The aim of this research was to verify the level of satisfaction with various areas of life, the frequency of use of proactive coping strategies in the (...) case of type 2 diabetes patients and healthy individuals, as well as mediation role of these strategies in the relationship between positive emotionality, cognitive curiosity and perceived quality of life. One hundred and seventy four persons took part in the research: 85 persons with diabetes and 89 healthy individuals. We used instruments with recognized psychometric properties: The Proactive Coping Inventory, The World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument-BREF, PANAS Questionnaire and State-Trait Personality Inventory. The analysis of the results showed, among other things, that people suffering from type 2 diabetes are the least satisfied with their health, and the most with their treatment and knowledge about the disease. Healthy individuals are the most satisfied with the physical domain and one’s present life, whereas the least satisfied with the environmental domain. Both groups differ in terms of using proactive coping strategies. People with diabetes most often adopt a preventive strategy, whereas healthy individuals a reflective one. Two strategies turned out to be able to mediate in the relationship of positive emotionality and life satisfaction in the diabetes group. It was a strictly proactive and preventive coping strategy. No mediation effect was found in the group of healthy people. The results show that in the face of anticipated difficulties, people with type 2 diabetes try to protect their current resources by resorting to their existing knowledge, the level of which they are most satisfied with. The higher the positive emotionality/cognitive curiosity among people with type 2 diabetes, the higher their satisfaction with life, which is due to the fact, that they more frequently use proactive or preventive strategies to cope with stress. (shrink)

Teaching is one of the professions that creates opportunities for individuals to experience flow, a state of complete absorption in an activity. However, very few studies have examined ESL/EFL teachers’ flow states inside or outside the classroom. As such, this study aimed to explore the quality of experience of 75 EFL teachers in flow and also examine the relationships between their emotional intelligence, the Big Five personality traits and the flow state. To this end, the teachers filled out recurrent flow (...) surveys for a week, and also completed emotional intelligence and the Big Five personality questionnaires. It was found that reading was the major flow trigger outside the classroom and teaching and delivering lessons was the most significant flow-inducing activity for the teachers inside the classroom. Furthermore, correlations and independent samples t-tests indicated that all emotional intelligence and personality traits had significant relationships with flow except agreeableness. Finally, multiple regression analysis showed that two personality traits, conscientiousness and openness to experience were the strongest predictors of the flow state. The implications for future flow-related research in the field of applied linguistics are discussed. (shrink)

Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results is a strengths-based framework for strategic thinking, planning, conversations, and leading that focuses on strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results. The SOAR framework leverages and integrates Appreciative Inquiry to create a transformation process through generative questions and positive framing. While SOAR has been used by practitioners since 2000 as a framework for generating positive organizational change, its use in empirical research has been limited by the absence of reliable and valid measures. We report on the reliability, (...) construct validity, and measurement invariance of the SOAR Scale, a 12-item self-report survey organized into four first-order factors. Data from a sample of 285 U.S. professionals were analyzed in Mplus using confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling. The Four-Factor first-order exploratory structure equation modeling had the best model fit. Measurement invariance tests found the scalar invariance of the SOAR Scale across gender and education groups. Implications are discussed for using the SOAR Scale to build resilience at the individual, the team, and the organizational levels. (shrink)

We examine how prior mental health predicts hopes and how hopes predict subsequent mental health, testing hypotheses in a longitudinal study with an Australian nation-wide adult sample regarding mental health consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak during its initial stage. Quota sampling was used to select a sample representative of the adult Australian population in terms of age groups, gender, and geographical location. Mental health measures were selected to include those with the best psychometric properties. Hypotheses were tested using generalized linear (...) models with random intercepts, with the type of GLM determined by the nature of the dependent variable. Greater anxiety, depression, distress, and loneliness predict less hope, but impaired quality of life and stress positively predict hopes of gaining new skills. Distress and loneliness predict hopes for social connectedness and an improved society, suggesting that predictors of hope depend on what is hoped for. These findings suggest the need for more nuanced theories of hope. Greater hopes for societal improvement predict lower anxiety, depression, distress, and impaired quality of life, but greater hopes for skills and better mental health predict higher levels of these covariates. Moreover, when relevant prior psychological states are more intense, the impact of hope state declines. These findings indicate that the consequences of hope are heterogeneous, and suggest a possible explanation for the seemingly inconsistent therapeutic effectiveness of raising hope. (shrink)

The focus of this review is on positive emotional granularity. Emotional granularity is the level of specificity that characterizes verbal representations of an affective experience. Although there has been research on negative emotional granularity, relatively less attention has been given to the study of positive emotional granularity. Positive emotions are theorized to motivate an individual to “broaden and build” one’s scope of cognition, attention, and behavior. Distinct positive emotion concepts may provide individuals with more informational value than that provided by (...) global mood. Indeed, individuals who are higher in positive emotional granularity report being better at coping with stressful experiences. In this review, we discuss growing research on positive emotional granularity and well-being. Issues of measurement, interventions, and considerations for future lines of research are discussed. (shrink)

The literature on affective determinants of physical activity is growing rapidly. The present paper aims to provide greater clarity regarding the definition and distinctions among the various affect-related constructs that have been examined in relation to PA. Affective constructs are organized according to the Affect and Health Behavior Framework, including: affective response to PA; incidental affect; affect processing; and affectively charged motivational states. After defining each category of affective construct, we provide examples of relevant research showing how each construct may (...) relate to PA behavior. We conclude each section with a discussion of future directions for research. (shrink)

The concept of transformative experience (TE) has been widely explored by several disciplines from philosophy to neurobiology, and in different domains, from the spiritual to the educational one. This attitude has engendered heterogeneous models to explain this phenomenon. However, a consistent and clear understanding of this construct remains elusive. The aim of this work is to provide an initial comprehensive interdisciplinary, cross-domain, up-to-date, and integrated overview on the concept of TEs. Firstly, all the models and theories on TEs were reviewed (...) to extract and analyze TEs’ main components emerging from different disciplines. Then, this preliminary analysis was integrated with an in-depth examination of redundancies and particularities across domains and disciplines, to provide an integrated theoretical framework of TEs and a preliminary interdisciplinary operational definition of TEs. This examination, in turn, can help organize current research and theories, thus providing suggestions for operationalizing TEs as well as encouraging new interdisciplinary research endeavors. (shrink)

This study adopted a positive psychology perspective to investigate positive emotion and foreign language enjoyment among Chinese as a second language learners in an emergency remote teaching context amid the COVID-19 pandemic. A set of 90 preparatory Chinese language students was assessed for their level of foreign language enjoyment using the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale. Participles' scores on self-perceived language achievement and actual test scores were adopted as the measurement of their Chinese language proficiency. The results revealed that: CSL learners (...) experienced high level of FL enjoyment in an online learning context, no significant correlation was found between FLE and leaners' actual language achievement nor between FLE and their self-perceived achievement, female learners showed higher FLE than male learners and gender was found to have a significant effect on FLE-Private, participants' geological location, i.e., whether in China or at home countries, significantly influenced their FLE, participants' regional group was not a significant predictor of FLE, and teacher-related variables and learner self-perceptions of achievement were strong predictors of FLE among CSL learners. The findings highlight the importance of teacher's role in an online learning environment and suggest that FLE may not boost performance in the short term for language beginners but is still conducive in the long run. Implications for both teachers and learners, and suggestions for future researches are provided. (shrink)

In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review important distinctions such as the dimensionless and dimensional physical constants, and the classification of constants proposed by Lévy-Leblond. Then we explore how two great analogies, computational and biological, can give new insights into our problem. This paper includes a preliminary study to examine the two analogies. Importantly, (...) analogies are both useful and fundamental cognitive tools, but can also be misused or misinterpreted. The idea that our universe might be modelled as a computational entity is analysed, and we discuss the distinction between physical laws and initial conditions using algorithmic information theory. Smolin introduced the theory of "cosmological natural selection" with a biological analogy in mind. We examine an extension of. (shrink)

ObjectivesA growing number of studies indicate that coping with the experience of a crisis event, which causes a breach in the individual’s fundamental beliefs regarding the world and his/her place in it, can result in posttraumatic growth. Positive emotions can have an undoing effect on negative emotional arousal and broaden an individual’s scope of action, and they can foster posttraumatic growth. This study aimed to examine relations between prioritizing positivity, styles of rumination, coping strategies, and posttraumatic growth.MethodsOne hundred and sixty-four (...) Polish adults took part in the study, filling out questionnaires to measure prioritizing positivity, hope, and self-efficacy. Twelve to fifteen months later, 104 of them accepted the invitation to the second part of the study. The participants reported the intensity of rumination associated with the most critical event in their lives, which took place between the first and second stages of the study and the coping strategies they used. Posttraumatic growth and life satisfaction were also measured.ResultsResults from hierarchical regressions found that higher levels of prioritizing positivity, deliberate ruminations, and religious coping and lower level of intrusive ruminations were associated with posttraumatic growth. The results also indicate that self-esteem was a significant predictor of life satisfaction.ConclusionsThe results of the prospective study confirm that individual differences in prioritizing positivity can relate to a process of posttraumatic growth. Prioritizing positivity was associated with the use of an active coping strategy and deliberate but not intrusive ruminations. Previous studies on the role of prioritizing positivity have focused on the impact on the level of wellbeing of seeking positive emotions in everyday life. Our results show the importance of prioritizing positivity in coping with stress and trauma. These results can be used to design effective psychological intervention techniques to support people experiencing trauma and psychological crises. The results also indicate that life satisfaction has different predictors from posttraumatic growth. (shrink)