Personality Strengths as Resilience: A One‐Year Multiwave Study

We examined how personality strengths prospectively predict reactions to negative life events. Participants were 797 community adults from 42 countries. At five points over the course of 1 year, participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring seven personality strengths (hope, grit, meaning in life, curiosity, gratitude, control beliefs, and use of strengths), subjective well‐being, and frequency and severity of negative life events. Using hierarchical linear modeling with assessment periods nested within participants, results from lagged analyses found that only hope emerged as a resilience factor. To illustrate the importance of using appropriate lagged analyses in resilience research, we ran nonlagged analyses; these results suggest that all seven personality strengths moderated the effect of negative life events on subjective well‐being, with greater strengths associated with healthier outcomes. To provide evidence that personality strengths confer resilience, a prospective examination is needed with the inclusion of events and responses to them. The use of concurrent methodologies and analyses, which is the norm in psychology, often leads to erroneous conclusions. Hope, the ability to generate routes to reach goals and the motivation to use those routes, was shown to be particularly important in promoting resilience.     

Die Sachverständigenexpertise im Spannungsfeld zwischen Justiz und Psychiatrie am Beispiel des Hangbegriffes des § 66 StGB (Sicherungsverwahrung)

Using the example of psychiatric expert opinions in trials leading to preventive detention, we analysed how far the corresponding orders by the courts were suited to guide the psychiatric experts and restrict them to their area of expertise. Furthermore we concentrated on the question, what reasons were given for preventive detention on both psychiatric and judicial side and how psychiatric arguments were adopted by the judges. Our results show clearly, that placing an order with the psychiatric expert as well as adopting the psychiatric arguments for preventive detention occur mainly in a stereotypic way. Psychiatric and judicial arguments for preventive detention refer both to previous delinquency. Aspects concerning the offenders personality appear to be secondary, although they play a major role in the decision for preventive detention. The article shows the controversy associated with forensic-psychiatric expertise in the courtroom and the need for communication and clarification between psychiatry and law.     

Athanasios Koukopoulos (1931–2013)

With the death of Athanasios Koukopoulos last year, psychiatry lost one of its most stimulating and scientifically influential representatives has been lost. His main scientific contributions are in the course of manic depressive illnesses and mixed affective states. Perhaps his most important contribution to modern psychiatry are his studies on the use of antidepressants in bipolar disorder. He was able to show that antidepressants attenuate the beneficial effects of lithium, can trigger mania, and can lead to cycle acceleration and rapid cycling.     

Measuring well-being: A comparison of subjective well-being and PERMA

We compared Seligman’s PERMA model of well-being with Diener’s model of subjective well-being (SWB) to determine if the newer PERMA captured a type of well-being unique from the older SWB. Participants were 517 adults who completed self-report measures of SWB, PERMA, and VIA character strengths. Results from four analytic techniques suggest the factor underlying PERMA is capturing the same type of well-being as SWB. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded a latent correlation of r = 0.98 between SWB and PERMA. Exploratory structural equation modeling found two highly related factors (r = 0.85) that did not map onto PERMA and SWB. SWB and PERMA factors showed similar relationships with 24 character strengths (average correlation difference = 0.02). Latent profile analyses yielded subgroups of people who merely scored high, low, or mid-range on well-being indicators. Our findings suggest that while lower-order indicators SWB and PERMA have unique features, they converge onto a single well-being factor.