Interactive products for self-improvement (e.g., online trainings to reduce stress, fitness gadgets) have become increasingly popular among consumers and healthcare providers. In line with the idea of positive computing, these tools aim to support their users on their way to improved well-being and human flourishing. As an interdisciplinary domain, the design of self-improvement technologies requires psychological, technological, and design expertise. One needs to know how to support people in behavior change, and one needs to find ways to do this through technology design. However, as recent reviews show, the interlocking relationship between these disciplines is still improvable. Many existing technologies for self-improvement neglect psychological theory on behavior change, especially motivational factors are not sufficiently considered. To counteract this, we suggest a focus on the dialog and emerging communication between product and user, considering the self-improvement tool as an interactive coach and advisor.
BACKGROUND:We report a psychologically motivated intervention to explore Technology Mediated Reflection (TMR), the process of systematically reviewing rich digital records of past personal experiences. Although TMR benefits well-being, and is increasingly being deployed, we know little about how one's mood when using TMR influences these benefits. We use theories of memory and emotion-regulation to motivate hypotheses about the relationship between reflection, mood, and well-being when using technology. We test these hypotheses in a large-scale month long real world deployment using a web-based application, MoodAdaptor. MoodAdaptor prompted participants to reflect on positive or negative memories depending on current mood.METHODS:We evaluated how mood and memory interact during written reflection and measured effects on well-being. We analyzed qualitative and quantitative data from 128 participants who generated 11157 mood evaluations, 5051 logfiles, 256 surveys, and 20 interviews.RESULTS:TMR regulated emotion; when participants reflected on memories with valences opposite to their current mood, their mood became more neutral. However this did not impact overall well-being. Our findings also clarify underlying TMR mechanisms. Moods and memories competed with each other; when positive moods prevailed over negative memories, people demonstrated classic mechanisms shown in prior work to influence well-being. When negative moods prevailed over positive memories, memories became negatively tainted.CONCLUSIONS:Our results have implications for new well-being interventions and technologies that capitalize on the interconnectedness of memory and emotion.
Following the launch of the positive psychology movement teachers and educators emerged as early adopters of this fledgling science. This approach was called positive education. It describes scientifically validated programs from positive psychology, taught in schools, that have an impact on student well-being. The growing body of evidence about the reach of positive psychology has formed a convincing case to consider well-being an operational goal for educational systems. It is argued that this goal is pivotal and should be pursued in the same way in which we develop strategies to harness academic growth, school retention rates, and student engagement. National education policies can have widespread influence at the grassroots level on school improvement, good quality of classroom teaching and learning, student performance, creating confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens, but not necessarily on the preventative skills for lifelong well-being. In this article I take stock on the positive education movement. Three approaches to positive education are identified and eight hurdles to the field are noted as reasons why positive education won’t stick in policy. Then, I reflect on two case studies: a Well-being Summit and Round Table held at Wellington College and No. 10 Downing Street and Dr. Martin Seligman’s role as Adelaide’s Thinker in Residence as examples of grass-roots initiatives in well-being. Finally, six strategies are suggested for researchers and practitioners to grow the field. Last, I argued that until research centers focus on the development of common definitions of the key terms underpinning positive psychology, positive education and well-being the impact of the movement will be limited to a handful of institutions as models of best practice.
BACKGROUND:While music-making interventions are increasingly recognised as enhancing mental health, little is known of why music may engender such benefit. The objective of this article is to elucidate the features of a programme of group drumming known to enable mental health recovery.METHODS:Qualitative research was conducted with 39 mental health patients and carers who had demonstrated recovery following engagement with a programme of group djembe drumming in the UK. Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews and focus group interviews designed to understand the connection between drumming and recovery and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).RESULTS:Results revealed three overarching features of the drumming intervention: (1) the specific features of drumming, including drumming as a form of non-verbal communication, as a connection with life through rhythm, and as a grounding experience that both generates and liberates energy; (2) the specific features of the group, including the group as a space of connection in and through the rhythmic features of the drumming, as well as facilitating feelings of belonging, acceptance, safety and care, and new social interactions; (3) the specific features of the learning, including learning as an inclusive activity in which the concept of mistakes is dissolved and in which there is musical freedom, supported by an embodied learning process expedited by the musical facilitator.CONCLUSION:The findings provide support for the conceptual notion of 'creative practice as mutual recovery', demonstrating that group drumming provides a creative and mutual learning space in which mental health recovery can take place.
Well-being program evaluations mostly focus on identifying effective outcomes rather than measuring the actual extent to which program participants may apply learned skills in subsequent everyday lives. This study examined the feasibility of using a newly developed mobile experience sampling app called Wuzzup to study program implementation in young people participating in well-being programs. Ninety-six participants (60 females; 36 males) between the ages of 13 and 15 years (M = 13.87, SD = 0.71) were recruited to respond to two random prompts each day, for 7 days, at each of the three data collection time-points. Responses from 69 participants (72 % of initial sample) that met study criteria were retained for analysis. The average response rate was 92.89 %, with an average of 85.92 s to complete each ESM survey. Significant associations between first and second halves of the ESM week, and their respective positive affect and negative affect survey responses, demonstrate internal reliability and construct validity of the Wuzzup app to capture momentary affect and activation states of young people. This study also demonstrated the feasibility and practical utility of the Wuzzup app to profile and track an individual's learning over time.
In 2016, almost three and a half billion people, or 46 % of the world population, have an internet connection (internetlivestats 2016). The number of mobile phone users is even higher: more than four and a half billion people own a mobile (or smart) phone (statista.com 2016). Interactive technology is ubiquitous, influencing the daily practices of many people all over the planet. Technology especially permeates the lives of young people whereby those aged 8–18 years spend more time on electronic screens than they do with their parents or at school (Rideout et al. 2010). Although interactive technologies afford conveniences and efficiencies, the overall contribution of this technology to wellbeing has been a topic of ongoing debate. Some highlight how new technologies inform, liberate and enrich our lives, whereas others suggest that the new technologies too often impoverish our experiences and self regulation of behaviours, distracting us from relationships and compromising health-promoting activities such as physical activity and sleep. These concerns come at a time when researchers are identifying increases in mental illnesses like depression and anxiety particularly for young people (Sawyer et al. 2012). Some people are asking: now that we have all this new technology why aren’t we happier?
BACKGROUND:With the increasing quality of smartphone cameras, taking photos has become ubiquitous. This paper investigates how smartphone photography can be leveraged to help individuals increase their positive affect.METHODS:Applying findings from positive psychology, we designed and conducted a 4-week study with 41 participants. Participants were instructed to take one photo every day in one of the following three conditions: a selfie photo with a smiling expression, a photo of something that would make oneself happy and a photo of something that would make another person happy.FINDINGS:After 3 weeks, participants' positive affect in all conditions increased. Those who took photos to make others happy became much less aroused. Qualitative results showed that those in the selfie group observed changes in their smile over time; the group taking photos to improve their own affect became more reflective and those taking photos for others found that connecting with family members and friends helped to relieve stress.CONCLUSIONS:The findings can offer insights for designers to create systems that enhance emotional well-being.
BACKGROUND:The current article explores the effect of design on the efficacy of behavioural intervention technologies (BITs). With a user-centred design process, colourful key ring coins were created as a means of introducing self-administered behavioural interventions.METHODS:A 6-week study tested whether the tangible objects contributed to the effectiveness of these interventions. Three groups were compared (N = 100): one group received happiness-enhancing activities printed on key ring coins, one group received the same activity tasks printed on paper, and one group served as a control. The outcome measure was the satisfaction with life scale (SWLS).RESULTS:The group that received happiness-enhancing activities on key ring coins scored highest on SWLS. Participants mentioned that it was exciting to be reminded to do the task whenever they were using their keys. Others mentioned that the coins helped them to put their hearts into the project, trying their best to finish the tasks.CONCLUSIONS:The findings support the proposition that design should be recognized as an important factor when developing effective means for disseminating positive psychology to a broad audience. This highlights the need for multidisciplinary approaches to the development of BITs, embracing active collaborations between psychologists, computer scientists, and (interaction) designers.
BACKGROUND:Previous research has shown that gratitude positively influences psychological wellbeing and physical health. Grateful people are reported to feel more optimistic and happy, to better mitigate aversive experiences, and to have stronger interpersonal bonds. Gratitude interventions have been shown to result in improved sleep, more frequent exercise and stronger cardiovascular and immune systems. These findings call for the development of technologies that would inspire gratitude. This paper presents a novel system designed toward this end.METHODS:We leverage pervasive technologies to naturally embed inspiration to express gratitude in everyday life. Novel to this work, mobile sensor data is utilized to infer optimal moments for stimulating contextually relevant thankfulness and appreciation. Sporadic mood measurements are inventively obtained through the smartphone lock screen, investigating their interplay with grateful expressions. Both momentary thankful emotion and dispositional gratitude are measured. To evaluate our system, we ran two rounds of randomized control trials (RCT), including a pilot study (N = 15, 2 weeks) and a main study (N = 27, 5 weeks). Studies' participants were provided with a newly developed smartphone app through which they were asked to express gratitude; the app displayed inspirational content to only the intervention group, while measuring contextual cues for all users.RESULTS:In both rounds of the RCT, the intervention was associated with improved thankful behavior. Significant increase was observed in multiple facets of practicing gratitude in the intervention groups. The average frequency of practicing thankfulness increased by more than 120 %, comparing the baseline weeks with the intervention weeks of the main study. In contrast, the control group of the same study exhibited a decrease of 90 % in the frequency of thankful expressions. In the course of the study's 5 weeks, increases in dispositional gratitude and in psychological wellbeing were also apparent. Analyzing the relation between mood and gratitude expressions, our data suggest that practicing gratitude increases the probability of going up in terms of emotional valence and down in terms of emotional arousal. The influences of inspirational content and contextual cues on promoting thankful behavior were also analyzed: We present data suggesting that the more successful times for eliciting expressions of gratitude tend to be shortly after a social experience, shortly after location change, and shortly after physical activity.CONCLUSIONS:The results support our intervention as an impactful method to promote grateful affect and behavior. Moreover, they provide insights into design and evaluation of general behavioral intervention technologies.
BACKGROUND:Pride is one of the most meaningful experiences in daily life. Many psychological studies emphasize self-oriented and event-based achievements as the main sources of pride, whereas work from organizational management considers pride as a collective attitude derived from other-focused activities and fostered by the sense of belongingness. Taking the interdisciplinary aspects of pride into account, this article addresses the challenge of how experience design can contribute to pride experience in the workplace.METHODS:By cross-cutting theories from psychology and organizational management, this study introduces a framework of dynamic pride. The data includes 20 experience design cases that were specifically devoted to positive experiences in the context of the metal and engineering industry. 33 pride-related experience design goals were analyzed and categorized into the framework of pride.RESULTS:This study introduces the social and temporal dimensions of pride experience at work. The pride-related experience design goals fall into four categories: self-focused short-term pride, self-focused long-term pride, other-focused short-term pride, and other-focused long-term pride. Accordingly, the extracted design strategies of these goals were mapped to each type of pride. Most of these design strategies were clustered in the categories of self-focused short-term pride and other-focused long-term pride.CONCLUSIONS:This study reveals the design strategies for dynamics of pride in the workplace varying from evoking self-achievement in individual interactions with tools to maintaining long-term motivation of self-competence development, and from highlighting one's contribution in face-to-face collaborative work facilitated by interactive tools to fostering co-experience of organizational pride throughout social events.
Background: Wearable activity trackers have become a viable business opportunity. Nevertheless, research has raised concerns over their potentially detrimental effects on wellbeing. For example, a recent study found that while counting steps with a pedometer increased steps taken throughout the day, at the same time it decreased the enjoyment people derived from walking. This poses a serious threat to the incorporation of healthy routines into everyday life. Most studies aim at proving the effectiveness of activity trackers. In contrast, a wellbeing-oriented perspective calls for a deeper understanding of how trackers create and mediate meaningful experiences in everyday life.Methods: We present a study of real life experiences with three wearable activity trackers: Fitbit, Jawbone Up and Nike + Fuelband. Using need fulfillment as a theoretical lens, we study recent, memorable experiences submitted by 133 users of activity trackers.Results: We reveal a two-dimensional structure of users' experience driven by the needs of physical thriving or relatedness. Our qualitative findings further show a nuanced picture of the adoption of activity trackers and their impact on wellbeing. For instance, while reflection about own exercising practices lost its relevance over time, users continued to wear the tracker to document and collect their runs. More than just supporting behavioral change, we find trackers to provide multiple psychological benefits. For instance, they enhance feelings of autonomy as people gain more control about their exercising regime. Others experience relatedness, when family members purchase a tracker for relatives and join them in their efforts towards a better, healthier self.Conclusions: The study highlights that activity trackers can be more than "tools" to change behavior. Through incorporation in daily life, they offer new social experiences, new ways of boosting our self-esteem and getting closer to our ideal selves.
This practice paper explores the intersection of school studio-music pedagogy and positive psychology in order to enhance students' learning and engagement. The paper has a practitioner focus and puts forward a new model of studio teaching, the Positive Instruction in Music Studios (PIMS) model that guides teachers through four key positive psychology processes that can be used in a music lesson: positive priming, strengths spotting, positive pause, and process praise. The model provides a new, positively oriented approach to studio-music pedagogy that can be integrated into specific methods-based programs to enhance student learning and engagement.
School climate has often been described as the “quality and character of school life”, including both social and physical aspects of the school, that can positively promote behaviour, school achievement, and the social and emotional development of students.
The Dualistic Model of Passion posits the existence of two types of passion, namely harmonious and obsessive passion. These two types of passion have been assessed through the Passion Scale. This scale has been validated in French and English and translated in several languages. The purpose of the present research was to translate and validate it in Chinese. To this end, 286 Chinese university students completed an online questionnaire in Chinese that contained the Passion Scale, the passion criteria, as well as measures of flow and positive and negative affect. Results provided support for the two-factor structure of the Passion Scale in Chinese and for the high reliability for both subscales (\(\alpha_{HP} = 0. 8 6\); \(\alpha_{OP} = 0. 8 2\)). Furthermore, correlations between the harmonious and obsessive passion subscales and the passion criteria and flow and affect scales supported the convergent and divergent validity of the Chinese Passion Scale. Overall, these findings suggest that the Passion scale can be used in future research with Chinese participants.
This study explored whether the university environment provides similar well-being enhancing elements to those that have been found in the workplace and school contexts. Whether psychological inflexibility accounts for well-being over and above personality and environmental influences was also explored. A representative sample of 163 undergraduate university students in an Australian university completed an online survey measuring the key constructs. Environmental influences assessed included financial resources, physical security, opportunity to use new skills, externally generated goals, variety, environmental clarity, interpersonal contact, and valued social position. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were then conducted to test for predictors of three domains of subjective well-being: positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. The results suggested that university context contributes significantly to undergraduate students’ well-being by providing a valued social role, externally generated goals, and variety. Students’ perception of their physical security was also an important influence on their well-being. These results are consistent with the literature on well-being and employment. Neuroticism significantly predicted negative affect, while psychological inflexibility accounted for unique variance in life satisfaction and negative affect even when personality and environmental influences were taken into account. The implications of these findings for enhancing undergraduate university students’ well-being are discussed.
Background: Developing employee wellbeing has recently been recognized as an important way to improve organizational performance. Sloan's (1987) dual-intervention approach suggests that employee wellbeing can be developed bottom-up, by improving employee psychological wellbeing, or top-down by changing the organization. This longitudinal study explores the association between psychological capital (bottom-up factors), organizational virtues (top-down factors), and work happiness.Method: A three-wave repeated measures correlation study was used to analyze the pattern of relationships between employee psychological capital (PsyCap), perception of organizational virtues (OV) and work happiness in staff at an independent K-12 school in Victoria, Australia over a 15-month timespan (baseline N=247).Results: Within and across time, both employee psychological capital and perception of organizational virtues independently related to greater work happiness. PsyCap and OV strongly correlated with work happiness, with a simplex structure i.e., variables closer in time were more strongly correlated, with correlation strength declining over time. Further, there was some evidence of a small of a synergistic effect.Results: The results suggest that while leaders might target psychological capital in employees or target the organization's culture to develop employee wellbeing, further benefit may arise by using both top-down and bottom-up strategies. These findings can be used to help schools and other organizations build employee work happiness.
Background: We used a computational method to quantitatively investigate the relationship between personality and written narratives of life events. Agentic (i.e., self-directedness), communal (i.e., cooperativeness), and spiritual (self-transcendence) traits were of special interest because they represent individual differences in intentional values and goals, in contrast to temperament traits, which describe individual differences in automatic responses to emotional stimuli. We also investigated which pronouns were most common in relation to personality constructs that were significantly related to the narratives.Methods: Personality was assessed among 79 adolescents at one point in time using the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R) and the temperament and character inventory (TCI). Six months later, adolescents were asked to write down the most positive or the most negative event that had happened to them in the last 3 months. Adolescents were explicitly instructed to answer the following questions within their narratives: What happened? Who were involved? Why do you think it happened? How did you feel when it happened? How do you think the involved persons felt? The descriptions were quantified using a computational method in which the latent semantic analysis algorithm generates a semantic representation of the narratives.Results: Only self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence were related to the semantic representation of the narratives. Moreover, cooperativeness and self-transcendence were associated with less frequent usage of singular pronouns (e.g., me respectively mine).Conclusions: Agentic, communal, and spiritual traits are involved when adolescents describe positive and negative life experiences. Moreover, high levels of communal and spiritual traits are related to less self-focused narratives.
This study investigated the relationship between intelligence and psychological well-being in young adults. Contradictory findings are presented about the relationship between intelligence and PWB in children and adolescents, and qualitative findings by Lovecky (J Couns Develop 64:572–575, 1986) in adults. For young adults, the authors predicted positive linear relationships between intelligence and PWB dimensions of Environmental Mastery, Autonomy, Personal Growth, Purpose in Life, and a curvilinear relationship between intelligence and the PWB dimension of Positive Relations with Others.
Background: Growing evidence is linking gratitude with well-being, yet insufficient scholarly attention has been given to how it is defined, understood and measured. To address this issue, gratitude and gratefulness can be usefully distinguished as two types of appreciative functioning. Applying complex dynamic systems theory, appreciative functioning is conceptualised as a pattern of cognition and behaviour that involves the interaction of awareness, comprehension, emotions, goals, and relationships. The aim of the current work was to explore this system of appreciative functioning in greater detail.Methods: A deductive thematic analysis of relevant literature was performed in Study 1 to identify psychological and social components of appreciative functioning within an empirically-based systems framework. Study 2 used a content analysis methodology to quantify the extent to which the components identified in Study 1 are covered by existing scales that assess gratitude and gratefulness.Results: Study 1 identified 32 theoretical components within five overarching domains that comprise the system of appreciative functioning. Gratefulness and gratitude were found to involve many components, with some shared in common. Study 2 found that existing instruments do not cover the full set of components. Moreover, results indicated that existing scales confound gratitude and gratefulness, and thus they cannot determine the extent to which each construct uniquely relates to wellbeing outcomes.Conclusions: This work supports the view that gratefulness and gratitude are distinct, yet related, multi-component constructs within a complex system of appreciative functioning. Together, these studies provide theoretical groundwork for the construction of multidimensional measurement instruments to extend research into the underlying mechanisms through which appreciative functioning influences well-being.
Studies have found that job crafting and employee well-being are correlated. Less is known, however, about the contextual variables that support or thwart job crafting within an organization. The present study examined perceived autonomy support as one such contextual factor. Working adults (N = 250) completed a battery of measures on autonomy support, job crafting, and workplace well-being. A hypothesized model in which perceived autonomy support predicts job crafting, which in turn predicts workplace well-being was tested using structural equation modeling. The hypothesized model fit the data well; however, a competing model in which autonomy support and job crafting were separate, but correlated direct predictors of well-being provided a better fit to the data. Supplemental analyses suggested a synergistic relationship between job crafting and autonomy support in organizations, showing employees with the highest well-being did the most job crafting and experienced the highest amount of perceived autonomy support. Findings underscore the importance of both individual factors and contextual factors in supporting workplace well-being.
