Positive psychology of Malaysian students: impacts of engagement, motivation, self-compassion and wellbeing on mental health

Malaysia plays a key role in education of the Asia Pacific, expanding its scholarly output rapidly. However, mental health of Malaysian students is challenging, and their help-seeking is low because of stigma. This study explored the relationships between mental health and positive psychological constructs (academic engagement, motivation, self-compassion, and wellbeing), and evaluated the relative contribution of each positive psychological construct to mental health in Malaysian students. An opportunity sample of 153 students completed the measures regarding these constructs. Correlation, regression, and mediation analyses were conducted. Engagement, amotivation, self-compassion, and wellbeing were associated with, and predicted large variance in mental health. Self-compassion was the strongest independent predictor of mental health among all the positive psychological constructs. Findings can imply the strong links between mental health and positive psychology, especially selfcompassion. Moreover, intervention studies to examine the effects of self-compassion training on mental health of Malaysian students appear to be warranted.N/

Body appreciation around the world: Measurement invariance of the Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age

The Body Appreciation Scale-2 (BAS-2) is a widely used measure of a core facet of the positive body image construct. However, extant research concerning measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across a large number of nations remains limited. Here, we utilised the Body Image in Nature (BINS) dataset - with data collected between 2020 and 2022 - to assess measurement invariance of the BAS-2 across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups. Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis indicated that full scalar invariance was upheld across all nations, languages, gender identities, and age groups, suggesting that the unidimensional BAS-2 model has widespread applicability. There were large differences across nations and languages in latent body appreciation, while differences across gender identities and age groups were negligible-to-small. Additionally, greater body appreciation was significantly associated with higher life satisfaction, being single (versus being married or in a committed relationship), and greater rurality (versus urbanicity). Across a subset of nations where nation-level data were available, greater body appreciation was also significantly associated with greater cultural distance from the United States and greater relative income inequality. These findings suggest that the BAS-2 likely captures a near-universal conceptualisation of the body appreciation construct, which should facilitate further cross-cultural research