Psychological Well-Being Index Research Articles

The influence of sports on paralympic athletes’ personal development

One of the most effective ways of integrating people with disabilities into society and ensuring their comprehensive personal development is to engage people with disabilities into Paralympic Games. Such engagement creates the necessary conditions to socialize people with disabilities, to adapt their physical and mental states to existing living conditions, to ease negative manifestations of their psycho-emotional states, to promote their self-realization. The article presents the results of the research determining the impact of sports on Paralympic athletes’ personal development. The comparison of the indicators of psychological well-being and hardiness of Paralympic athletes with normative values, the indicators shown by students without disabilities and students with disabilities has confirmed proven clear positive influence of sports on Paralympic athletes’ personal development. In particular, Paralympic athletes achieve an optimal level of psychological well-being and a significant increase in all psychological hardiness components.

Index of Psychological Well-being at Work—Validation of Tool in the Indian Organizational Context

Well-being has been a much valued emotion culling the interest of philosophers and researchers alike. Well-being at work is an even more significant construct in the current scenario where each individual invests more than half of their waking hours in work or work-related activities. While some researchers have worked on indigenous tools to measure generic well-being in the Indian cultural arena, there are no indigenous context-specific tools to measure well-being at work. Internationally, only three models for well-being at work were found. This article attempts to fill the gap in current literature by validating the Index of Psychological Well-being at Work (IPWBW) designed by Dagenais-Desmarais and Savoie (2011, What is psychological well-being, really? A grassroots approach from the organizational sciences. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(4), 659–684) for the employees working in India. The sample in this study consists of employees from automobile and automotive parts manufacturers. Construct validity of IPWBW was established using confirmatory factor analysis, establishing convergent and divergent validity as well as getting Cronbach’s alpha for the scale. The final scale has 17 items across five dimensions. Psychological well-being at work was also established as a higher order construct.

Prevalence and determinants of physical activity and sedentary behaviour before and up to 12 months after total knee replacement: a longitudinal cohort study

Objective: This study aims to evaluate the prevalence and determinants of inadequate physical activity and excessive sedentary behaviour before and after total knee replacement. Design, setting and subjects: Secondary analysis was performed on data from a cohort of 422 adults (45–74 years), drawn from 12 public or private hospitals, undergoing primary unilateral or bilateral total knee replacement surgery. Main measures: Questionnaires were used to determine the presence of inadequate physical activity and excessive sedentary behaviour before and 6 and 12 months after total knee replacement surgery. Knee pain, activity limitations, comorbidities, muscle strength, psychological well-being, fatigue, sleep and body mass index were measured/assessed as possible determinants of physical activity or sedentary behaviour. Results: Before surgery, 77% (n = 326) of the cohort participated in inadequate physical activity according to World Health Organization guidelines, and 60% (n = 253) engaged in excessive sedentary behaviour. Twelve months after surgery, 53% (n = 185) of the cohort engaged in inadequate physical activity and 45% (n = 157) in excessive sedentary behaviour. Inadequate physical activity before surgery (P = 0.02), obesity (P = 0.07) and comorbidity score >6 (P = 0.04) predicted inadequate physical activity 12 months after surgery. Excessive sedentary behaviour and activity limitations before surgery predicted excessive sedentary behaviour 12 months after surgery. Conclusion: Although there were improvements after total knee replacement, 12 months after surgery about half the cohort did not meet World Health Organization recommendations for activity. Pre-surgery assessment of physical activity, activity limitations, sedentary behaviour and body mass index is essential to identify patients at risk for long-term inactivity.

Behavioral Modeling for Mental Health using Machine Learning Algorithms.

Mental health is an indicator of emotional, psychological and social well-being of an individual. It determines how an individual thinks, feels and handle situations. Positive mental health helps one to work productively and realize their full potential. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood. Many factors contribute to mental health problems which lead to mental illness like stress, social anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, drug addiction, and personality disorders. It is becoming increasingly important to determine the onset of the mental illness to maintain proper life balance. The nature of machine learning algorithms and Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be fully harnessed for predicting the onset of mental illness. Such applications when implemented in real time will benefit the society by serving as a monitoring tool for individuals with deviant behavior. This research work proposes to apply various machine learning algorithms such as support vector machines, decision trees, naïve bayes classifier, K-nearest neighbor classifier and logistic regression to identify state of mental health in a target group. The responses obtained from the target group for the designed questionnaire were first subject to unsupervised learning techniques. The labels obtained as a result of clustering were validated by computing the Mean Opinion Score. These cluster labels were then used to build classifiers to predict the mental health of an individual. Population from various groups like high school students, college students and working professionals were considered as target groups. The research presents an analysis of applying the aforementioned machine learning algorithms on the target groups and also suggests directions for future work.

Examining the factor structure of narrative meaning-making for stressful events and relations with psychological distress

ABSTRACTThis study examined the underlying factor structure of 15 narrative meaning-making indices for narratives of stressful events, and explored the incremental validity of the narrative factor solution over and above general personality traits in predicting various indices of psychological well-being. Two-hundred and twenty four undergraduates (Mage = 19.2 years, SDage = 2.1; 114 males and 110 females; 67.6% Caucasian, 12.0% East Asian, 7.6% African-American, 4.0% South Asian, 2.2% Hispanic, and 6.7% as mixed or Other origin) wrote about the most traumatic experience in their life, and completed a series of psychological questionnaires. The narratives were coded in 15 ways theoretically derived from the narrative meaning-making literature. A series of exploratory structural equation models indicated that a four-factor solution best approximated the data. The four factors were: positive processing, negative processing, integrative meaning, and structure. All four factors related differentially to indices of well-being over and above traits. There appear to be four distinct, but related, factors of narrative meaning-making for memories of stressful events, which shed light on the nuanced relations with well-being.

Функционирование приемных семей и их социальное благополучие (по материалам социологического исследования в Еравнинском районе Республики Бурятия)

The research presents the results of a sociological study on foster families functioning and their social well-being indicators in Buryatia by a case study of one of the municipalities of the region. Nowadays, foster family is a priority form of life for orphans and children without parental care. It is relevant to study the problems of life and social well-being of foster families, because their solution allows one to find ways of improving their functioning in the modern context. The research examines the following issues: the completeness and availability of information on the process of placing a child in a family; problems at the initial stage of guardianship; the peculiarities of the child’s adaptation to the family; financial support of the foster family in the region; the educational capacity of foster parents and the target of the educational process; microclimate in the family as an indicator of psychological well-being.

Sexual Harassment, Racial Harassment, and Well-Being among Asian American Women: An Intersectional Approach

ABSTRACTHarassment of Asian American (AA) women has received little attention in popular culture and academic research despite their long legacy of sexualized racial stereotyping (e.g., Geisha, sexually submissive; Shimizu, 2007) and additional risk of mistreatment due to their membership in both marginalized gender and racial groups (Beale, 1970; Settles & Buchanan, 2014). This study addresses this dearth of research using an intersectional theoretical framework to comprehensively examine sexual and racial harassment with a sample of AA women. Results validated the underlying factor structure of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (Fitzgerald, Gelfand, & Drasgow, 1995) and the Racial Acts, Crimes, and Experiences Scale (RACES; Bergman & Buchanan, 2008) for AA women. Additionally, our results replicated previous research indicating that participants often reported experiencing behaviors that constitute harassment, but did not label them as such. This supports the use of behavioral measures over items that require individuals to label their experiences as harassment. Finally, we examined the associations between these forms of harassment and two indicators of psychological well-being, depression, and posttraumatic stress (PTS). Our results found that gender harassment was associated with more depression, whereas unwanted sexual attention, sexual coercion, and racial harassment were associated with increased PTS. This supports the utility of including both sexual and racial harassment in providing a more nuanced understanding of AA women’s harassment experiences overall and the relationship of harassment to psychological well-being. We discuss theoretical and clinical implications of these findings.

Autobiographical memory functions and posttraumatic stress symptoms across adulthood

ABSTRACTPrevious research has documented robust individual differences in the functions served by autobiographical memories, and shown that different autobiographical memory functions are related to both positive and negative indicators of psychological well-being, and that their frequency varies with age. In this study, we examined the unique relationship between autobiographical memory functions and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and whether such relationships varied with age across adulthood. A representative sample of 1040 adult Danes (20–70 years old) reported the frequency with which they recall autobiographical memories for different purposes as well as their level of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Higher reflective and ruminative functions, as well as lower social function, predicted higher levels of PTSS. There were no moderating effects of age. The results suggest that although the frequency of various autobiographical functions varies throughout the adult years, their association with PTSS is similar across adulthood.

Finding Meaning at Work: The Role of Inspiring and Funny YouTube Videos on Work-Related Well-Being

Watching online videos on social media is a common activity in today’s digital age, but its’ impact on employee well-being at work has not been investigated yet. The current study tried to fill this gap by investigating the role hedonic and eudaimonic online videos play on employee’s stress levels and well-being at work. An online experiment with 200 full time employees in the US was conducted exploring the role of inspiring affect and positive affect on three distinct well-being outcomes: subjective well-being, psychological well-being and social well-being at the workplace. A path model suggests unique effects for inspiring videos on indicators of subjective (vitality), psychological (meaning at work) and social (relatedness at work) well-being. In addition, appreciating the good things in life mediated the relationship between inspiring affect and meaning and relatedness at work. Furthermore, employees generally felt less stressed after watching any type of online video (including a non-entertaining control video), but felt the highest energy surge after watching an elevating video. Implications about the role of online videos for employees’ well-being are discussed.

What Aspects are Important to Adolescents to Achieve Full Satisfaction in Life?

This study aims to add new knowledge about what aspects adolescents between 11 and 16 years old consider important to achieve full satisfaction in life (AFSL) and to explore the relationship between these aspects, sociodemographic variables and subjective and psychological well-being indicators. The sample is comprised of 763 secondary school pupils from Girona province (north-eastern Spain) who were subject to five psychometric instruments for measuring subjective well-being, one instrument for measuring psychological well-being and the list of aspects that they consider important to achieve full satisfaction in life (AFSLs: Casas et al. 2013). Being happy, having a good time, experiencing new things and feeling that I make other people happy are the AFSLs that score highest across all age groups. The OLS (Campbell et al. 1976) is the subjective well-being indicator that correlates with the most AFSLs. Appreciating the small things in life is an AFSL that contributes to explaining the well-being measured with all the psychometric instruments used and feeling that you are a fair and honest person contributes to explaining all of them except the OLS.

Chronotype is associated with psychological well-being depending on the composition of the study sample.

Past studies examining the effect of chronotype and social jetlag on psychological well-being have been inconsistent so far. Here, we recruited participants from the general population and enquired about their natural sleeping behavior, sleep quality, depressive symptoms, and perceived stress. Partial correlations were computed between sleep variables and indicators of psychological well-being, controlling for age and sex. Less sleep during work days was found a good indicator for impairments in psychological well-being. In exploratory follow-up analyses, the same correlations were calculated within groups of early, intermediate, and late chronotype. We observed that the composition of the sample in terms of chronotype influenced whether associations between sleep variables and psychological well-being could be observed, a finding that is advised to be taken into account in future studies.

Благополучие мужчин и женщин различного брачного статуса: Россия в международном контексте

Presented are the results of foreign research devoted to «his and her marriages» in different countries. It is concluded that, in developed countries at the century, the differences in the psychological and physical well-being of men and women of different married status had decreased significantly in comparison to the second halfof the 20th century, when the classic book of Jessie Bernard «The future of marriage» was published. This is in no small part due to the economic and legal liberation of women. At the same time the well-being of men and women in marriage differs in various countries, ethnic/racial and professional groups. This article deals with empirical data concerning similarities/differences in the indicators of psychological well-being and lifestyles of parents of underage children, men and women ofvarious marital, professional, age and religious groups in Russia. Data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-NRI-HSE, representative sample for the year 2016), Comprehensive monitoring of living conditions (GKS RF, KOUZH-2016) and Statistical Survey of Income and Participation in Social Programs (GKS RF, VNDN-2012, 2016) have been used. Confirmed is the hypothesis on the advantages of married status (including remarriage) in terms of the well-being of parents, men and, to a lesser extent, women in Russia. Determined are the differences in lifestyle and the psychological well-being of men and women of varying marital status among certain professional groups and creeds. Indicated are certain directions for further research in the field of marriage.

Переживания в учебной деятельности и их связь с психологическим благополучием

The paper presents an analysis of empirical data on relationship of study-related learning experiences with students’ psychological well-being and academic success.The data were obtained using the original Activity-Related Experiences Assessment technique (AREA) and a number of additional measures.The results of four studies are presented.The first one was devoted to the psychometric validation of AREA questionnaire.The results confirmed the construct validity of the model of activity-related experiences.The second study compared experiences associated with different types of activities (study and leisure).Differences in the structure of correlations of experiences related to different activities confirmed that experiences are activity-related rather than personality-related.The third study presents data on the relationship of study-related experiences with personality traits and academic performance.Only the experience of pleasure revealed a significant association with academic performance.The purpose of the last study was identifying the structure and reliability of AREA on the combined sample by CFA using and checking the connection of study-related experiences with indicators of psychological well-being.Experiences of pleasure and meaning were closely related to each other and negatively related to the experience of void, while the experience of effort was hardly associated the other three scores.Experiences of pleasure and meaning reveal predictable direct (and the experience of void the reverse) association with indicators of well-being.

Authenticity as a Predictor of Mental Health

The aim of this research was to evaluate the relationship between authenticity and mental health on a sample of 706 students. Results showed that all subscales of the Authenticity scale (authentic living, accepting external influence and self-alienation) were correlated with all general scales and subscales of the MHI-38 (psychological distress – anxiety, depression, loss of behavioural/emotional control; psychological well-being – overall positive affect, emotional ties and satisfaction with life and overall mental health index). Hierarchical regression showed that authenticity composed of all three dimensions together is a statistically significant predictor of psychological distress, psychological well-being and overall mental health index. The confirmation that authenticity is closely connected to mental health and significantly contributes to it is a good example of how classic perspectives in psychological counselling can set further directions of research within personality psychology. Keywords: authenticity, mental health, students

Assessing the effect of shift work among petrochemical Industries staff at Mahshahr, Iran

This study aims to examine the effect of shift work on overweight and obesity, hypercholesterolemia and GHQ score (GHQ-28) as an indicator of psychological well-being in subjects working in petrochemical industry sited in Mahshahr, west of Iran. In This longitudinal study, population consisted of 2493 (1321 day workers and 1171 shift workers) whose mean ages were 46.18 years for day workers and 45.53 years for shift workers, during a four years period (from 2008 to 2011). All workers were investigated by Persian version of General Health Questionnaire-28 (GHQ-28) as screen tool. The serum cholesterol, height and weight were measured with definitions of hypercholesterolemia as serum total cholesterol 220 mg/dl, overweight and obesity as body mass index (BMI) 25 kg/m 2 . A conditional joint random effects models approach was applied to explore the effect of shift working on multivariate responses over this period of time. Shift work was significantly associated with GHQ score and BMI. Results indicated that the shift workers had about 0.65 higher mean scores of GHQ than the day workers and 0.18 higher BMI (95% CI 0.17 to 1.14) and (95% CI 0.05 to 0.27), respectively. Shift work did not show significant relationship with hypercholesterolemia (95% CI -0.27 to 0.009). The results of the present study suggest that shift work may be directly responsible for increased body fatness and is associated with psychological problems.

Bidirectional Associations Between Adolescents' Sexual Behaviors and Psychological Well-Being

PurposeAssessing bidirectional longitudinal associations between early sexual behaviors (≤16.0 years) and psychological well-being (global self-esteem, physical self-esteem, depression) among 716 adolescents, and the direct and buffering effect of parent–adolescent relationship quality. MethodsWe used data from Project STARS (Studies on Trajectories of Adolescent Relationships and Sexuality), a longitudinal study on adolescent sexual development in the Netherlands. Participants were 11.0–16.0 years old (mean age at T1 = 13.3 years). Self-reports from four waves of online questionnaires were used. Bidirectional longitudinal associations were assessed by linear mixed-effects models. ResultsAt most waves, boys had significantly higher levels of psychological well-being than girls, but genders did not differ in experience with sexual behaviors. Engagement in early sexual behaviors did not predict lower levels of psychological well-being over time, and lower levels of psychological well-being did not predict more engagement in early sexual behaviors over time. Parent–adolescent relationship quality did not moderate these associations in either direction, although we found a significant direct effect, in which a higher-quality parent–adolescent relationship predicted more optimal levels of the three indicators of adolescents' psychological well-being (but not lower levels of early sexual activity) over time. ConclusionsOur results show that, among Dutch adolescents, early sexual behaviors and psychological well-being were not interrelated. This may be explained by socio-cultural aspects of the Dutch society, such as more normalization of sexual behaviors during adolescence. As a result, early sexual activity in and of itself was not related to lower psychological well-being over time. Yet, cross-cultural differences in links between adolescents' sexuality and well-being should be further investigated.

Play and playfulness in psychiatry: a selective review

ABSTRACTIt has widely been accepted that play has a major role in the process of human development, particularly during childhood. Not surprisingly, play research and research into playfulness (i.e. the ability ‘to transform virtually any environment to make it more stimulating enjoyable and entertaining’ [Barnett, L. A. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 949–958. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.02.018]) has mainly focused on play in children. Recently, however, an increasing amount of research has demonstrated numerous positive effects playfulness can have on adults as well. Adult playfulness has been shown to bear positive relations to indicators of psychological and physical well-being, such as life satisfaction or physical fitness [Proyer, R. T. (2013). The well-being of playful adults: Adult playfulness, subjective well-being, physical well-being, and the pursuit of enjoyable activities. European Journal of Humour Research, 1, 84–98. doi:10.7592/EJHR2013.1.1.proyer] and also to other desirable outcomes such as creativity [Tegano, D. W. (1990). Relationship of Tolerance of Ambiguity and Playfulness to Creativity. Psychological Reports, 66, 1047–1056. doi:10.2466/pr0.1990.66.3.1047] and academic achievement [Proyer, R. T. (2011). Being playful and smart? The relations of adult playfulness with psychometric and self-estimated intelligence and academic performance. Learning and Individual Differences, 21, 463–467. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2011.02.003]. Highly playful adults have been described as outgoing, humorous and happy [Barnett, L. A. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 949–958. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.02.018]. Despite of this, playfulness remains an understudied area in psychiatry.

Oxytocin as an Indicator of Psychological and Social Well-Being in Domesticated Animals: A Critical Review.

Oxytocin is often portrayed as a hormone specific to social behavior, reflective of positive welfare states, and linked to mental states. Research on oxytocin in domesticated animal species has been few to date but is rapidly increasing (in dog, pig, cattle, sheep), with direct implications for animal welfare. This review evaluates the evidence for the specificity of oxytocin as an indicator of: 1. Social, 2. Positive, and 3. Psychological well-being. Oxytocin has most often been studied in socially relevant paradigms, with a lack of non-social control paradigms. Oxytocin research appears biased toward investigating positive valence, with a lack of control in valence or arousal. Oxytocin actions are modulated by the environmental and social contexts, which are important factors to consider. Limited evidence supports that oxytocin's actions are linked to psychological states; nevertheless whether this is a direct effect of oxytocin per se remains to be demonstrated. Overall, it is premature to judge oxytocin's potential as an animal welfare indicator given the few and discrepant findings and a lack of standardization in methodology. We cover potential causes for discrepancies and suggest solutions through appropriate methodological design, oxytocin sampling or delivery, analysis and reporting. Of particular interest, the oxytocinergic system as a whole remains poorly understood. Appreciation for the differences that social contact and group living pose in domesticated species and the way they interact with humans should be key considerations in using oxytocin as a psychosocial indicator of well-being.

An investigation of the relationships between the teaching climate, students’ perceived life skills development and well-being within physical education

ABSTRACTBackground: Both education policies and curriculum documents identify the personal development of students as a key objective of modern education. Physical education (PE) in particular has been cited as a subject that can promote students’ life skills development and psychological well-being. However, little research has investigated the processes by which PE may be related to students’ development of life skills and their psychological well-being.Purpose: Using Benson and Saito’s (2001. ‘The Scientific Foundations of Youth Development.’ In Trends in Youth Development: Visions, Realities and Challenges, edited by P. L. Benson and K. J. Pittman, 135–154. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic) framework for youth development theory and research, this study explored the relationships between the teaching climate, students’ perceived life skills development within PE, and their psychological well-being.Participants and setting: Participants were 294 British PE students (Mage = 13.70, range = 11–18 years) attending 6 secondary schools in Scotland and England. On average, these male (n = 204) and female (n = 90) students took part in PE classes for 2.35 hours per week.Data collection: The data were collected via a survey which assessed perceived teacher autonomy support, participants’ perceived life skills development within PE (teamwork, goal setting, time management, emotional skills, interpersonal communication, social skills, leadership, and problem-solving and decision-making), and their psychological well-being (self-esteem, positive affect, and satisfaction with life).Data analyses: The preliminary analysis used descriptive statistics to assess how participants scored on each of the study variables and correlations to assess the relationships between all variables. The main analysis sought to test Benson and Saito’s (2001) framework using a series of mediation models which were tested via non-parametric bootstrapping analysis.Findings: This study demonstrated that students perceived they were developing the following life skills through PE: teamwork, goal setting, time management, emotional skills, interpersonal communication, social skills, leadership, and problem-solving and decision-making. Overall, the results supported Benson and Saito’s (2001) framework for youth development theory and research. In all analyses, perceived teacher autonomy support was positively related to participants’ perceived life skills development within PE and their psychological well-being. Participants’ total life skills development was related to all three psychological well-being indicators – providing support for the ‘pile-up’ effect (Benson 2006. All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass). Total life skills development also mediated the relationships between perceived teacher autonomy support and participants’ psychological well-being.Conclusion: The findings suggest that perceived teacher autonomy support, along with total life skills development, is related to participants’ psychological well-being. Interpretation of the results suggests that PE teachers should integrate autonomy supportive behaviours into their teaching (e.g. provide choice in activities and encourage students to ask questions) as they are associated with young people’s development of multiple life skills and their psychological well-being.

The Characteristics of Chinese Adolescents With Suicidal Ideation: A Mixed-Methods Approach

We conducted a mixed-methods study to explore the characteristics of Chinese adolescents with suicidal ideation, using both quantitative and qualitative data and analysis. Participants were N = 244 adolescents, who completed self-report assessments of suicidal ideation, as well as indices of psychological functioning and well-being. A subset of n = 6 high and n = 6 low suicidal ideation adolescents participated in the follow-up interviews. Among the quantitative results, as compared with adolescents with low suicidal ideation, adolescents with high suicidal ideation reported significantly higher scores for stressful life events, coping-avoidant strategies, loneliness, and depression, as well as significantly lower scores for coping-approach strategies. Among the qualitative results, adolescents with high suicidal ideation demonstrated the following characteristics: (a) most troubled by academic pressures and relations, (b) negative self-evaluations, (c) maladaptive understanding of life and death, (d) individual-oriented attributions, and (e) negative coping strategies and self-fulfilling prophesy. These findings contribute to the early identification of adolescents who are at higher risk for suicide, further expand the stress and coping model with the distress-to-meaninglessness framework, and suggest that improving positive self-evaluation may be a focus of prevention and intervention.