Influencing value priorities and increasing well-being: The effects of reflecting on intrinsic values

A four-week experimental study (N?=?113) examined the effects of reflecting on intrinsic values. In the experimental group, participants learned about the distinction between intrinsic (e.g. having close relationships) and extrinsic (e.g. being popular) values, wrote about two personal intrinsic values, and then reflected on these values weekly for four weeks. In the control group, participants completed parallel exercises related to the daily details of their lives. Results revealed that participants in the intrinsic values group experienced greater well-being immediately following the written reflection than participants in the control group. Four weeks later, the more engaged participants felt in the reflection exercises, the more they prioritized intrinsic over extrinsic values and the greater their well-being. These effects occurred only for participants in the intrinsic values condition. The implications for changing value priorities and improving well-being are discussed.     

An examination of patience and well-being

Patience is the propensity to wait calmly in the face of frustration or adversity. The new 3-Factor Patience Scale (Study 1) measures three types of patience (interpersonal, life hardship, and daily hassles patience), which differentially relate to well-being and personality. In Study 2, goal pursuit and achievement mediated the relation between patience and well-being. Participants rated 10 personal goals on 15 dimensions of goal pursuit (e.g. patience enacted, difficulty, achievement satisfaction, effort). Patience facilitated goal pursuit and satisfaction especially in the face of obstacles. In Study 3, participants took part in a training program designed to increase trait patience. The program led to increased patience, decreased depression, and increased positive affect relative to a control condition, suggesting that patience may be modifiable.     

What’s in a face? Perhaps some elements of both eudaimonic and hedonic well-being

The idea that eudaimonic well-being (EWB) should be distinguished from the more widespread notion of hedonic well-being (HWB), has stirred up disagreement among happiness researchers. Siding with EWB researchers, this study provides theoretical and empirical arguments supporting the distinctiveness and usefulness of a EWB dimension. A path model with data from Norwegian university students (N?=?184) showed that, when requested to draw both a happy face and a sad face, indicators of HWB were associated with a preference for working with the happy rather than the sad face. Indicators of EWB were uncorrelated with this hedonic bias. Eudaimonic feeling states were associated with the level of creativity involved in the drawings, while hedonic feelings were not. Finally, participants who draw bigger faces also felt more pleasure during the act of drawing. Eudaimonic feelings were unrelated to the size of the drawing.     

Abstract construals make the emotional rewards of prosocial behavior more salient

Although previous research has shown that helping others leads to higher happiness than helping oneself, people frequently predict that self-serving behavior will make them happier than prosocial behavior. Here, we explore whether abstract construal – thinking about an event from a higher level, distanced perspective – influences predictions about how rewarding prosocial actions will be for people’s own well-being. In Experiment 1, Hurricane Katrina volunteers who adopted an abstract construal predicted that their efforts would be more rewarding than did volunteers who adopted a concrete construal. Experiment 2 provided a conceptual replication with a hypothetical donation scenario; people who adopted an abstract rather than concrete construal predicted that giving more money would be more rewarding than giving less. These findings suggest that people are more likely to appreciate the emotional benefits of prosocial actions when they adopt high-level construals than when they adopt low-level construals.     

Uncertainty avoidance moderates the link between faith and subjective well-being around the world

Theorists have suggested that faith in God can play an important role in the relief of anxiety associated with uncertainty. Yet little is known about the impact of national differences in uncertainty avoidance – the degree to which uncertainty is threatening to members of a culture – on the relationship between faith and subjective well-being. In the present study, we investigated faith’s relationships with psychological well-being in the World and European Values Surveys for nearly 240,000 people in 92 countries, and the role national uncertainty avoidance plays in modifying these relationships. We found that faith was positively related to subjective well-being around the world overall, but this relationship was moderated by uncertainty avoidance. In particular, the relationship between faith and well-being was strongest in nations characterized by the highest levels of uncertainty avoidance. Our results suggest that cultural norms of uncertainty avoidance play a role in determining faith’s role in psychological functioning.     

Having the will and finding the way: A review and meta-analysis of hope at work

Critics of the field of positive organizational psychology have expressed reservations with validity and utility of positive constructs, such as hope. The purpose of this article is to systematically review the existing research on hope at work and to determine the ‘true’ relationship between hope and work outcomes by meta-analyzing 133 effect sizes across 45 primary studies based on 11,139 employees. As predicted, we found that the overall corrected mean effect sizes between hope and work performance and employee well-being were positive and statistically significant. Gender and study location were significant moderators of these relationships, with women and US-based studies having stronger hope to work outcomes effects. Taken together, results demonstrate that positive psychology constructs, such as hope, play an important role in understanding and predicting employee behavior.     

A psycho-social system approach to well-being: Empirically deriving the Five Domains of Positive Functioning

A new psycho-social system approach to well-being is presented, in which psychological and social functioning is understood through an empirically derived framework of five domains. A quantitative co-term analysis was performed on 3466 terms within 18,401 PsycINFO^® journal documents on topics related to positive psychology (PP) across disciplines such as psychology, education, management, business and psychiatry. The analysis revealed that research on PP topics can be classified into five broad domains: attention and awareness, comprehension and coping, emotions, goals and habits, and virtues and relationships. These domains provide a new systematic framework, the Five Domains of Positive Functioning, for understanding positive psycho-social functioning and exploring the underlying ways in which people function to achieve well-being outcomes. When used within the psycho-social system approach, the framework can be used in future research to clarify mechanisms of change, facilitate comparisons between different PP interventions and suggest ways to improve intervention effectiveness.     

Revisiting desirable response bias in well-being reports

Growing popular interest in positive psychology may have important implications for the measurement of well-being. Five studies tested the prediction that well-being ratings are influenced by desirability bias. In Study 1, participants (N?=?176) instructed to fake good endorsed higher well-being; those instructed to fake bad endorsed lower well-being, compared to controls. In Studies 2 and 3 (N’s?=?111, 121), control participants endorsed higher levels of well-being compared to those attached to a bogus pipeline. These differences were mediated by desirability bias. In Study 4 (N?=?417), instruction manipulations did not affect well-being levels, but presenting a desirability measure prior to well-being measures attenuated the correlations between them. In Study 5 (N?=?391), however, this order effect did not replicate. We discuss the importance of continued vigilance for desirability bias in well-being research as a ready solution to this clear problem remains elusive.     

Counterfactual thinking about one’s birth enhances well-being judgments

Previous research demonstrates that thinking counterfactually about life experiences facilitates meaning making about those events. Two studies extend this work into the well-being domain by examining the effects of writing factually or counterfactually about one’s birth on well-being. In Study 1, participants (N?=?252) were randomly assigned to write factually or counterfactually about their births or the election of Barack Obama and then completed measures of meaning in life and life satisfaction. Writing counterfactually about one’s birth led to higher evaluations of life relative to all other groups. In Study 2, (N?=?98) participants wrote factually or counterfactually about their births and again completed well-being measures. Fate attributions, probability estimates, and feelings of luck were explored as potential mediators. The effect on well-being from Study 1 replicated, but was not driven by any of the measured variables. Implications for existential psychology and well-being research are discussed.     

Is the grass always greener on the other side? Social comparisons of subjective well-being

This study investigates subjective well-being (SWB) among residents of Munich (n?=?380) and Venice (n?=?545) with respect to their individual SWB and their judgments of SWB for residents of their own city and those living in the other city. Our results indicate that egocentrism rather than striving for self-enhancement guided people's judgments of SWB. For people with low individual SWB, a below-average effect was found, whereas for people with high individual SWB, a better-than-average effect emerged. Also in line with the egocentrism approach, judgments of individual SWB were positively related to the judgments of SWB for residents of their own city, but unrelated to SWB of those living in the other city. Implications for future research are discussed.