Positive Feelings at School: On the Relationships Between Students’ Character Strengths,School-Related Affect,and School Functioning

The present study was designed to examine the relationships between students’ character strengths, school-related affect, positive school functioning (i.e., motivation to learn, interest, and engagement at class), and school achievement following the “engine model of well-being” that is focusing on inputs (e.g., personality traits), processes (e.g., moods, emotions), and outcomes (e.g., engagement, accomplishments) within the context of well-being research. A sample of 196 children completed the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth, which assesses 24 character strengths, and the PANAS-C that assesses school-related positive and negative affect. Additionally, homeroom teachers rated students’ positive school functioning (i.e., motivation, engagement, and interest at school) and their overall school achievement. The character strengths of zest, love of learning, perseverance, and social intelligence showed the strongest positive correlations with school-related positive affect. Teamwork, hope, self-regulation, and love were substantially negatively correlated with school-related negative affect. Certain character strengths showed positive relationships with positive school functioning and overall school achievement. A path model, testing the “engine model of well-being”, found—additionally to direct effects—indirect relationships between character strengths and positive school functioning (through school-related positive affect), which in turn leads to higher school achievement. The presented findings show character strengths as meaningful resources in the schooling context. Character strengths emerge to be crucial for students to experience school-related positive affect, which in turn supports students’ positive school functioning and their overall school achievement. The results demonstrate the complex interplay between students’ personality traits, affect, school functioning, and achievement at school.     

Implicit motives and basic psychological needs

The present article starts with discussing similarities and differences between conceptualizations of human needs in self‐determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan [1985], Intrinsic motivation and self‐determination in human behavior; Deci & Ryan [2000], Nebraska symposium on motivation: Perspectives on motivation) and motive disposition theory (MDT; McClelland, Human motivation, 1985). The second section focuses on the two‐process model of psychological needs (Sheldon [2011], Psychological Review, 118: 552), which aims to integrate the two approaches, whereas the third section highlights some aspects of both theories that are still decoupled or even contradictory, but nevertheless still have a high potential to be linked. These three aspects are (a) the noncorresponding concepts of implicit power motive (MDT) and basic need for autonomy (SDT); (b) the differentiation of needs into hope and fear components, which is theoretically embedded in MDT, but not in SDT; and (c) MDT researchers’ differentiation into an implicit and explicit motivational system, which is not included in SDT. Particularly, the last section highlights the potential for areas in which further integration is possible, which provides a foundation for comprehensive and exciting research on human motivation.     

Why Should I Help You? Man Up! Bystanders’ Gender Stereotypic Perceptions of a Cyberbullying Incident

Bystanders observing a cyberbullying incident do not always intervene in favor of the victim. We argue that gender stereotypic perceptions of female versus male victims contribute to the differential reactions of bystanders to cyberbullying incidents. Results of a scenario-based experiment show that participants with moderate or high levels of sexist attitudes are more empathic toward a female victim of workplace cyberbullying. Consequently, a female victim is more likely to receive help. Female victims are less likely to be attributed blame if the perpetrator is male. The results imply that male victims of cyberbullying are marginalized by their social environment.     

Association of hypertension-related distress with lack of self-care among hypertensive patients

Research on factors associated with poor adherence to self-care focuses primarily on psychiatric emotional disorders such as depression and anxiety, whereas non-psychiatric chronic-disease-related emotional distress has received little attention in hypertensive patients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the association of hypertension-related distress with the lack of self-care including low adherence to pharmacological treatment, lack of regular physical activity, low intake of fruits and vegetables and frequent intake of high-salt foods. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2014 in two family medical units affiliated with the Mexican Institute of Social Security. The study included 487 hypertensive patients >19 years of age. The conceptual framework for the study was based on the Health Promotion Model. The analysis included multiple Poisson regression models. We found that 21.1% of participants had hypertension-related distress. Low adherence to pharmacological treatment was identified in 45.8% of patients, whereas 46.8% lacked regular physical activity, 30.8% reported a low consumption of fruits and vegetables, and 54.6% frequently consumed foods high in salt content. Hypertension-related distress was associated with lack of regular physical activity and low intake of fruits and vegetables. These findings highlight the importance of addressing distress in order to improve self-care of hypertensive patients.     

Repeated Play Reduces Video Games’ Ability to Elicit Guilt: Evidence from a Longitudinal Experiment

Statements supported mostly by correlational and cross-sectional studies suggest that playing violent video games can cause emotional desensitization. A longitudinal experiment examined a) whether repeated violent game play leads to emotional desensitization and b) whether desensitization generalizes to other play and real-life experiences. Participants played alternative versions of the same violent game for the first four days; on these days, the character role was varied between-subjects to be moral (United Nations soldier) or immoral (terrorist soldier). On Day 5, all participants played a novel game as a terrorist. Results indicate two things. First, habituation occurs over repeated game play: Repeated exposure decreased the ability of the original game to elicit guilt. Second, the decreased ability to elicit guilt can generalize to other game-play experiences: Guilt elicited by the novel game on Day 5 was reduced for the immoral character condition compared to the moral character condition. The current study provides causal, longitudinal evidence regarding the potential for video game play to lead to emotional desensitization with regard to future video game-play experiences.     

Hope as empowerment model: A client-based perspective on the process of hope development

Abstract

Research on the relationship of client hope to successful therapy outcome underlines the need to discover the processes and conditions when hope flourishes. Snyder’s Hope Theory has been applied to psychotherapy but client subjective experiences are needed to illuminate nuances in the process. The present study examined the trajectory of hope development in psychotherapy using interviews with 18 counseling clients, analyzed using grounded theory methodology. Findings were synthesized into a dynamic model titled hope as empowerment model (HEM) that shares features of Snyder’s Hope Theory. HEM introduces patterns of particular salience to psychotherapy. The compatibility of client preferences with therapist input raised faith in the process of counseling and, in turn, hope in a positive outcome. A number of conditions, including the flexibility of client role preferences and the directiveness of hope-inspiring therapeutic strategies, influenced the nature and strength of client hope. Implications for therapy and positive psychology are considered.     

Evidence of a metacognitive benefit to memory?

Studies of the memory-control framework have contrasted free-report and forced-report recall, with little regard to the order of these two tests. The present experiment sought to demonstrate that test order is crucial, and that this suggests a potential role for metacognitive monitoring on memory retrieval. Participants undertook tests of episodic and semantic memory in both free- and forced-report format, in one of the two potential response orders. This showed that free-report performance was more accurate if conducted prior to forced-report, rather than after it, with no cost to memory quantity. Additionally, there was a trend towards higher forced-report performance if it was preceded by an initial free-report test, a pattern revealed by a meta-analysis to be consistent with previous studies in the literature. These findings suggest a reciprocal relationship between metacognitive monitoring and early retrieval processes in memory that results in higher memory performance when monitoring is encouraged.     

Separating the Effects of Gender and Weight-Loss Desire on Body Satisfaction and Disordered Eating Behavior

The purpose of this study was to separate the effects of gender from those of desired weight loss on body satisfaction and eating disordered behavior. Therefore, we explored gender differences in a sample (N = 191) of men and women who wanted to lose weight. We expected that controlling for desire to lose weight would minimize gender differences; this was supported for (a) overall body dissatisfaction, and (b) degree of concern about, effect of, and importance of weight and appearance. Nevertheless, women reported (a) less satisfaction with several body parts, (b) stronger relations between body satisfaction and self-esteem, and (c) use of more weight-loss strategies. Exploratory analyses also were conducted to examine within-group differences among men. Implications are discussed.     

In search of reflective behavior and shared understanding in ad hoc expert teams.

The work reported on here concentrates on virtual ad hoc expert teams for the integration of learning and working, as ad hoc teams seem to be one way to cope with complexity in a knowledge-intensive society. In order to let ad hoc teams learn and work together, group members require effective communication and shared understanding among each other. Two empirical studies were conducted to study collaborative learning and shared understanding, one exploratory study and one experiment. In the first study, it was explored how virtual design teams work and learn together. Based on conceptual ideas, collaborative learning and shared understanding were observed and assessed in a design team over a period of four months. It was concluded that shared understanding was suboptimal; mainly due to the effect that hardly any questions were raised and answered. The second study elaborates on the need to encourage question-answer patterns and reflective behavior in such teams. A tool was developed that supported questioning behavior. As it was hypothesized that this tool leads to better questioning behavior, which in turn results in more reflective behavior and in increased shared understanding, an experiment was conducted. In the exploratory study, as well as in the experimental study, the perceived shared understanding increased over time. However, in both studies suboptimal questioning behavior and little reflective activity were noticed. The main results of the two empirical studies are compared and discussed.