Towards a middle-range theory of mental health and well-being effects of employment transitions: Findings from a qualitative study on unemployment during the 2009-2010 economic recession.

This article builds upon previous theoretical work on job loss as a status passage to help explain how people's experiences of involuntary unemployment affected their mental well-being during the 2009-2010 economic recession. It proposes a middle-range theory that interprets employment transitions as status passages and suggests that their health and well-being effects depend on the personal and social meanings that people give to them, which are called properties of the transitions. The analyses, which used a thematic approach, are based on the findings of a qualitative study undertaken in Bradford (North England) consisting of 73 people interviewed in 16 focus groups. The study found that the participants experienced their job losses as divestment passages characterised by three main properties: experiences of reduced agency, disruption of role-based identities, for example, personal identity crises, and experiences of 'spoiled identities', for example, experiences of stigma. The proposed middle-range theory allows us to federate these findings together in a coherent framework which makes a contribution to illuminating not just the intra-personal consequences of unemployment, that is, its impact on subjective well-being and common mental health problems, but also its inter-personal consequences, that is, the hidden and often overlooked social processes that affect unemployed people's social well-being. This article discusses how the study findings and the proposed middle-range theory can help to address the theoretical weaknesses and often contradictory empirical findings from studies that use alternative frameworks, for example, deprivation models and 'incentive theory' of unemployment

On the very idea of a recovery model for mental health

Both in the UK and internationally, the ‘recovery model’ has been promoted to guide mental healthcare in reaction against what is perceived to be an overly narrow traditional bio-medical model. It has also begun to have an influence in thinking more broadly about mental health both for individuals and for communities and in the latter case has been linked to policies to promote social inclusion. In this widening application, however, there is a risk that the model becomes too broad to count as a model and thus to compete with other models such as a bio-medical model of health or illness. In this short paper we sketch some of the competing views of illness and health in order to locate and articulate a possible recovery model for mental health. We suggest that a distinct recovery model could be based on a view that places values at the centre of an analysis of mental health. Our aim, however, is to clarify the options rather than defend the model that emerges. We do, however, caution against one possible version of a recovery model. Thus if a recovery model were to be defended along the line we sketch we think that it would be better to construe the values involved on eudaimonic rather than hedonic lines

A dialectical approach to theoretical integration in developmental-contextual identity research

Future advances in identity research will depend on integration across major theoretical traditions. Developmental-contextualism has established essential criteria to guide this effort, including specifying the context of identity development, its timing over the life course, and its content. This article assesses four major traditions of identity research - identify status, eudaimonic identity, sociocultural theory, and narrative identity - in light of these criteria, and describes the contribution of each tradition to the broader enterprise of developmental-contextual research. This article proposes dialectical integration of the four traditions, for the purpose of generating new questions when the tensions and contradictions among theoretical traditions are acknowledged. We provide examples from existing literature of the kinds of research that could address these questions and consider ways of addressing the validity issues involved in developmental-contextual identity research

Moral Identity Predicts the Development of Presence of Meaning during Emerging Adulthood

We examined change over time in the relationship between moral identity and presence of meaning during early adulthood. Moral identity refers to a sense of morality and moral values that are central to one’s identity. Presence of meaning refers to the belief that one’s existence has meaning, purpose, and value. Participants responded to questions on moral identity and presence of meaning in their senior year of high school and two years after. Mixed effects model analyses were used to examine how moral identity and presence of meaning interacted during this two-year period. The findings demonstrated that moral identity positively predicted presence of meaning over time

Video games as meaningful entertainment experiences

We conducted an experiment to examine individuals’ perceptions of enjoyable and meaningful video games and the game characteristics and dimensions of need satisfaction associated with enjoyment and appreciation. Participants (N = 512) were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups that asked them to recall a game that they found either particularly fun or particularly meaningful, and to then rate their perceptions of the game that they recalled. Enjoyment was high for both groups, though appreciation was higher in the meaningful- than fun-game condition. Further, enjoyment was most strongly associated with gameplay characteristics and satisfaction of needs related to competency and autonomy, whereas appreciation was most strongly associated with story characteristics and satisfaction of needs related to insight and relatedness

Eudaimonic Pathways of Activating Compassion Reduce Vulnerabilities to Paranoia

This study aimed to identify if compassion benefits paranoia and, if so what type of compassion. Following a series of different compassionate exercises in 104 participants it was found that mindfulness approaches were the most significant in reducing paranoia suggesting a new approach for psychological problems characterised by paranoia

Psychological Universals in the Study of Happiness: From Social Psychology to Epicurean Philosophy

Within the framework of Positive Psychology and Needing Theories, this article reviews cultural practices or perceptions regarding what happiness is and how it can be achieved. Mainly research on Subjective Well-Being (SWB) has identified many cultural differences in the pursuit of happiness, often described as East-West splits along categories such as highly expressed affect vs. quiet affect, self-assertion vs. conformity to social norms, independence vs. interdependence and the like. However, it is the overall goal of this article to show that whatever the normative content of a culture’s or subculture’s view of happiness may be, it involves the same basic psychological needs beyond how people may choose to report or express resulting emotions. In particular, the theory of happiness proposed by the Hellenistic philosopher Epicurus provides broader, more inclusive categories and concepts which can be used to explain and possibly harmonize assumptions from particular traditions

Subjective Well-Being in Two Himalayan Communities, Post Road Development

Although the first road to ever be built into Humla, Nepal is still under construction, it has already spurred numerous sociocultural and economic changes, including an increased integration into the market economy, changing access to market-purchased foods, and new kinds of health-seeking behavior. This paper is part of a larger research project where we examined changing health and nutrition outcomes co-synchronous with the arrival of this road. In this paper, we focus on whether and how the road is affecting villagers’ subjective well-being (SWB). We studied this while living and working with people from two Humli villages, one that is on the road, and one that is far from it. In these villages, we developed two local models of SWB, using the villagers’ own conceptual frameworks and sense of the factors that play a role in wellbeing. Our analyses showed that villagers’ conceptualization of SWB varied substantially according to road proximity. Additionally, we quantified indices from villagers’ SWB assessments and tested which variables were significant determinants of wellbeing. We discovered a significant relationship between an individual’s well-being level and two variables: available resources per household and levels of social support. The purpose of this paper is threefold: to better understand how villagers from Upper Humla define SWB, to identify which subset of the population is not benefitting in terms of their SWB from the new road, and to present a mixed-methods, anthropologically-based approach for the development of a locally meaningful measure of SWB

The relationship between nature connectedness and eudaimonic well-being: A meta-analysis

Nature connectedness relates to an individual’s subjective sense of their relationship with the natural world. A recent meta-analysis has found that people who are more connected to nature also tend to have higher levels of self-reported hedonic well-being; however, no reviews have focussed on nature connection and eudaimonic well-being. This meta-analysis was undertaken to explore the relationship of nature connection with eudaimonic well-being and to test the hypothesis that this relationship is stronger than that of nature connection and hedonic well-being. From 20 samples (n = 4758), a small significant effect size was found for the relationship of nature connection and eudaimonic well-being (r = 0.24); there was no significant difference between this and the effect size (from 30 samples n = 11638) for hedonic well-being (r = 0.20). Of the eudaimonic well-being subscales, personal growth had a moderate effect size which was significantly larger than the effect sizes for autonomy, purpose in life/meaning, self-acceptance, positive relations with others and environmental mastery, but not vitality. Thus, individuals who are more connected to nature tend to have greater eudaimonic well-being, and in particular have higher levels of self-reported personal growth.University of Derb

Regret, Resilience, and the Nature of Grief

Should we regret the fact that we are often more emotionally resilient in response to the deaths of our loved ones than we might expect -- that the suffering associated with grief often dissipates more quickly and more fully than we anticipate? Dan Moller ("Love and Death") argues that we should, because this resilience epistemically severs us from our loved ones and thereby "deprives us of insight into our own condition." I argue that Moller's conclusion is correct despite resting on a mistaken picture of the nature and significance of grief. Unlike Moller, I contend that grief is a composite emotional process, rather than a single mental state; that grief is a species of emotional attention rather than perception; and that grief is a form of activity directed at placing our relationships with the deceased on new terms. It is precisely because grief has these three features that it facilitates the scrutiny of our practical identities and thus fosters self-knowledge and self-understanding