A Path to Teacher Happiness? A Sense of Meaning Affects Teacher–Student Relationships,Which Affect Job Satisfaction

Meaningful work and meaningful relationships at work have been highlighted for their potential desirable consequences for employees and organizations. The present research focuses on teaching, as a potentially meaningful occupation, and suggests that teachers’ sense of meaning at work affects teacher–student relationships, which in turn affect teachers’ job satisfaction. This hypothesized path is examined in two complementary studies. In Study 1, 312 teachers completed self-report measures of their sense of meaning at work, perceived relationships with students, and job satisfaction. Results, based on structural equation modeling analysis, showed a good fit of the data to the theoretical model. In Study 2, 120 teachers completed daily measures of their sense of meaning at work, relationships with students, and job satisfaction. Results, based on HLM analyses, confirmed daily effects of teachers’ sense of meaning on teacher–student relationships, and daily effects of perceived teacher–student relationships on teachers’ job satisfaction. These findings point to a potential path through which teachers’ sense of meaning at work may affect work outcomes and attitudes. The theoretical and practical implications for the effects of meaningfulness and relationships at work for researchers, educators, and organizations are discussed.     

Nostalgia and Temporal Life Satisfaction

Recent research has shown that nostalgia, an apparently past-oriented emotion, may render the present self more positive and promote a brighter outlook on the future. The current study examined whether experimentally induced nostalgia would impact the levels of and associations among past, present, and future life satisfaction. Among 250 university students (86 males and 164 females, aged 16–26 years), nostalgia was manipulated through the recollection of nostalgic (vs. ordinary) events. In support of our hypotheses, the results showed that nostalgic experiences not only led to a larger contrast between past life satisfaction versus present and future life satisfaction, but also weaker associations between past and future life satisfaction and between present and future life satisfaction. Overall, the findings suggest that nostalgic experiences can render more distinct judgements on temporal life satisfaction.     

Posttraumatic Growth in Children and Adolescents Exposed to the 2010 Earthquake in Chile and Its Relationship with Rumination and Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms

The aim of this study was to assess a predictive model of posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic stress symptoms in children and adolescents exposed to the earthquake in Chile in 2010. 325 children (47.4% male), aged between 10 and 15 years, were surveyed 12 months after the earthquake. The following tests were administered: the posttraumatic growth inventory for children in its brief version of Kilmer et al., the child PTSD symptom scale of Foa et al., the rumination scale for children of Crider et al., along with a scale to assess the trauma severity and a socio-demographic questionnaire. The model was assessed through a path analysis, which showed that deliberate rumination mediated the relationship between trauma severity and intrusive rumination with posttraumatic growth, that intrusive rumination mediated the relationship between the severity of the event and posttraumatic stress symptoms and that the latter mediated the relationship between intrusive rumination and posttraumatic growth. The sex was included as control variable in the path model. The final model achieved adequate fit indexes. The relevance of rumination processes for the development of the psychological consequences in children and adolescents following a natural disaster and their implications for clinical is discussed.     

Set-Point Theory and Societal Collapse: The Case of Russia

Can a society’s overall level of happiness change? Until recently, it was widely held that happiness fluctuates around set-points, so that neither individuals nor societies can lastingly increase their happiness. However, data from surveys carried out in Russia from 1982 to 2011 show that happiness fell substantially following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and has begun to rise again only recently. Additional data sources, including suicide rates and indices of negative affect expression, confirm these shifts. Contrary to set-point theory, we find that the recent increase has been driven as much by generational replacement as by mean reversion among individuals. The collapse of communism led to a permanent drop in subjective wellbeing among mid-life cohorts that was subsequently never fully recovered. Happiness can be substantially and permanently impacted by life-events, including those affecting society as a whole, and societal-level happiness can rise or fall over time as a result.     

Does Money Buy Immigrant Happiness?

The relationship between income and happiness for international immigrants has been relatively unexplored. A handful of cross-sectional studies has shown that income and happiness are positively correlated after migration, and that wealthier immigrants are more satisfied with their post-migration lives than are their less privileged peers. What is unclear is if the link between income and happiness remains positive as immigrants assimilate to life in a new country. This question is the focus of our study. Using longitudinal data from over 10,000 immigrants tracked up to 30 years in the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey, we set out to provide some insight into the long-term relationship between immigrants’ self-reported life satisfaction and the level of their income in its absolute form. Longitudinal analyses revealed that immigrants who experienced increases in income over time reported greater satisfaction with life and that the income-happiness link remained relatively stable over time. The effect of absolute income on immigrants’ happiness was, nevertheless, small. We also observed that country of origin played an important role in the post-migration association between income and happiness. Income was a stronger predictor of the life satisfaction of immigrants from poorer origins than it was for their wealthier counterparts.     

Gratitude,Psychopathology and Subjective Well-Being: Results from a 7.5-Month Prospective General Population Study

Gratitude is considered an important source of human strength in achieving and maintaining good mental health. Although complete mental health encompasses the absence of psychopathology and the presence of subjective well-being, no studies to date have examined relations between gratitude and both mental health dimensions together. Moreover, most studies focused on specific samples with a restricted demographic range. Our study, therefore, examined (a) demographic variability in the grateful trait, and (b) prospective associations between gratitude and both dimensions of mental health: psychopathology and subjective well-being. Using a four wave prospective survey design in a large (N = 706) sample of Dutch adults (M age = 44, SD age = 14, Range = 18–80), we measured gratitude with the SGRAT, symptoms of psychopathology with the SCL-90, and subjective well-being with the PANAS and SWLS. Gratitude was significantly associated with age, gender, education level, and employment status. Multilevel time-lagged regression analyses showed that the grateful trait did not predict symptoms of psychopathology, but was a significant albeit weak predictor of subjective well-being, when adjusting for the effects of demographic factors, and prior levels of subjective well-being and psychopathology. Our findings indicate that the grateful trait is associated with demographic factors, and shows complex connections with the presence of well-being and absence of psychopathology. These dynamics should be taken into consideration when studying the role of gratitude in mental health, and developing, applying, and evaluating gratitude interventions with the aim of enhancing subjective well-being and/or reducing psychopathology.     

Enhancing a Sense of Competence at Work by Engaging in Proactive Behavior: The Role of Proactive Personality

To understand how individuals’ senses of competence are cultivated, scholars have primarily focused on situational factors such as job autonomy and supervisor support. Against this backdrop, we propose that individuals can work as active agents and enhance their sense of competence by initiating actions that aim to master the environment. We adopt the behavioral concordance model and propose that people higher in proactive personality are more likely to engage in proactive behavior that elevates their senses of competence over time. We further propose that such behavioral concordance contributes to boosting a sense of competence is more prominent among those with higher proactive personality. Our predictions are supported by data from 172 employees and their direct supervisors in China, after controlling for the effect of job autonomy and supervisor support for autonomy. Specifically, only those higher in proactive personality engaged in more proactive behavior and increased their sense of competence over time. This study highlights both a self-initiated and a behavioral perspective on understanding the development of a sense of competence.     

A Research Note: Happiness by Age is More Complex than U-Shaped

Happiness varies with age, but there is no general agreement regarding the feature of the variation. Many studies have found that it is U-shaped such that there is a minimum between approximately 40 and 50 years of age. The result largely depends on the control variables used in the happiness modeling. Some authors do not even allow the use of any control variables, but the conventional theory of U-shaped studies stipulates the inclusion of such controls that essentially influence the basic living conditions of people. In this study, we do not strictly follow earlier findings but estimate our age-shape with different versions of them, using the data of 28 or 30 European countries. We also estimate a model without proper controls. This does not give any minimum age and thus supports some studies. Moreover, using any or all of our three controls some type of U-shape is found in most countries. Our U-shapes are not as simple as conventional research suggests. Minimum happiness can occur either below 40 years, or much above 50 years. A special feature is that the U-shape phenomenon holds better for males than for females. We also estimated models to see what happens after the minimum age happiness. In the case of gender models, the turning points for males are substantially lower than for females. This means that the old-age happiness of males stops to increase approximately at 70 years but more than 10 years later for females.     

What Affects Happiness Inequality? Evidence from Japan

This paper examines the determinants of happiness inequality in Japan using unique data from the “Preference Parameters Study” of Osaka University, a nationally representative survey conducted in Japan. By estimating Recentered Influence Function regressions, we find that household income has a negative and significant effect on happiness inequality, as found for other advanced economies, though people’s perception of their relative standing in the income spectrum also matters for the dispersion of happiness. Moreover, the regression results show that the insecurity faced by people about their jobs and life after retirement is also significantly associated with the widening of happiness inequality. Such findings are cause for grave concern given that the share of irregular jobs, which tend to be low paid and insecure, in total employment significantly increased in Japan during the Lost Two Decades and that this increasing trend has not yet been reversed.     

What Does “Happiness” Prompt in Your Mind? Culture,Word Choice,and Experienced Happiness

What three words come to your mind in association with “happiness”? We analyzed the 1563 words reported by 521 Korean and American participants in this free association task. The most frequently endorsed word was “family” in Korea, whereas the most popular word among Americans was “smile.” The overall frequency of social words (e.g., relationships, social emotions) reported by Koreans was higher, and the most often mentioned relationship type differed between the two groups (family in Korea; friend in the US). Nonetheless, both in Korea and the US, individuals who mentioned more social words were significantly more satisfied with their lives. The amount of social support provision mediated the link between the number of reported social words and experienced happiness. Regardless of culture, a simple count of social words associated with happiness appears to offer a reasonably good clue for how happy the person actually is.