The Eudemonic and Hedonic Impacts of Attending Live and Virtual Music and Art Events

This paper examines the under-investigated well-being impacts of arts and music events attendance, in both a live and virtual capacity. Using eudaimonia and hedonia as a measure for well-being, three objectives were investigated; 1) Do live arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 2) Do virtual arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 3) How do live and virtual music and art events compare in meeting attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? The study focused on attendee’s experiences having attended both live and virtual events. Using nine semi-structured interviews this research found that live music and art events offer more eudemonic and hedonic impacts for the attendee than virtual events. Additionally, participants at live events experienced hedonia, although it was unclear whether all participants experienced eudaimonia, achieving overall well-being. Participants of virtual events, on the other hand felt that the social aspects and atmosphere were lacking, while a few of the participants did not achieve any eudemonic or hedonic impacts on their well-being

Economic evaluation of gender empowerment programmes with a violence prevention focus: objective empowerment and subjective wellbeing

Prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) is high the world over, and in sub-Saharan Africa, between 30% and 66% of ever-partnered women aged 15 or over have experienced IPV at least once in their lifetime, and 37% on the African continent. Power imbalance in the household and unequal access to resources are often identified as triggers of violence. Microfinance interventions provide women with access to financial resources as well as soft-skills training (MF-plus). Evidence of microfinance’s impact on IPV is still however contradictory, often confined to observational cross-sectional studies, with narrow definitions of IPV, and no clear link with a process of empowerment. This thesis addresses these limitations by (i) analysing data from the randomised control trials (RCTs) of two microfinance and training interventions in sub-Saharan Africa aimed at reducing IPV; (ii) defining a conceptual framework for the analysis of impact that I term eudaimonic utility (EUD) and linking this with empowerment indicators; and (iii) interpreting this evidence with reference to sociological and economic models of IPV. EUD is the self-actualisation component of psychological measures of wellbeing (WB). I derive EUD from the triangulation of the construct of wellbeing I found in the milieu of sub-Saharan African women targeted by one of the interventions, psychological indices of wellbeing, and properties of plural utility functions. It comprises three psychological dimensions: autonomy (deciding for oneself), meaningful relations with others (maintaining mutually supportive and emotionally meaningful relationships) and environmental mastery (ensuring that the external environment is conducive to one’s flourishing). For the analysis of intervention impact, I group empowerment indicators on the basis of the factor analysis associations with EUD dimensions. Impact estimates suggest that women who access MF-plus services gain more control over their own time, experience improvement in proxies of eudaimonia, and experience reduced IPV exposure. Women who trained in negotiation skills in addition to access to financial services experience limited increase in cooperation with their spouses, but no IPV reduction

Activities of the Mind and Soul: Eudaimonia, Identity, and Implicit Theories of Giftedness in Secondary Gifted Students

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experience of secondary gifted students, more specifically their implicit theories of giftedness, how they incorporate giftedness into their sense of identity, and their eudaimonic development. The following four research questions guided the study: (a) What do the narratives of secondary gifted students reveal about their eudaimonic well-being? (b) What do the narratives of secondary gifted students reveal about their implicit theories of giftedness? (c) What do the narratives of secondary gifted students reveal about the extent to which giftedness is a part of their identities? (d) What are the relationships between gifted students’ implicit theories, identity, and eudaimonic well-being? Fifteen secondary gifted students answered a series of prompts through written responses, which were the basis of a thematic analysis. Four themes about eudaimonia emerged: the effects of academic excellence; meaning and purpose in learning and extracurricular activities; meaningful relationships; and struggle and change. Four themes about students’ beliefs about giftedness emerged: giftedness affects relationships; giftedness affects experience in school; gifted identification and programming; and gifted identity. Observations were made about the differences between implicit theories held by participants whose responses showed greater instances of eudaimonia and those whose responses showed fewer instances of eudaimonia, providing important implications for effectively educating gifted students and supporting their eudaimonic development

Personal Cyber-Data Literacy Plurality in Routinized-Prescriptive and Relational-Holistic Cyber-Regimes

Ursula Franklin encouraged all who would listen to act in ways that are socially useful and personally satisfying. Over two decades ago, in her Massey Lectures on The Real World of Technology, she warned about the unsustainability of prescriptive bitsphere technology regimes determined by precisely routinized compliance. She advocated for alternative holistic regimes determined by care-full relational consideration. Cyber-data literacies are defined as allowing individuals to use and benefit from data associated with their digital practices. Routinized literacies are being mis-afforded by behaviour manipulation through learning systems built on cyber-surveillance and broken personal data markets. This critical essay calls for a re-imagining of cyber-data literacies as socially useful and personally satisfying relational digital practices rather than merely routinized digital media utilization skills. A meta-synthesis of neuro-cognitive and hermeneutic theory is used to frame a comparison of cyber-data literacies afforded by cyber-regimes of exclusive compliance and inclusive consideration. Inspired by Hanah Arendt’s concept of human plurality, the essay analyses how personal cyber-data literacies are constrained and afforded by human diversity. Personal cyber-data are conceptualized as lifeworld givens, entangled with personal knowledge and experience, oriented and determined by data cognitive artifact constraints and affordances, and filtered through individuated foresight and insight. Despite foresight plurality, a capacity for distributed cognition and intelligence arises from shared mind/brain architectures and bio-psycho-social-relational determinants of a shared human biology. The essay examines opportunities and benefits of promoting cyber-data literacy plurality, grounded in personal data made meaningful to both people and machines through meta-narratives constructed using personal cyber-data by people the data are about

Understanding the effect of kindness on adolescent givers’ well-being

There is growing evidence, mainly from research with adult populations, that being kind predicts increased well-being for the giver. Adolescence is a sensitive period for the development of relevant systems such as moral reasoning and perspective-taking skills. Furthermore, adolescents are at high risk for the onset of mental health problems as well as declining well-being. Thus, kindness-based interventions may be a useful method to promote well-being in this age group. However, there is little understanding of kindness among adolescent populations, and very few experimental investigations have tested the impact of kindness on adolescent well-being. This thesis includes three papers designed to identify adolescents’ conceptualisations of kindness, the impact of kindness on adolescent well-being, and the mechanisms that may explain how, why, and when kindness is most effective. Participants were aged 11 to 15 years in all papers. The first paper reports on a qualitative study designed to document and understand adolescents’ conceptualisations of kindness. The paper identified a range of behavioural and psychological manifestations of kindness. Papers 2 and 3 used randomised, experimental methods to test the impact of kindness on well-being. For Paper 2, this consisted of a single kindness-based reflective writing task, whereas Paper 3 reports the findings from a four-week kindness-based intervention. Analyses for both studies revealed no significant overall effects of the kindness tasks on well-being.However, in each case, a positive indirect effect of kindness on subjective well-being via eudaimonia was observed. Paper 3 also identified a positive indirect effect of the intervention on general levels of kindness and flourishing. Together, the findings demonstrate that kindness is a multidimensional construct, consisting of both behavioural manifestations and specific other-focussed motivations. Furthermore, the findings highlight the challenges of designing kindnessbased interventions to raise well-being in adolescents and suggest the importance of eudaimonic experience in fostering a positive impact of kindness on adolescent givers. This has important theoretical implications for future research and practical implications for the way in which kindness-based initiatives are designed and implemented

5th Annual Applied Positive Psychology Symposium

The annual Applied Positive Psychology Symposium dates back to the inaugural symposium held in May 2015, designed as an opportunity for the first cohort of graduates of the MSc Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) at Bucks to present their completed dissertation work to a wider audience, and prepare papers for the symposium’s Proceedings. Since then, the symposium has grown considerably in scope, aiming to build a community of education and new research in the fast-growing field of applied positive psychology, from across the UK and now Ireland as well. MAPP programmes can currently be found in the UK at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), Buckinghamshire New University (Bucks), and the University of East London (UEL). Other universities also offer some positive psychology courses as part of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. This Proceedings represents the contributions of students, graduates, and staff of many of these programmes to the 5th Applied Positive Psychology Symposium held on Saturday 1st June 2019 at the Buckinghamshire New University High Wycombe campus. This symposium has proved a real success and has only grown in popularity, scope, and engagement each year, with ever more contributions from other MAPP and university positive psychology programmes. We were delighted to be able to return for a fifth year which was our largest event yet, necessitating parallel sessions for the first time, to accommodate a full programme of talks, quickfire ‘flash’ presentations, practical workshops, a video presentation, poster presentations, and even a brief magic show(!), and attracting an audience of 80+. This year we welcomed a number of students from UEL and for the first time University College Cork, Ireland, to present their work, as well as Goldsmiths London, and staff from the University of Buckingham, alongside many Bucks MAPP students and returning graduates. The applied nature of the MAPP courses emphasises using evidence-based practices to actively improve lives and institutions, and MAPP students are at the forefront of this relatively new discipline, contributing innovative and important research, solutions, and products. We hope you enjoy this year’s exciting offerings in this Proceedings

The Basic Needs in Games (BANG) Model of Video Games and Mental Health: Untangling the Positive and Negative Effects of Games with Better Science

How do video games affect mental health? Despite decades of research and widespread interest from policymakers, parents, and players, in most cases the best answer we have is: it depends. I argue that our limited success stems largely from (1) a lack of theories that explain more than small portions of the varied evidence base, and (2) methodological limitations related to measurement, self-report data, questionable research practices, and more. In this thesis, I present the Basic Needs in Games (BANG) model. Building upon self-determination theory, BANG offers a novel theoretical account that provides mechanisms for both short- and long-term effects, positive and negative, resulting from quality or quantity of gaming. Under BANG, the primary mechanism through which games impact mental health is via need satisfaction and frustration: the extent to which both games, and players’ life in general, provide experiences of control and volition (autonomy), mastery and growth (competence), and connection and belonging (relatedness). To generate BANG, I conducted semi-structured interviews, finding that need-frustrating experiences within games have important effects on player behavior, likelihood of continuing play, and expectations for future experiences (Study 1). In a mixed-method survey, I show that some—but not all—players are successful in compensating for frustrated needs in daily life by playing games (Study 2). These findings informed the validation of the the Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS), as previous instruments either did not measure need frustration or were not designed for gaming contexts. Across 1400 participants and various validity analyses, I show that the questionnaire is suitable for wide-ranging use (Study 3). Finally, I collected 12 weeks of digital trace data using a novel method of monitoring the Xbox network, and combined this with 6 biweekly surveys measuring need satisfaction and frustration alongside three mental health constructs (Study 4). Across 2000 responses (n = 400), I find partial support for BANG: there is strong evidence to rule out a meaningful relationship between playtime and subsequent mental health. However, players who felt more need satisfaction than usual in games also reported higher than usual need satisfaction in general, which in turn related to better mental health. My results help push the field beyond simplified notions of playtime by offering a framework that can systematically account for a wide variety of observed gaming effects. I hope that this work can serve as both a call to action and an illustrative example of how games research can be more productive

The Psychological Well-Being of Student Activists

Psychological well-being has a role in determining the quality of life of student activists. This study aims to describe the meaning of psychological well-being in student activists, and their influence on the forms of behavior carried out. The research subjects were 42 people in collecting data on the profile of student activists from UIN Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, and 14 students were subjects who gave information verbally and in the form of non-verbal activities related to the meaning of psychological well-being and behavior carried out as an implication of the meaning of psychological well-being. Data on the profile of student activists were explored by in-depth interviews using face-to-face interviews and what excavated key data on psychological well-being with focus group discussions (FGD). The results of this study illustrate that the essence of the psychological well-being of student activists is happiness and satisfaction in life based on trust in Allah. Expressions of happiness and life satisfaction in activist students are very diverse and have implications for academic, social, and spiritual forms of activity or behavior

Handbook of Well-Being

It is a pleasure to bring to you the eHandbook of Subjective Well-Being, the science of when and why people experience and evaluate their lives in positive ways, including aspects such as positive feelings, life satisfaction, and optimism. There are chapters in this eHandbook on the philosophy and history of well-being, as well as reviews of empirical research on the ways to assess well-being, the circumstances that predict it, the outcomes that it produces, the societal policies that enhance it, and many other social, biological, and cultural processes that help us understand why some people are happy and satisfied with their lives, while others are not. There are also chapters on theories of well-being, such as the baseline or set-point models. We believe that Open publication is the wave of the future (Jhangiani & Biswas-Diener, 2017). Therefore, we are presenting the handbook in an electronic format so that it is widely available to everyone around the world. The handbook is entirely open and free – anyone can read and use it without cost. This is important to us as we desire to lower knowledge barriers for individuals and communities, especially because it provides access to students, educators, and scholars who do not have substantial financial resources. We are not certain if this is the first free and open handbook in the behavioral sciences, but hopefully it will not be the last. In the past the prohibitive price of many handbooks have made them available only to scholars or institutions in wealthy nations, and this is unfortunate. We believe scientific scholarship should be available to all. The field of subjective well-being has grown at rapid pace over the last several decades, and many discoveries have been made. When Ed Diener began his research within the field in 1981 there were about 130 studies published that year on the topic, as shown using a Google Scholar search on “subjective well-being.” Eighteen years later when Shigehiro Oishi earned his Ph.D. in 2000 there were 1,640 publications that year on the topic, and when Louis Tay was awarded a Ph.D. in 2011 there were 10,400 publications about subjective well-being. Finally, in 2016 there were 18,300 publications – in that single year alone! In other words, during the time that Diener has been studying the topic, scholarship on subjective well-being has grown over 100-fold! It is not merely the number of published studies that has grown, but there have been enormous leaps forward in our understanding. In the 1980s, there were questions about the reliability and validity of subjective well-being assessments, and the components that underlie it. One notable advance is our understanding and measurement of well-being. We now know a great deal about the validity of self-report measures, as well as the core evaluative and affective components that make up subjective well-being. Further, scholars have a much greater understanding of the processes by which people report their subjective well-being, and various biases or artifacts that may influence these reports. In 1982 many studies were focused on demographic factors such as income, sex, and age that were correlated with subjective well-being. By 2016 we understood much more about temperament and other internal factors that influence happiness, as well as some of the outcomes in behavior that subjective well-being helps produce (e.g., income, performance, physical health, longevity). In the 1980s, researchers assumed that people adapt to almost any life event, and that different life events only have a short-term effect on subjective well-being. A number of large-scale longitudinal studies later showed that that is not the case. By now we know what kinds of life events affect our subjective well-being, how much, and for roughly how long. In the 1980s researchers believed that economic growth would not increase the happiness of a given nation. Now we know when economic growth tends to increase the happiness of a given nation. Additionally, we know much more about the biology of subjective well-being, and an enormous amount more about culture and well-being, a field that was almost nonexistent in 1982. With the advent of positive psychology, we are also beginning to examine practices and interventions that can raise subjective well-being. Given the broad interest in subjective well-being in multiple fields like psychology, economics, political science, and sociology, there have been important developments made toward understanding how societies differ in well-being. This understanding led to the development of national accounts of well-being – societies using well-being measures to help inform policy deliberations. This advance changes the focus of governments away from a narrow emphasis on economic development to a broader view which sees government policies as designed to raise human well-being. We were fortunate to have so many leading scholars of subjective well-being and related topics contribute to this volume. We might be slightly biased but most of the chapters in this eHandbook are truly superb. Not only do they provide a broad coverage of a large number of areas, but many of the chapters present new ways of thinking about these areas. Below is a brief overview of each of the sections in this volume: In Section 1 we begin the volume with chapters on philosophical, historical, and religious thinking on well-being through the ages. Next, we cover the methods and measures used in the scientific study of well-being. Section 2 is devoted to theories of well-being such as the top-down theory, activity theory, goal theory, self-determination theory, and evolutionary theory. Section 3 covers the personality, genetics, hormones, and neuroscience of well-being. Then, demographic factors such as age, gender, race, religion, and marital status are discussed. Section 4 is devoted to how domains of life – such as work, finance, close relationships, and leisure – are related to overall subjective well-being. Section 5 covers the various outcomes of subjective well-being, ranging from work outcomes, to cognitive outcomes, to health, and finally relationship outcomes. Section 6 covers interventions to increase subjective well-being. Finally, Section 7 is devoted to cultural, geographical, and historical variations in subjective well-being. This eHandbook presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of subjective well-being – and it is freely available to all! The editors would like to extend their thanks to several individuals who have been critical to the success of the handbook. First, our gratitude is immense toward Chris Wiese, Keya Biswas-Diener, and Danielle Geerling, who organized and kept the entire venture on track. Their hard work and organizational skills were wonderful, and the book would not have been possible without them. Second, we extend our thanks to the Diener Education Fund, a charitable organization devoted to education that in part made this project possible. In particular we express deep gratitude to Mary Alice and Frank Diener. Not only did their help make this eHandbook possible, but their lives stood as shining examples of the way to pursue well-being!https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/psychfacbooks/1008/thumbnail.jp

Academic employees’ understandings of workplace well-being in Ghana: an interpretive phenomenological analysis

AimThis study aimed to use eudaimonic theory to investigate how academic employees in Ghana understand workplace well-being, what well-being means to them and what changes have taken place over time.MethodThe well-being experience, views and stories of academic employees from three public universities in Ghana were investigated using semi-structured interviews together with an interview guide involving eighteen academics. The study adopted a qualitative research approach, and the data were analysed using the Interpretative Phenomenology Approach (IPA).ResultsThe results suggest that academic employees understood workplace well-being from both the negative and positive perspectives of the eudaimonic theory. The sociocultural aspect of well-being together with several workplace well-being components were highlighted in the academics’ stories with commonly used phrases such as society expects us to behave in a certain way, our culture frowns on complaints at work and we are brought up not to challenge our leaders. The results further suggest that depending on the context of work, meeting work targets, delays in promotion, inadequate resources, student progress, identities and research collaboration with colleagues can act as both negative and positive assets for well-being.ConclusionThis study indicates that the socio-cultural facet of well-being is dominant in the experience of academics and that it is important not only for a mindset change but also for a complete understanding of workplace well-being issues. Additionally, any plans to introduce workplace well-being programs and policies at the workplace in Ghana should be aligned with employees’ mindset changes (cultural beliefs), the work environment and the employees themselves. The results have placed the problem in a developing country context and are grounded in the experiences of academic employees, supported by the eudaimonic theory and reflect other contextual factors, including cultural beliefs and structural needs