Do core self‐evaluations and trait emotional intelligence predict subjective well‐being in dental students?

We examined unique associations between surface personality traits of emotional intelligence, core self‐evaluations, and subjective well‐being in dental students. A cross‐sectional study of 218 undergraduates showed that trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) and core self‐evaluations (CSE) predicted subjective well‐being controlling the Big Five personality traits. Structural equation modeling showed that trait EI and the neuroticism component of CSE better predicted affective components of subjective well‐being, and cognitive CSE traits (self‐esteem, self‐efficacy, and locus of control) better predicted life satisfaction, the cognitive component of subjective well‐being. These findings demonstrate the utility of a parallel‐process approach that specifies differential prediction of cognitive and affective subjective well‐being components.     

Does well‐being contribute to performance? Emotional security,teacher support and learning behaviour in kindergarten

In this study, we examined relations between kindergartner's emotional security, task involvement and achievement and teacher's supportive presence in a cognitive training setting, in which the familiarity of the teacher was varied. Participants were 48 kindergarten children (mean age=51.65 months); 16 children were trained by their regular teacher (experimental group 1), 16 by a less familiar teacher (experimental group 2) and 16 received no training (control group). In three training sessions, children worked in pairs on a new categorization and recall task. Trained observers rated children's emotional insecurity and task involvement and teacher's supportive presence. Furthermore, spontaneous recall during the training was assessed. In addition, categorization and spontaneous recall was measured in various test sessions. Children's emotional insecurity during training negatively affected involvement. Involvement on its turn positively influenced spontaneous recall during training. In addition, emotional insecurity had a direct negative effect on spontaneous recall in a test situation. No effect of familiarity or supportive presence of the teacher on emotional security was found. Training conditions did not affect test performances. Findings suggest that children's involvement is important for learning and that experiences of emotional insecurity may negatively affect task involvement, test performance and eventually school achievement. Teachers in general seem capable of providing children with some sense of security. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Volunteering and well‐being: is pleasure‐based rather than pressure‐based prosocial motivation that which is related to positive effects?

This article seeks to establish whether prosocial motivation in a sample of 251 volunteers is based on pleasure and not on pressure, which is related to the states of general well‐being (hedonic and eudaimonic measures) and the various states of well‐being specifically associated with volunteerism (volunteer satisfaction, volunteer engagement, and study enjoyment), all of this irrespective of the age of the volunteers. An analysis of partial correlations and linear regression leads to the conclusion that volunteerism undertaken as a non‐obligatory, planned helping activity, sustained over time and within an organizational context, is not always associated with positive effects in terms of well‐being. It seems that these positive effects are related to pleasure‐based prosocial motivation.     

Do humor styles matter in the relationship between personality and subjective well‐being?

The primary goal of this research was to examine the role of humor styles in the relationships between personality (extraversion and neuroticism) and two components of subjective well-being: life satisfaction and affective well-being. The sample consisted of 225 young adults, with mean age 23.61 years. Results indicated that the relationship between both extraversion and neuroticism and satisfaction with life could be partially explained by the mediating role of self-enhancing humor. Additionally, affiliative humor proved to be a partial mediator of the relationship between neuroticism and affective well-being. The findings of this research suggested that adaptive humor styles might be one of the mechanisms linking personality and subjective well-being.     

Partner‐AMP and well‐being: Evidence for an implicit secure base script?

The current research presents an adapted Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) to assess the aspects of the relational schema of romantic partners that are difficult to verbalize and tests the prediction that a positive implicit image of the partner constitutes a psychological resource that increases well‐being. In Study 1, the partner‐AMP predicted well‐being in student participants even after controlling for explicit partner attitudes and socially desirable responding. In Study 2, the partner‐AMP was assessed in women with a recent history of physical abuse and a control group. As expected, the partner‐AMP was related to group membership and predicted well‐being over and above explicit partner attitudes and battering experience. The results are compatible with the notion of an implicit secure base schema.     

Does gratitude always work? Ambivalence over emotional expression inhibits the beneficial effect of gratitude on well‐being

The psychological benefit of gratitude has been well demonstrated in previous studies. However, when we examined these studies closely, we found that the moderators were rarely investigated, suggesting that further work is needed to explore the boundaries of gratitude In this regard, the authors have proposed that ambivalence over emotional expression might be a potential moderator that would inhibit the beneficial effect of gratitude on well-being. Two studies were conducted to examine our hypothesis. Study 1 consisted of 353 Taiwanese college students who completed the Gratitude Questionnaire-Taiwan version (GQ-T), Ambivalence over Emotional Expression Questionnaire (AEQ), and one question about subjective happiness. We found that ambivalence over emotional expression significantly moderated the effect of gratitude on happiness. To validate our findings in Study 1, 233 Taiwanese college students were recruited for Study 2, and they completed the GQ-T, AEQ, subjective happiness short-form UCLA loneliness scale, as well as the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Both studies demonstrated that ambivalence over emotional expression moderated the relationship between gratitude and well-being indexes. Simply stated, the authors found that across the two independent samples, among students who are high in ambivalence over emotional expression, the beneficial effect of gratitude on subjective happiness was inhibited. However, the moderating pattern for loneliness and depression was contrary to our expectations, indicating that high ambivalence over emotional expression does not inhibit gratitude. Possible explanations and implications for social relationships and emotional expression are discussed.     

Working together or separately? The role of identity and cultural self‐construal in well‐being among Japanese youth

Young people develop a sense of personal identity during the transition to adulthood, a time when individuals choose and adhere to a specific set of goals, values, and beliefs. In addition, in many contemporary Asian societies, youth are expected to acquire and balance traditional and Western cultural views of the self — that is, independent and interdependent self‐construal. To understand the relationships between the personal and cultural facets of the transition to adulthood, this study examined (a) associations between personal identity and well‐being and (b) the possible moderating role of cultural self‐construal (independence and interdependence) in this link. These hypotheses were tested in a sample of 520 Japanese university students (52.6% female). The results indicated that personal identity predicted each dimension of well‐being, suggesting that the importance of personal identity in promoting youth's well‐being can be understood as a universal phenomenon. Moreover, because the moderating role of self‐construal in the links between identity and well‐being was found to be limited, personal identity can be viewed as operating separately from self‐construal in well‐being to a large extent. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Physical posture: Could it have regulatory or feedback effects on motivation and emotion?

Four studies were conducted in a laboratory setting to examine whether variations in physical posture can have a regulatory or feedback role affecting motivation and emotion. The results of the first study, which were replicated in the second study, revealed that subjects who had been temporarily placed in a slumped, depressed physical posture later appeared to develop helplessness more readily, as assessed by their lack of persistence in a standard learned helplessness task, than did subjects who had been placed in an expansive, upright posture; surprisingly, there were no differences in verbal reports. The third study established that physical posture was an important cue in observers' verbal reports of depression in another person. The fourth study further explored the role of posture in self-reports of emotion using another posture. The results indicated that subjects who were placed in a hunched, threatened physical posture verbally reported self-perceptions of greater stress than subjects who were placed in a relaxed position. The findings of these studies are interpreted in terms of self-perception theory. It is suggested that physical postures of the body are one of several types of cues that can affect emotional experience and behavior.The thanks of the authors are extended to Irving L. Janis, Myron Rothbart, and some previous anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article.     

Does attention have different effects on line orientation and line arrangement discrimination?

Visual search and texture segregation studies have led to the inference that stimuli differing in the orientation of their component line segments can be distinguished without focal attention, whereas stimuli that differ only in the arrangement of line segments cannot. In most of this research, the locus of attention has not been explicitly manipulated. In the first experiment presented here, attention was directed to a relevant peripheral target by a cue presented near the target location or at the fovea. Effects of attention on orientation discrimination were assessed in a two-alternative forced-choice task with targets that were either: (1) lines that slanted obliquely to the right or left, or were horizontal or vertical, or (2) Y-like targets that had a short arm leading obliquely right or left of a vertical line. In some groups, a four-alternative forced-choice test with lines at 0°, 45°, 90°, and 135° orientations was used. Discrimination of these targets (i.e. targets that differ in the orientation of component line segments) was only minimally facilitated as the time between the onset of the valid cue and the onset of the target (cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA) was increased from 0 or 17 msec to 267 msec. In contrast, discrimination of targets that did not differ in the orientation of component line segments but differed in line arrangement (T-like characters), was greatly facilitated by longer cue-target SOAs. In Experiment 2, a cue misdirected attention on 20% of the trials. A decrement occurred on incorrectly cued trials in comparison to correctly cued trials for both types of stimuli used (lines and Ts). The results from these experiments suggest that discrimination of line orientation benefits less from focal attention than does discrimination of line arrangement, but that both discriminations suffer when attention must be disengaged from an irrelevant spatial location.     

Do university students really have difficulty in duration judgments? Comment on Okazaki and Matsuda (2008, 2010)

Reinterpretation suggests that low performance of the participants studied by Okazaki and Matsuda (2008, 2010) may have been caused by using a procedure which overloads the cognitive capacities of undergraduate students. The questions asked participants about their reasoning could have led to cognitive overload because they performed two tasks: judgment of movement duration and paying attention to what kind of knowledge should be used (alpha or beta). Some interpretations are offered referring to possible effects of training procedures for applying both kinds of knowledge.     

The impact of COVID-19 triggered changes to instruction and assessment on university students’ self-reported motivation,engagement and perceptions

Social Psychology of Education - During the northern hemisphere Winter 2020 academic term, university students had to adjust to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This abrupt...     

Should I plan? Planning effects on perceived effort and motivation in goal pursuit

This research investigates how forming a plan can have both beneficial and detrimental effects on people's motivation to pursue a goal. We propose that forming a plan makes the necessary steps to pursue a goal salient, directing attention to the effort involved in executing these steps, which ultimately affects perceptions of required effort and motivation. We theorize that the impact of forming plans on motivation in goal pursuit depends on the level of difficulty to achieve a goal. When a goal is relatively easy to achieve, planning should make goal pursuit seem less effortful, thereby decreasing motivation to pursue the goal. When a goal is more difficult to achieve, planning should make goal pursuit seem more effortful, which ironically should increase motivation to pursue it. Three studies demonstrate how plans influence motivation in the domains of losing weight and saving money. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Which types of income matter most for well‐being in China: Absolute,relative or income aspirations?

China has experienced remarkable economic growth, but that has not been associated with increases in individual well‐being, implying that well‐being may not be sensitive to increases in absolute income (AI). Thus, the relationship between well‐being and other types of income is worth investigating. This study employed a national sample of 5471 respondents from 31 provinces of China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) to compare the effects of AI, relative income (RI) and income aspirations (IA) on individual well‐being in China. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis found that, compared to AI and RI, IA explained more variation in well‐being. These findings highlight the importance of IA for well‐being among the Chinese.     

A balanced time perspective: Is it an exercise in empiricism,and does it relate meaningfully to health and well‐being outcomes?

Time perspective research assesses the degree to which thoughts and feelings about the past, present and future influence behaviour, and a balanced time perspective profile has been posited as being ideal. Although this area of research has seen a move towards person‐centred analyses, using either cluster analyses or a deviation from balanced time perspective (DBTP) approach, there are a number of theoretical and methodological issues that must be addressed. Using data from diverse samples in four countries, the present study used both cluster analyses and the DBTP approach to assess how cluster membership and DBTP scores related to a range of health and well‐being outcomes. As in previous studies, a balanced profile only emerged once in cluster analyses, and positive‐oriented profiles were associated with optimal outcomes. The study also found evidence of a relationship between DBTP scores and scores on well‐being indicators. However, results gained after manipulating the DBTP equation in two different ways again indicated that higher than expected positive past and present or past and future scores were responsible for the positive outcomes. As such, these findings raise concerns regarding the use of the DBTP construct within clinical settings.     

Job Complexity,Performance, and Well‐being: When Does Supplies‐Values Fit Matter?*

We extend person–job fit research by investigating job performance as a moderator of the supplies–values fit relationship with strain outcomes (somatic complaints and depression). Drawing on cybernetic stress and psychological centrality perspectives, we argue that supplies–values misfit relates to lower well‐being levels when job performance is low but that this effect is attenuated when job performance is high. The results are consistent with this prediction across 3 studies that provide progressively more rigorous tests of the hypothesis. Implications of the results for theoretical and empirical person–job fit research are addressed.     

Does being attractive always help? Positive and negative effects of attractiveness on social decision making

Previous studies of organizational decision making demonstrate an abundance of positive biases directed toward highly attractive individuals. The current research, in contrast, suggests that when the person being evaluated is of the same sex as the evaluator, attractiveness hurts, rather than helps. Three experiments assessing evaluations of potential job candidates (Studies 1 and 3) and university applicants (Study 2) demonstrated positive biases toward highly attractive other-sex targets but negative biases toward highly attractive same-sex targets. This pattern was mediated by variability in participants' desire to interact with versus avoid the target individual (Studies 1 and 2) and was moderated by participants' level of self-esteem (Study 3); the derogation of attractive same-sex targets was not observed among people with high self-esteem. Findings demonstrate an important exception to the positive effects of attractiveness in organizational settings and suggest that negative responses to attractive same-sex targets stem from perceptions of self-threat.     

When and why is helping others good for well‐being? The role of belief in reciprocity and conformity to society's expectations

This research investigates the relation between informal help and subjective well‐being and its underlying mechanisms using a cross‐national perspective. We focus on two potential mechanisms derived from the self‐determination theory and conformity to the social norms literature. From the standpoint of self‐determination theory, helping others is good for well‐being if it is intrinsically motivated, rather than driven by the expectation of reciprocity. On the other hand, from the perspective of the conformity literature, helping others is associated with a higher well‐being when it is linked to the benefits of social conformity, such as social approval. We tested these hypotheses using the data from a total of 23 countries. The results provided support for both mechanisms. First, we found that the lower individuals' beliefs in reciprocity are, the stronger is the positive effect of self‐reported helping behavior on their well‐being. Second, helping behavior was more strongly related to life satisfaction in countries where providing help represents a strong social norm (measured with two different cultural indicators). We conclude that both individual‐ and culture‐level mechanisms account for the relation between prosocial behavior and well‐being. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does peace have a prayer? The effect of mortality salience, compassionate values, and religious fundamentalism on hostility toward out-groups

Religious fundamentalism has been shown to be associated with higher levels of prejudice, ethnocentrism, and militarism, in spite of the compassionate values promoted by the religious faiths that most fundamentalists believe in. Based on terror management theory, we hypothesized that priming these compassionate values would encourage a shift toward less support for violent solutions to the current Middle Eastern conflict, especially when they are combined with reminders of one’s mortality. Study 1 demonstrated that among Americans, religious fundamentalism was associated with greater support for extreme military interventions, except when participants were reminded of their mortality and primed with compassionate religious values. The combination of mortality salience and compassionate religious values led to significant decreases in support for such interventions among high but not low fundamentalists. Study 2 replicated this finding and showed that it depends on the association of the compassionate values with an authoritative religious source; presentation of these values in a secular context had no effect on fundamentalists. Study 3 replicated these effects in a sample of Iranian Shiite Muslims: although a reminder of death increased anti-Western attitudes among participants primed with secular compassionate values, it decreased anti-Western attitudes among those primed with compassionate values from the Koran.     

Linking exercise and causality orientations to change in well‐being among older adults: does change in motivational variables play a role?

A self‐determination theory process model of change in well‐being was tested among older adults in a 16‐week randomized exercise‐trial (n = 118, M = 74.3 years, SD = 4.6, 68% females). The exercise intervention increased participants' autonomous motivation and perceived competence over the first 7 weeks. Moreover, autonomous orientation gave rise to perceived competence, while impersonal orientation was related to increased controlled motivation. Changes in motivational variables were positively related to changes in vitality over the trial, while change in controlled motivation was negatively related to changes in vitality and subjective well‐being. Bootstrapping analyses supported an indirect exercise–vitality path through autonomous motivation and perceived competence, and an indirect autonomous orientation–vitality path through perceived competence.