Does climate undermine subjective well-being? A 58-nation study

The authors test predictions from climato-economic theories of culture that climate and wealth interact in their influence on psychological processes. Demanding climates (defined as colder than temperate and hotter than temperate climates) create potential threats for humans. If these demands can be met by available economic resources, individuals experience challenging opportunities for self-expression and personal growth and consequently will report lowest levels of ill-being. If threatening climatic demands cannot be met by resources, resulting levels of reported ill-being will be highest. These predictions are confirmed in nation-level means of health complaints, burnout, anxiety, and depression across 58 societies. Climate, wealth, and their interaction together account for 35% of the variation in overall subjective ill-being, even when controlling for known predictors of subjective well-being. Further investigations of the process suggest that cultural individualism does not mediate these effects, but subjective well-being may function as a mediator of the impact of ecological variables on ill-being.     

Prenatal and Posthumous Non-Existence: A Reply to Johansson

We have argued that it is rational to have asymmetric attitudes toward prenatal and posthumous non-existence insofar as this asymmetry is a special case of a more general (and arguably rational) asymmetry in our attitudes toward past and future pleasures. Here we respond to an interesting critique of our view by Jens Johansson. We contend that his critique involves a crucial and illicit switch in temporal perspectives in the process of considering modal claims (sending us to other possible worlds).     

Misunderstood Stoicism: The negative Association Between Stoic Ideology and well-Being

Journal of Happiness Studies - Ancient philosophy proposed a wide range of possible approaches to life which may enhance well-being. Stoic philosophy has influenced various therapeutic traditions....     

Longitudinal Impact of a Family Critical Time Intervention on Children in High-Risk Families Experiencing Homelessness: A Randomized Trial

A randomized trial compared effects of a Family Critical Time Intervention (FCTI) to usual care for children in 200 newly homeless families in which mothers had diagnosable mental illness or substance problems. Adapted from an evidence‐based practice to prevent chronic homelessness for adults with mental illnesses, FCTI combines housing and structured, time‐limited case management to connect families leaving shelter with community services. Families were followed at five time points over 24 months. Data on 311 children—99 ages 1.5–5 years, 113 ages 6–10 years, and 99 ages 11–16 years—included mother‐, teacher‐, and child‐reports of mental health, school experiences, and psychosocial well‐being. Analyses used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate intervention effects and changes in child functioning over time. Referral to FCTI reduced internalizing and externalizing problems in preschool‐aged children and externalizing for adolescents 11–16. The intervention led to declines in self‐reported school troubles for children 6–10 and 11–16. Both experimental and control children in all age groups showed reductions in symptoms over time. Although experimental results were scattered, they suggest that FCTI has the potential to improve mental health and school outcomes for children experiencing homelessness.     

Terror management and religion: evidence that intrinsic religiousness mitigates worldview defense following mortality salience

Terror management theory suggests that people cope with awareness of death by investing in some kind of literal or symbolic immortality. Given the centrality of death transcendence beliefs in most religions, the authors hypothesized that religious beliefs play a protective role in managing terror of death. The authors report three studies suggesting that affirming intrinsic religiousness reduces both death-thought accessibility following mortality salience and the use of terror management defenses with regard to a secular belief system. Study 1 showed that after a naturally occurring reminder of mortality, people who scored high on intrinsic religiousness did not react with worldview defense, whereas people low on intrinsic religiousness did. Study 2 specified that intrinsic religious belief mitigated worldview defense only if participants had the opportunity to affirm their religious beliefs. Study 3 illustrated that affirmation of religious belief decreased death-thought accessibility following mortality salience only for those participants who scored high on the intrinsic religiousness scale. Taken as a whole, these results suggest that only those people who are intrinsically vested in their religion derive terror management benefits from religious beliefs.     

Coping with terrorism: the impact of increased salience of terrorism on mood and self-efficacy of intrinsically religious and nonreligious people

It was hypothesized that intrinsic religiousness helps to cope with increased salience of terrorism. Intrinsically religious and non-religious participants were told that it is highly probable or highly improbable, respectively, that terrorist attacks will occur in Germany. High probability of terrorism only negatively affected the mood of non-religious participants but not of intrinsically religious participants (Study 1). Using as a realistic context of investigation the terrorist suicide bombings in Istanbul, the authors replicated this finding and shed some light on the underlying psychological processes (Study 2): On the day of the terrorist attacks (high salience of terrorism), non-religious participants experienced less positive emotions and less self-efficacy than did intrinsically religious participants. Two months later (low salience of terrorism), no differences were found between non-religious and intrinsically religious participants with regard to mood and self-efficacy. Mediational analyses suggested that the mood effects were associated with differences in the reported sense of self-efficacy.     

Moving farther but faster: an exception to Fitts's law

Fitts's law holds that movement time (MT) increases with longer distances. Here we report a violation of this law: When the target appears in a structured, linear display with placeholders indicating the possible target locations, MT to the most distant target is not longer than MT to the second most distant target, but rather tends to be shorter. Furthermore, the presence of placeholders attenuates the range effect that occurs in the absence of placeholders. These findings suggest that Fitts's law may be limited to egocentric visuomotor action, and that the visual control of hand movements may use allocentric, in addition to egocentric, spatial information.