Integrating psychological and cultural perspectives on virtue: The hierarchical structure of character strengths

The VIA Classification characterizes six culturally defined virtues as latent variables underlying 24 character strengths. Factor analyses of measures based on the Classification usually suggest 4–5 factors that do not correspond well to traditional lists of virtues. This article describes the identification of a three-virtue model across multiple measures of strengths in four samples encompassing 1,070,549 cases. The general pattern involved a first component representing good character that split into two components reflecting Goodness and Inquisitiveness. The former divided further into components reflecting Caring and Self-Control. This pattern recurred in all data sets. The model consisting of Caring, Inquisitiveness, and Self-Control is proposed as a reliable latent structure for the VIA Classification strengths, an intuitive classification of traditional cultural virtues, and a framework for social efforts encouraging the development of virtue.     

Pleasure and interest are differentially affected by replaying versus analyzing a happy life moment

Previous research regarding the effects of thinking about a happy moment on emotional experience has been equivocal. The discrepancies may be explained by different modes of thinking: systematically thinking about a happy moment versus mentally replaying the happy moment. Another explanation may involve the difference between the emotion of interest and the emotion of pleasantness, which are often erroneously grouped together under the broad concept of ‘positive affect.’ We hypothesized that systematically thinking about a happy moment would generate interest, whereas mental replaying would generate pleasantness. In an experimental setting, people who systematically analyzed a happy moment increased feelings of interest, while the level of pleasantness remained unchanged. In the alternative condition, people who mentally replayed a happy moment reported increased interest and pleasantness. At post-intervention, the replay group scored higher on pleasantness, but not on interest, relative to the analyze group.     

More gratitude,less materialism: The mediating role of life satisfaction

An empirical relationship has been documented between gratitude and materialism, such that stronger feelings of gratitude are associated with lower materialism. Building on Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) theory that positive emotions ‘broaden’ and ‘build’ we sought to expand upon this finding by (1) examining satisfaction with life as a potential mechanism for this relationship, and (2) exploring the causal direction of this relationship through experimental means. Study 1 (n = 131) demonstrated that satisfaction with life mediated the relationship between gratitude and materialism. Study 2 (n = 171) showed that that experimentally induced gratitude resulted in higher satisfaction with life and lower materialism in a high gratitude condition compared to an envy (low gratitude) condition. Implications and directions for future research were discussed.     

Executive coaching enhances goal attainment,resilience and workplace well-being: a randomised controlled study

In a randomised controlled study, 41 executives in a public health agency received 360-degree feedback, a half-day leadership workshop, and four individual coaching sessions over 10 weeks. The coaching used a cognitive-behavioural solution-focused approach. Quantitative and qualitative measures were taken. This is the first published randomised controlled study in which coaching was conducted by professional executive coaches external to the organisation. Compared to controls, coaching enhanced goal attainment, increased resilience and workplace well-being and reduced depression and stress. Qualitative responses indicated participants found coaching helped increase self-confidence and personal insight, build management skills and helped participants deal with organisational change. Findings indicate that short-term coaching can be effective, and that evidence-based executive coaching can be valuable as an applied positive psychology in helping people deal with the uncertainly and challenges inherent in organisational change. Practical impactions are discussed and recommendations are made for the effective measurement of coaching outcomes.     

The well-being outcomes of career guidance

ABSTRACT

The potential for career guidance to impact on well-being has received insufficient attention in the UK. There are both conceptual and empirical reasons to expect that the impacts may be positive, but a lack of evidence directly testing this proposition. Career guidance has commonalities with therapeutic counselling suggesting analogous effects, and it promotes positive engagement in work and learning, which may be associated with health benefits. There are implications for services in reconciling health and employment objectives. However, the promotion of well-being need not imply quasi-clinical ways of working. A call is made for more research and debate in the career guidance community as to the extent and implications of the potentially important relationship between career guidance and well-being.     

Examining the Efficacy of School-Based Consultation: Recommendations for Improving Outcomes

SUMMARY

Schools are faced with the difficult task of educating students who present diverse learning and behavioral challenges. To meet student needs, schools tap the expertise of a variety of specialists who provide services through “pull-out” programs or consultation to general educators. Unfortunately, neither strategy has proved effective to date with respect to children and youth who present significant social behavior problems. A brief review of the literature points to the shortcomings as linked to multiple treatments with varying outcomes and inconsistent implementation of best practices. One option to address the challenges schools face in light of ineffective practices to date is the development of school-wide systems of positive behavior support (PBS). Effective implementation of school-wide systems of PBS will require moving the consultation process from individual cases to working with teams of educators. Key skills and possible measurement strategies to develop and sustain school-wide consultation efforts are discussed.     

Positive Affective Priming: A Behavioral Technique to Facilitate Therapeutic Engagement by Families,Caregivers, and Teachers

Affective priming is a technique used in experimental psychology to investigate the organization of emotional schemata not fully available to conscious awareness. The presentation of stimuli (the prime) with strong positive emotional valence alters the accessibility of positive stimuli within the individual's emotionally encoded cognitive system. By altering the valence of internal stimuli, it offers a method for influencing families, caregivers, and teachers serving as mediators in child behavior therapy. The need for priming is greatest where adults involved in therapy as agents of child behavior change have such negative feelings toward the targeted client, or to the therapeutic context, that acceptance and engagement with therapy are compromised. Examples of how positive affective priming might be used clinically are provided.     

Stress-enhanced grain growth in a nanostructured aluminium alloy during spark plasma sintering

In this study, we report on the influence of high pressure on the microstructure evolution of cryomilled nanostructured Al alloy powders during spark plasma sintering (SPS). Our experimental results suggest that the particular mechanism that governs grain growth during SPS depends on the magnitude of the applied pressure. In the case of material consolidated at a high pressure (e.g. 500 MPa), grain coarsening occurs via a combination of thermally activated grain boundary (GB) migration, stress-coupled GB migration and grain rotation-induced grain coalescence. In contrast, in the case of the material consolidated at a low pressure (50 MPa), grain growth occurs primarily via thermally activated GB migration.     

Ab initio study of Heusler alloys Co2XY (X = Cr,Mn, Fe; Y = Al,Ga) under high pressure

The structural, electronic, and magnetic properties of ferromagnetic Heusler alloys Co₂XY (X?=?Cr, Mn, Fe; Y?=?Al, Ga) have been investigated by means of the all-electron full-potential linearized augmented plane wave method within the generalized gradient approximation for the exchange and correlation potential. The main focus of this study is to elaborate the changes brought about in the electronic and the magnetic properties by applied pressure. The calculated total spin magnetic moments of all the compounds are found to be in good agreement with experiments. Out of these compounds, Co₂CrAl is found to be perfectly half-metallic (HM) and the other compounds are found to be nearly HM. Thus the HM to metal transition was observed at 75?GPa pressure for Co₂CrAl and the nearly half-metal to half-metal transition was observed at 40?GPa and 18?GPa for Co₂CrGa and Co₂MnAl, respectively, while no transition is observed in other compounds under investigation. It can be clearly seen that pressure affects the minority spin states rather than the majority states, leading to a slight reconstruction of the minority spin states with a shift in the Fermi level driving the above-mentioned transition.     

Plotinus: towards an ontology of likeness (On the One and Nous)

Plotinus’ thesis of the relationship between the One and Nous (Intellect) is central to his thought. In dealing with this relationship, he concentrates far more on what makes the One and Nous alike than on what makes them different. This is because by preference he envisages the One as the ‘causal principle () of everything’, in what might be termed a ‘top‐down’ model of metaphysics in which first cause (the One) leads downwards to second cause (Nous). Plotinus is obliged to present the distinction between the One and Nous as relative, not as absolute, precisely because he wants to show that Nous is firmly grounded in the One. The One differs from Nous to no more than the degree, and in no more than the manner, that are necessary for there to be created a Nous which is as like as possible to the One Itself.