Emotion Regulation in Adolescent Well-Being and Positive Education

Emotion regulation (ER) becomes increasingly important across adolescent development, and promotes psychological flexibility, resilience and well-being in youth. Positive education programs (PEPs) combine academic training with positive psychology interventions (PPIs) to increase well-being and reduce mental ill-health. Despite considerable overlap between PPIs and ER models, the role and relevance of ER to PEPs remains unclear. This review aimed to evaluate the relationship of ER to PEPs targeting adolescents. First, to evaluate the relationship of ER to domains of well-being targeted by school-based PPIs. Second, to examine whether school-based PPIs can improve adolescents’ ER capacity. Third, to evaluate the role of ER in well-being outcomes of PEPs. Results support the relevance of ER to domains of well-being outlined by the revised PERMA model, including positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and health. ER can influence the degree to which students benefit from PEP participation. It remains to be determined whether ER capacity is improved as a result of exposure to positive education programs. Findings are limited by the small and heterogeneous group of interventions examined, and the use of inconsistent ER measures. Further research of the role of ER in positive education may contribute to greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying their effectiveness and further promote the psychological well-being of adolescents.     

Positive affective processes underlie positive health behaviour change

Positive health behaviours such as physical activity can prevent or reverse many chronic conditions, yet a majority of people fall short of leading a healthy lifestyle. Recent discoveries in affective science point to promising approaches to circumvent barriers to lifestyle change. Here, we present a new theoretical framework that integrates scientific knowledge about positive affect with that on implicit processes. The upward spiral theory of lifestyle change explains how positive affect can facilitate long-term adherence to positive health behaviours. The inner loop of this spiral model identifies nonconscious motives as a central mechanism of behavioural maintenance. Positive affect experienced during health behaviours increases incentive salience for cues associated with those behaviours, which in turn, implicitly guides attention and the everyday decisions to repeat those behaviours. The outer loop represents the evidence-backed claim, based on Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, that positive affect builds a suite of endogenous resources, which may in turn amplify the positive affect experienced during positive health behaviours and strengthen the nonconscious motives. We offer published and preliminary evidence in favour of the theory, contrast it to other dominant theories of health behaviour change, and highlight attendant implications for interventions that merit testing.     

Politics of Addressing,Problems of Reception: To Whom Are Anglophone Indian Philosophers Speaking?

The demand for the recognition of non-Western philosophy has often brought about the opposition of substantialized entities such as ‘India’ and the ‘West,’ which has nourished the drifts of nationalistic rhetoric. As a decolonizing process but also as a deconstruction of nationalistic revivals, it is necessary to investigate the presuppositions involved when defining ‘Indian philosophy’ in these post-colonial demands for recognition. Considering that the understanding of what is ‘Indian philosophy’ and its claim for recognition is a prerequisite for its reception, I focus in this paper on analyzing the problems of reception of post-colonial Anglophone Indian philosophy. What is it today that prevents the reception of Anglophone Indian philosophy in Indian academics and in the global world? Leaving aside the insufficient integration in Western structures of non-Western philosophies, I focus here on the internal difficulties of Anglophone Indian philosophy in India today. I suggest that the following interrelated obstacles prevent a global reception: the language, in terms of disparity of linguistic communities; the conditions of distribution and diffusion of the philosophical material; the historical rupture in the forms of transmission of knowledge; regionalism or fragmentation into micro-groups; and finally, the complexity of the situation of utterance or enunciative context, namely, the difficulty for Indian philosophers to answer the question: to whom are we speaking?     

A complex dynamic systems approach to lasting positive change: The Synergistic Change Model

This paper argues that psychological and social functioning is fundamentally complex, and that this complexity is critical to understanding how lasting positive changes can be achieved. Principles from complex systems theory are integrated into an empirical positive psychological framework to propose a domain-based systems model of positive change called the Synergistic Change Model. This model proposes that enduring positive change depends on the formation of mutually supportive interactions across multiple domains of psychological and social functioning. The paper uses the model to explore three types of response to intervention – relapse, spill-over, and synergy – which have been supported in the existing positive psychology literature. Three practical intervention strategies arising from the model are outlined to inform the design of future positive interventions. The model challenges reductionistic approaches to positive change and offers several approaches to embrace the complexities of lasting positive change in future theory and research.     

The Same yet Different: Oral and Silent Reading in Children and Adolescents with Dyslexia

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Dyslexia is characterized by poor word reading. In research, education, and diagnosis, oral reading is commonly assessed, and outcomes are generalized to...