Contextual Positive Psychology: Policy Recommendations for Implementing Positive Psychology into Schools

There has been a rapid growth in positive psychology, a research and intervention approach that focuses on promoting optimal functioning and well-being. Positive psychology interventions are now making their way into classrooms all over the world. However, positive psychology has been criticized for being decontextualized and coercive, and for putting an excessive emphasis on positive states, whilst failing to adequately consider negative experiences. Given this, how should policy be used to regulate and evaluate these interventions? We review evidence that suggests these criticisms may be valid, but only for those interventions that focus almost exclusively on changing the content of people’s inner experience (e.g., make it more positive) and personality (improving character strength), and overemphasize the idea that inner experience causes action. We describe a contextualized form of positive psychology that not only deals with the criticisms, but also has clear policy implications for how to best implement and evaluate positive education programs so that they do not do more harm than good

Are people mindful in different ways? Disentangling the quantity and quality of mindfulness in latent profiles and exploring their links to mental health and life effectiveness

We sought to disambiguate the quantitative and qualitative components of mindfulness profiles, examine whether including ‘nonattachment’ as a subcomponent of mindfulness alters the profiles, and evaluate the extent to which the person‐centred approach to understanding mindfulness adds predictive power beyond a more parsimonious variable‐centred approach. Using data from a nationally representative sample of Americans (N = 7884; 52% female; Age: M = 47.9, SD = 16), we utilized bifactor exploratory structural equation modelling and latent profile analysis to separate the level and shape of previously identified profiles of mindfulness (Pearson, Lawless, Brown, & Bravo, 2015). Consistent with past research, we identified a judgmentally observing profile and a non‐judgmentally aware group, but inconsistent with past research, we did not find profiles that showed high or low levels on all specific aspects of mindfulness. Adding nonattachment did not alter the shape of the profiles. Profile membership was meaningfully related to demographic variables. In models testing the distinctive predictive utility of the profiles, the judgmentally observing profile, compared to the other profiles, showed the highest levels of mental ill‐health, but also the highest levels of life satisfaction and effectiveness. We discuss the implications of our study for clinical interventions and understanding the varieties of mindfulnes

The Upsides and Downsides of the Dark Side: A Longitudinal Study Into the Role of Prosocial and Antisocial Strategies in Close Friendship Formation

Resource control theory (RCT) posits that both antisocial and prosocial behaviors combine in unique ways to control resources such as friendships. We assessed students (N = 2,803; 49.7% male) yearly from junior (grades 8–10) to senior high school (11–12) on antisocial (A) and prosocial (P) behavior, peer nominated friendship, and well-being. Non-parametric cluster analyses of the joint trajectories of A and P identified four stable profiles: non-strategic (moderately low A and P), bi-strategic (moderately high on A and P), prosocial (moderately low A and moderately high on P), and antisocial (moderately low on P, and very high on A). There were clear benefits to youth using bi-strategic strategies in junior high: they attracted relatively high levels of opposite sex friendship nominations. However, this benefit disappeared in senior high. There were also clear costs: bi-strategic youth experienced relatively low well-being, and this effect was significantly more pronounced for females than males. Prosocial youth were the only ones who maintained both high friendship numbers and high well-being throughout high school. We discuss the cost/benefit trade-offs of different resource control strategies

Discrimination as a frame-of-reference effect in overlapping friendship communities of ethnically diverse youth

Objectives: To what extent is the frame of reference of overlapping friendship communities important for young people’s feelings of discrimination and subjective wellbeing? That is, do youth feel better or worse to the extent that they feel less or more discrimination than their friends? Methods: Participants (N=898; Mage=14.13; SDage=3.37; 46% females; 46% Whites; 20% Indigenous; 34% other minorities) were high school students of three ethnically diverse, low SES public schools in New South Wales, Australia. Cross-sectional data were collected to measure felt discrimination, mental health, subjective wellbeing, social support and nominations of close friends. A state-of-the-art method of clustering links was used to identify overlapping friendship communities, and multiple membership multilevel models were run to examine whether community level discrimination moderated the link between individual level discrimination and wellbeing. Results: When the community level discrimination was low, there was no wellbeing related cost or benefit of individual level discrimination. But when the community level discrimination was high, individuals in those communities who themselves felt low discrimination had better wellbeing than individuals who themselves felt high discrimination. Conclusions: We provide evidence for a frame-ofreference effect involving discrimination. Individuals’ relative standing in their friendship communities with high group-level discrimination reliably predicted the individuals’ wellbeing levels, regardless of ethnicity. The results highlight the importance of identifying overlapping friendship communities for understanding the dynamics of discrimination and wellbeing of ethnically diverse youth

Peer victimization : An integrative review and cross-national test of a tripartite model

School victimization issues remain largely unresolved due to over-reliance on unidimensional conceptions of victimization and data from a few developed OECD countries. Thus, support for cross-national generalizability over multiple victimization components (relational, verbal, and physical) is weak. Our substantive–methodological synergy tests the cross-national generalizability of a three-component model (594,196 fifteen-year-olds; nationally -representative samples from 77 countries) compared to competing (unidimensional and two-component) victimization models. We demonstrate the superior explanatory power of the three-component model—goodness-of-fit, component differentiation, and discriminant validity of the three components concerning gender differences, paradoxical anti-bullying attitudes (the Pro-Bully Paradox) whereby victims are more supportive of bullies than of other victims, and multiple indicators of well-being. For example, gender differences varied significantly across the three components, and all 13 well-being indicators were more strongly related to verbal and particularly relational victimization than physical victimization. Collapsing the three components into one or two components undermined discriminant validity. Cross-nationally, systematic differences emerged across the three victimization components regarding country-level means, gender differences, national development, and cultural values. These findings across countries support a tripartite model in which the three components of victimization—relational, verbal, and physical—relate differently to key outcomes. Thus, these findings advance victimization theory and have implications for policy, practice, and intervention. We also discuss directions for further research: the need for simultaneous evaluation of multiple, parallel components of victimization and bullying, theoretical definitions of bullying and victimization and their implications for measurement, conceptual bases of global victimization indices, cyberbullying, anti-bullying policies, and capitalizing on anti-bullying attitudes

Enhanced response inhibition during intensive meditation training predicts improvements in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning.

We examined the impact of training-induced improvements in self-regulation, operationalized in terms of response inhibition, on longitudinal changes in self-reported adaptive socioemotional functioning. Data were collected from participants undergoing 3 months of intensive meditation training in an isolated retreat setting (Retreat 1) and a wait-list control group that later underwent identical training (Retreat 2). A 32-min response inhibition task (RIT) was designed to assess sustained self-regulatory control. Adaptive functioning (AF) was operationalized as a single latent factor underlying self-report measures of anxious and avoidant attachment, mindfulness, ego resilience, empathy, the five major personality traits (extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience), diffi-culties in emotion regulation, depression, anxiety, and psychological well-being. Participants in Retreat 1 improved in RIT performance and AF over time whereas the controls did not. The control participants later also improved on both dimensions during their own retreat (Retreat 2). These improved levels of RIT performance and AF were sustained in follow-up assessments conducted approximately 5 months after the training. Longitudinal dynamic models with combined data from both retreats showed that improvement in RIT performance during training influenced the change in AF over time, which is consistent with a key claim in the Buddhist literature that enhanced capacity for self-regulation is an important precursor of changes in emotional well-being

Self-reported mindfulness and cortisol during a Shamatha meditation retreat.

Objective: Cognitive perseverations that include worry and rumination over past or future events may prolong cortisol release, which in turn may contribute to predisease pathways and adversely affect physical health. Meditation training may increase self-reported mindfulness, which has been linked to reductions in cognitive perseverations. However, there are no reports that directly link self-reported mindfulness and resting cortisol output. Here, the authors investigate this link. Methods: In an observational study, we measured self-reported mindfulness and p.m. cortisol near the beginning and end of a 3-month meditation retreat (N = 57). Results: Mindfulness increased from pre- to post-retreat, F(1, 56) = 36.20, p < .001. Cortisol did not significantly change. However, mindfulness was inversely related to p.m. cortisol at pre-retreat, r(53) = −.31, p < .05, and post-retreat, r(53) = −.30, p < .05, controlling for age and body mass index. Pre to postchange in mindfulness was associated with pre to postchange in p.m. cortisol, β = −.37, t(49) = 2.30, p < .05: Larger increases in mindfulness were associated with decreases in p.m. cortisol, whereas smaller increases (or slight decreases) in mindfulness were associated with an increase in p.m. cortisol. Conclusions: These data suggest a relation between self-reported mindfulness and resting output of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal system. Future work should aim to replicate this finding in a larger cohort and determine stronger inference about causality by using experimental designs that include control-group conditions

Living well by letting go: Reliability and validity of a brief measure of nonattachment

There is a growing literature on nonattachment, defined as a flexible, balanced way of relating to experiences without clinging to or suppressing them. We developed a 7-item Nonattachment Scale (NAS-7) by shortening a previously validated 30-item measure (NAS; Sahdra, Shaver &amp; Brown, 2010). NAS-7 was found to display strong psychometric properties in American and Australian samples (total N = 504), including a unidimensional factor structure and measurement invariance across different samples. The correlations of NAS-7 with other theoretically relevant constructs were virtually identical to the long-form NAS. Across different samples, NAS-7 assessed nonattachment was associated with greater autonomous regulation, self-actualization, psychological and subjective well-being, and reduced materialism and depressive symptoms. NAS-7 is a suitable alternative to the long-form NAS as it takes about half the time to complete than the long form without a substantial loss of information