Children’s and Adolescents’ Happiness Conceptualizations at School and their Link with Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’happiness either focused on their conceptualisations or the link between self-reported happiness with different outcomes. However, very few studies have connected both approaches to better understand children’s and adolescents’ happiness. To address this gap, we used a mixed-method approach, to investigate if the conceptualizations of happiness at school of 744 British children and adolescents could signal differences in autonomy, competence, and relatedness. An initial coding of the responses showed thirteen conceptualizations (i.e., positive feelings, harmony/balance, leisure, friends, getting good grades, non-violence, moral actions, purpose, autonomy, competence, teachers, emotional support, and learning). Log-linear models showed that some of the conceptualizations differed across both age groups and gender. Latent class analysis showed that happiness conceptualizations could be classified in five different groups. Interestingly, whereas for children there were no differences; for adolescents, there were differences between classes in their levels of autonomy and relatedness. The implications of these findings for promoting students' well-being at school are discussed

The psychology of passion: A meta-analytical review of a decade of research on intrapersonal outcomes

It is just over a decade since Vallerand et al. (J Personal Soc Psychol 85:756–767, 2003) introduced the dualistic model of passion. In this study, we conduct a meta-analytical review of relationships between Vallerand et al’s two passions (viz. harmonious and obsessive), and intrapersonal outcomes, and test the moderating role of age, gender, domain, and culture. A systematic literature search yielded 94 studies, within which 27 criterion variables were reported. These criterion variables derived from four research areas within the intrapersonal sphere: (a) well-/ill-being, (b) motivation factors, (c) cognitive outcomes and, (d) behaviour and performance. From these areas we retrieved 1308 independent effect sizes and analysed them using random-effects models. Results showed harmonious passion positively corresponded with positive intrapersonal outcomes (e.g., positive affect, flow, performance). Obsessive passion, conversely, showed positive associations with positive and negative

Children’s automatic evaluation of self‐generated actions is different from adults

Performance monitoring (PM) is central to learning and decision making. It allows individuals to swiftly detect deviations between actions and intentions, such as response errors, and adapt behavior accordingly. Previous research showed that in adult participants, error monitoring is associated with two distinct and robust behavioral effects. First, a systematic slowing down of reaction time speed is typically observed following error commission, which is known as post-error slowing (PES). Second, response errors have been reported to be automatically evaluated as negative events in adults. However, it remains unclear whether (1) children process response errors as adults do (PES), (2) they also evaluate them as negative events, and (3) their responses vary according to the pedagogy experienced. To address these questions, we adapted a simple decision-making task previously validated in adults to measure PES as well as the affective processing of response errors. We recruited 8- to 12-year-old children enrolled in traditional (N = 56) or Montessori (N = 45) schools, and compared them to adults (N = 46) on the exact same task. Results showed that children processed correct actions as positive events, and that adults processed errors as negative events. By contrast, PES was similarly observed in all groups. Moreover, the former effect was observed in traditional schoolchildren, but not in Montessori schoolchildren. These findings suggest that unlike PES, which likely reflects an age-invariant attention orienting toward response errors, their affective processing depends on both age and pedagogy

Passion and psychological adjustment: A test of the person-environment fit hypothesis

Passion represents a strong inclination toward an activity that is important, liked, and in which significant time is invested. Although a harmonious passion is well integrated in one’s identity and is emitted willingly, obsessive passion is not well integrated and is emitted out of internal pressure. This study tested for the presence of a Passion × Environment fit interaction with respect to psychological adjustment. Elite hockey players (N = 233) who tried out for a team in a highly competitive league participated in this short-term longitudinal study. As hypothesized, being selected by the highly competitive leagues led to higher psychological adjustment than not being selected by such leagues. Two months later, an interaction revealed that among athletes who were playing in highly competitive leagues, obsessively passionate athletes reported higher psychological adjustment than did harmonious athletes. Conversely, among athletes playing in less competitive leagues, harmonious athletes reported higher psychological adjustment than did obsessive athletes

Optimal Experience in Argentinean Children and Adolescents

Csikszentmihalyi describes optimal experience as a feeling that ones own abilities are sufficient to face lifes challenges. Such experience consists of directed, goal-oriented activity, regulated by norms that provide feedback sufficient to know if things are being done well. This chapter describes different studies done in the Latin American country of Argentina about flow. The first study focused on 1) whether it was possible for children and adolescents to identify optimal experiences; and 2) to identify the types of activity associated with flow. The results demonstrate that approximately 85% of Argentinean adolescents identified flow experiences in their daily activities. Sports, study, artistic activities, computer use, meetings and social activities, TV and games, are the activities that most often allow Argentinean children and adolescents to experience flow. The second study, focused on examining flow experience of children while playing soccer. The results showed that high levels of ability and concentration were associated with higher levels of flow during the soccer. Children who experienced high anxiety and boredom levels tended to have low levels of flow experience. The third study intended to investigate whether it is possible for young people to identify flow while doing prosocial activities. The results showed that young people can experience flow while doing prosocial activities in different contexts: in family, community, educational and social relations. Finally, the last study relayed in this chapter presents research examining the internal (parental relationships and personality traits) and external (type of activity and way of doing the activity) conditions of flow. This is particularly important for determining which aspects help generate the optimal mental states that contribute to happiness and wellbeing.Fil: Mesurado, Maria Belen. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en Psicología Matemática y Experimental Dr. Horacio J. A. Rimoldi; ArgentinaFil: Richaud, Maria Cristina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en Psicología Matemática y Experimental Dr. Horacio J. A. Rimoldi; Argentin