Do beliefs in the malleability of well-being affect the efficacy of positive psychology interventions? Results of a randomized placebo-controlled trial

The present study examines the role of beliefs about the malleability of well-being in a randomized, placebo-controlled, online positive psychology intervention targeting 267 German-speaking adults (83% women, mean age = 43.16 years). The participants of the experimental group ("three good things" intervention) and placebo control group ("early memories") reported their levels of happiness before and immediately after the one-week intervention, as well as two, four, and 12 weeks after the intervention. Furthermore, the researchers recorded how participants completed the exercises and to what extent they liked the exercises. This study also assesses the participants' beliefs surrounding two different aspects of malleability (well-being is modifiable in general, and one knows how to change their well-being). While both aspects of malleability were strongly intercorrelated, beliefs about how to change one's well-being seemed particularly relevant in the context of positive psychology interventions: Those who reported a stronger belief about how to change their well-being liked the intervention better, and more often completed the activity as instructed. Further, they reported greater increases in well-being as compared to the control group. We conclude that beliefs about the malleability of well-being might represent an important moderating variable in the effectiveness of positive psychology interventions

The good character at work: an initial study on the contribution of character strengths in identifying healthy and unhealthy work-related behavior and experience patterns

Purpose: Positive psychological functioning has been related to various positive work-related outcome variables, such as job satisfaction or work engagement. The aim of the present study was to examine the relations between morally positively valued traits (i.e., strengths of character) and work-related behaviors. Method: A sample of 887 adult women completed the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) and the Work-related Behavior and Experience Patterns Questionnaire (AVEM) in an online survey. Results: Those assigned to healthy work-related behavior and experience patterns differed in their strengths profiles from those that demonstrated unhealthy patterns (i.e., burnout type) in a predictable way. Especially the strengths of zest, persistence, hope, and curiosity seemed to play a key role in healthy and ambitious work behavior. Conclusions: The study underlines the relevance of character strengths in work settings and suggests that interventions based on character strengths could substantiate interventions already existing at the workplace in order to enhance positive work outcomes further (e.g., work satisfaction, engagement

Effects of 9-hour time zone changes on fatigue and circadian rhythms of sleep/wake and core temperature

Physiological and psychological disruptions caused by transmeridian flights may affect the ability of flight crews to meet operational demands. To study these effects, 9 Royal Norwegian Airforces P3-Orion crewmembers flew from Norway to California (-9 hr), and back (+9 hr). Rectal temperature, heart rate and wrist activity were recorded every 2 min, fatigue and mood were rated every 2 hr during the waking day, and logs were kept of sleep times and ratings. Subjects also completed 4 personality inventories. The time-zone shifts produced negative changes in mood which persisted longer after westward flights. Sleep quality (subjective and objective) and duration were slightly disrupted (more after eastward flights). The circadian rhythms of sleep/wake and temperature both completed the 9-hr delay by day 5 in California, although temperature adjusted more slowly. The size of the delay shift was significantly correlated with scores on extraversion and achievement need personality scales. Response to the 9-hr advance were more variable. One subject exhibited a 15-hr delay in his temperature rhythm, and an atypical sleep/nap pattern. On average, the sleep/wake cycle (but not the temperature rhythm), completed the 9-hr advance by the end of the study. Both rhythms adapted more slowly after the eastward flight

Assessing Dispositions Towards Ridicule and Laughter in the Workplace: Adapting and Validating the PhoPhiKat-9 Questionnaire

The current paper addresses the measurement of three dispositions towards ridicule and laughter; i.e., gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (the joy of laughing at others). These traits explain inter-individual differences in responses to humor, laughter, and social situations related to humorous encounters. First, an ultra-short form of the PhoPhiKat-45 (Ruch & Proyer, 2009) was adapted in two independent samples (Construction Sample N = 157; Replication Sample N = 1774). Second, we tested the validity of the PhoPhiKat-9 in two further independent samples. Results showed that the psychometric properties of the ultra-short form were acceptable and the proposed factor structure could be replicated. In Validation Sample 1 (N = 246), we investigated the relation of the three traits to responses in a ridicule and teasing scenario questionnaire. The results replicated findings from earlier studies by showing that gelotophobes assigned the same emotions to friendly teasing and malicious ridicule (predominantly low joy, high fear, and shame). Gelotophilia was mainly predicted by relating joy to both, teasing and ridicule scenarios, while katagelasticism was predicted by assigning joy and contempt to ridicule scenarios. In Validation Sample 2 (N = 1248), we investigated whether the fear of being laughed at is a vulnerability at the workplace: If friendly teasing and laughter of co-workers, superiors or customers are misperceived as being malicious, individuals may feel less satisfied and more stressed. The results from a representative sample of Swiss employees showed that individuals with a fear of being laughed at are generally less satisfied with life and work and experience more work stress. Moreover, gelotophilia went along with positive evaluations of one’s life and work, while katagelasticism was negatively related to work satisfaction and positively related to work stress. In order to establish good work practices and build procedures against workplace bullying, one needs to consider that individual differences impact on a person’s perception of being bullied and assessing the three dispositions may give important insights into team processes.This publication benefited from the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming vulnerability: Life course perspectives, which is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number: 51NF40-160590). The authors are grateful to the Swiss National Science Foundation for its financial assistanc

Character Strengths and PERMA: Investigating the Relationships of Character Strengths with a Multidimensional Framework of Well-Being

Character strengths are positively valued traits that are expected to contribute to the good life (Peterson and Seligman 2004). Numerous studies have confirmed their robust relationships with subjective or hedonic well-being. Seligman (2011) provided a new framework of well-being suggesting five dimensions that encompass both hedonic and eudemonic aspects of well-being: positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment (forming the acronym PERMA). However, the role of character strengths has not been studied so far in this framework. Also, most studies on the relationships between character strengths and well-being only have only relied on self-reports. This set of two studies examines the relationships of character strengths and the orientations to well-being in two cross-sectional studies (Study 1: N = 5521), while also taking informant-reports into account and utilizing different questionnaires to control for a possible method bias (Study 2: N = 172). Participants completed validated assessments of character strengths and the PERMA dimensions (self-reports in Study 1, self- and informant-reports in Study 2). Results showed that in self-reports, all strengths were positively related to all PERMA dimensions, but there were differences in the size of the relationships. Accomplishment, for example, showed the strongest associations with strengths such as perspective, persistence, and zest, whereas for positive relationships, strengths such as teamwork, love, and kindness were the best predictors. These findings were largely confirmed by informant-reports in Study 2. The findings provide further support for the notion that character contributes to well-being and they could guide the development of strengths-based interventions tailored to individual needs

Linear and nonlinear substructured Restricted Additive Schwarz iterations and preconditioning

Iterative substructuring Domain Decomposition (DD) methods have been extensively studied, and they are usually associated with nonoverlapping decompositions. It is less known that classical overlapping DD methods can also be formulated in substructured form, i.e., as iterative methods acting on variables defined exclusively on the interfaces of the overlapping domain decomposition. We call such formulations substructured domain decomposition methods. We introduce here a substructured version of Restricted Additive Schwarz (RAS) which we call SRAS. We show that RAS and SRAS are equivalent when used as iterative solvers, as they produce the same iterates, while they are substantially different when used as preconditioners for GMRES. We link the volume and substructured Krylov spaces and show that the iterates are different by deriving the least squares problems solved at each GMRES iteration. When used as iterative solvers, SRAS presents computational advantages over RAS, as it avoids computations with matrices and vectors at the volume level. When used as preconditioners, SRAS has the further advantage of allowing GMRES to store smaller vectors and perform orthogonalization in a lower dimensional space. We then consider nonlinear problems, and we introduce SRASPEN (Substructured Restricted Additive Schwarz Preconditioned Exact Newton), where SRAS is used as a preconditioner for Newton’s method. In contrast to the linear case, we prove that Newton’s method applied to the preconditioned volume and substructured formulation produces the same iterates in the nonlinear case. Next, we introduce two-level versions of nonlinear SRAS and SRASPEN. Finally, we validate our theoretical results with numerical experiments

Character strengths and fluid intelligence

Objective: Research on the associations between cognitive and noncognitive personality traits has widely neglected character strengths, that means positively and morally valued personality traits that constitute good character. Method: The present study aimed to bridge this gap by studying the associations between character strengths and fluid intelligence using different operationali�zations of character strengths (including self- and informant-reports) and fluid intelligence in children, adolescents, and adults. Results: The results, based on four samples (N = 193/290/330/324), suggested that morally valued personality traits are independent of fluid intelligence, with the exception of love of learning, which showed small but robust positive relationships with fluid intelligence across all samples. Conclusions: Nonetheless, we argue for further research on the associations with other cognitive abilities and interactions between character strengths and intelligence when examining their relationships with external criteria

Block Jacobi relaxation for plane wave discontinuous Galerkin methods

In recent years plane wave approximation methods have become popular for the solution of Helmholtz problems, where instead of standard polynomial basis functions plane waves are used on each element to approximate the solution. One possibility to enforce inter-element continuity conditions for these basis functions is to use the plane wave discontinuous Galerkin Method (PWDG). In this paper we investigate block Jacobi relaxation methods for the PWDG. We show that for a certain choice of flux parameters in the PWDG block Jacobi is identical to a Schwarz method with standard impedance boundary conditions. This result motivates a simple algebraic decomposition method whose numerical performance is demonstrated for various wavenumbers. For high-frequency problem it is important to choose optimized transmission conditions between subdomains, and a first result of how to modify fluxes to incorporate optimized transmission conditions is presented

Locomotor loading mechanics in the hindlimbs of tegu lizards (Tupinambis merinae): comparitive and evolutionary implications

Skeletal elements are usually able to withstand several times their usual load before they yield, and this ratio is known as the bone\u27s safety factor. Limited studies on amphibians and non-avian reptiles have shown that they have much higher limb bone safety factors than birds and mammals. It has been hypothesized that this difference is related to the difference in posture between upright birds and mammals and sprawling ectotherms; however, limb bone loading data from a wider range of sprawling species are needed in order to determine whether the higher safety factors seen in amphibians and non-avian reptiles are ancestral or derived conditions. Tegus (family Teiidae) are an ideal lineage with which to expand sampling of limb bone loading mechanics for sprawling taxa, particularly for lizards, because they are from a different clade than previously sampled iguanas and exhibit different foraging and locomotor habits (actively foraging carnivore versus burst-activity herbivore). We evaluated the mechanics of locomotor loading for the femur of the Argentine black and white tegu (Tupinambus merianae) using three-dimensional measurements of the ground reaction force and hindlimb kinematics, in vivo bone strains and femoral mechanical properties. Peak bending stresses experienced by the femur were low (tensile: 10.4±1.1 MPa; compressive: –17.4±0.9 MPa) and comparable to those in other reptiles, with moderate shear stresses and strains also present. Analyses of peak femoral stresses and strains led to estimated safety factor ranges of 8.8–18.6 in bending and 7.8–17.5 in torsion, both substantially higher than typical for birds and mammals but similar to other sprawling tetrapods. These results broaden the range of reptilian and amphibian taxa in which high femoral safety factors have been evaluated and further indicate a trend for the independent evolution of lower limb bone safety factors in endothermic taxa

A Placebo-Controlled Online Study on Potential Mediators of a Pleasure-Based Positive Psychology Intervention: The Role of Emotional and Cognitive Components

While broad evidence exists that positive psychology interventions are effective in increasing well-being, less is known about the working mechanisms behind this process. We examine the impact of subjective changes in affectivity (i.e., elicitation of positive emotions) and cognitive processes (i.e., the gaining of insights) in three variants of a pleasure-based placebo-controlled online intervention (N = 509 adults). The variants were designed that they have (1) a cognitive focus, (2) an emotional focus, or (3) both cognitive and emotional foci. We assessed happiness and depressive symptoms before the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and at follow-ups after two weeks, one month, and three months, and collected subjective ratings on potential working mechanisms. Findings indicated that both variants with a cognitive focus increased happiness in comparison to the control condition, whereas only those interventions that fostered the experience of positive emotions reduced depressive symptoms. Positive emotions mediated the effects of the intervention on happiness and depressive symptoms, whereas insights only mediated the effects on happiness. The findings support the important role of positive emotions in positive interventions and provide new evidence for the relevance of cognitive changes in such interventions