http://www.psywb.com The most accessed research articles published by Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2012-03-21T00:00:00Z Background: The last two decades have seen the development of theoretical models of hope, which have greatly influenced the field of positive psychology and the study of well-being. Recently, there has been increased interest in using these theories to create interventions and other strategies to enhance hopefulness among clinic-referred individuals and members of the community. We used meta-analysis to determine whether these hope enhancement strategies were associated with (a) increased hopefulness, (b) improved life satisfaction, and (c) decreased psychological distress among participants. Results: Analysis of 27 studies involving 2, 154 participants showed significant, but small, effect sizes for hopefulness and life satisfaction and no overall relationship between hope enhancement strategies and decreased psychological distress. Moderation tests indicated greater effect sizes for studies involving brief interventions, conducted in laboratory settings, and administered to students or individuals recruited from the community. Results also suggested publication bias. Conclusions: As the current study provides only modest evidence for the ability of hope enhancement strategies to increase hopefulness or life satisfaction and no consistent evidence that hope enhancement strategies can alleviate psychological distress., traditional psychotherapeutic interventions or other effective positive psychological constructs (e.g., gratitude, optimism, mindfulness) might best be targeted in applied settings. http://www.psywb.com/content/1/1/5 Robert Weis Elena Speridakos Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2011, null:5 2011-11-08T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/2211-1522-1-5 /content/figures/2211-1522-1-5-toc.gif Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2211-1522 ${item.volume} 5 2011-11-08T00:00:00Z XML Using the Dualistic Model of Passion (DMP), the purpose of the present paper is to show the role of passion for activities in sustainable psychological well-being. Passion is defined as a strong inclination toward a self-defining activity that people like (or even love), find important, and in which they invest time and energy on a regular basis. The model proposes the existence of two types of passion: harmonious and obsessive. Harmonious passion originates from an autonomous internalization of the activity into one's identity while obsessive passion emanates from a controlled internalization and comes to control the person. Through the experience of positive emotions during activity engagement that takes place on a regular and repeated basis, it is posited that harmonious passion contributes to sustained psychological well-being while preventing the experience of negative affect, psychological conflict, and ill-being. Obsessive passion is not expected to produce such positive effects and may even facilitate negative affect, conflict with other life activities, and psychological ill-being. Research supporting the proposed effects and processes is presented and directions for future research are proposed. http://www.psywb.com/content/2/1/1 Robert Vallerand Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2012, null:1 2012-03-21T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/2211-1522-2-1 /content/figures/2211-1522-2-1-toc.gif Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2211-1522 ${item.volume} 1 2012-03-21T00:00:00Z PDF Background: How is happiness generated via brain function in lucky individuals who have the good fortune to be happy? Conceptually, well-being or happiness has long been viewed as requiring at least two crucial ingredients: positive affect or pleasure (hedonia) and a sense of meaningfulness or engagement in life (eudaimonia). Science has recently made progress in relating hedonic pleasure to brain function, and so here we survey new insights into how brains generate the hedonic ingredient of sustained or frequent pleasure. We also briefly discuss how brains might connect hedonia states of pleasure to eudaimonia assessments of meaningfulness, and so create balanced states of positive well-being. Results: Notable progress has been made in understanding brain bases of hedonic processing, producing insights into that brain systems that cause and/or code sensory pleasures. Progress has been facilitated by the recognition that hedonic brain mechanisms are largely shared between humans and other mammals, allowing application of conclusions from animal studies to a better understanding of human pleasures. In the past few years, evidence has also grown to indicate that for humans, brain mechanisms of higher abstract pleasures strongly overlap with more basic sensory pleasures. This overlap may provide a window into underlying brain circuitry that generates all pleasures, including even the hedonic quality of pervasive well-being that detaches from any particular sensation to apply to daily life in a more sustained or frequent fashion. Conclusions: Hedonic insights are applied to understanding human well-being here. Our strategy combines new findings on brain mediators that generate the pleasure of sensations with evidence that human brains use many of the same hedonic circuits from sensory pleasures to create the higher pleasures. This in turn may be linked to how hedonic systems interact with other brain systems relevant to self-understanding and the meaning components of eudaimonic happiness. Finally, we speculate a bit about how brains that generate hedonia states might link to eudaimonia assessments to create properly balanced states of positive well-being that approach true happiness. http://www.psywb.com/content/1/1/3 Kent Berridge Morten Kringelbach Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2011, null:3 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/2211-1522-1-3 /content/figures/2211-1522-1-3-toc.gif Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2211-1522 ${item.volume} 3 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z XML Background: It was hypothetisized that playfulness in adults (i.e., the predisposition to play) is robustly associated with the "good character." Playfulness in adults can be tested via a global cognitive evaluation and an instrument for distinguishing five different facets of playful behaviors (spontaneous, expressive, creative, fun, and silly). Character strengths can be assessed within the framework of the Values-in-Action (VIA) classification of strengths. Results: Data were collected in an online study and the sample consisted of 268 adults. A regression analysis revealed that adult playfulness was best predicted by humor, the appreciation of beauty and excellence, low prudence, creativity, and teamwork. As expected, single strengths (e.g., creativity, zest, and hope) demonstrated strong relations with facets of playfulness with its fun-variants yielding the numerically highest relations. The fun-variant of playfulness was most strongly related with emotional strengths while intellectual strengths yielded robust relations with all facets of playfulness. Strengths of restraint were negatively related with spontaneous, expressive, and silly-variants of playfulness. Conclusions: The findings were in line with expectations and are discussed within a broader framework of research in playfulness in adults. The results indicate that playfulness in adults relates to positive psychological functioning and that more studies further illuminating the contribution of playfulness to well-being in adults are warranted. http://www.psywb.com/content/1/1/4 Rene Proyer Willibald Ruch Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2011, null:4 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/2211-1522-1-4 /content/figures/2211-1522-1-4-toc.gif Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2211-1522 ${item.volume} 4 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z XML Richard Layard (2005) holds modern society responsible for an 'epidemic of mental disorder', which he sees as a major source of contemporary unhappiness. Yet average happiness is high in modern society and most people with a mental disorder feel happy most of the time. This appears in an analysis of a representative sample (N = 7,076) of the general population in The Netherlands that was screened for mental disorders. Happiness was measured using a single question on how often respondents had felt happy during the last four weeks. Of the respondents with a mental disorder 68% reported they often felt happy during the last four weeks. People with a mental disorder may be victims of modern society, but they also benefit from modern society. Happiness is highest for people with substance abuse and anxiety disorders and uncommon for people with mood disorders. http://www.psywb.com/content/1/1/2 Ad Bergsma Ruut Veenhoven Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2011, null:2 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/2211-1522-1-2 /content/figures/2211-1522-1-2-toc.gif Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2211-1522 ${item.volume} 2 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z XML Our vision for this new SpringerOpen Access journal, Psychology of Well-Being: Research, Theory and Practice, is to promote a distinctly eclectic approach to investigating well-being. When the prospect of becoming Editors in Chief for this journal arose, we viewed this as the ideal opportunity to promote the integration of knowledge gained from diverse research fields both within psychology and where psychology intersects with other disciplines (e.g., biology, economics, philosophy, sociology and neuroscience). Our co-editorship enables us to advance this idea of integrating disparate fields with a shared interest in well-being, as we ourselves have backgrounds in diverse yet complementary areas of psychological research, Nikki from psychobiological perspectives on emotion, memory and music and Dianne from subjective perspectives of well-being including meaning, sense of community, positive interventions and workplace wellness. Editorial board members also possess a broad breadth of expertise which aligns nicely with the journal objectives. http://www.psywb.com/content/1/1/1 Dianne Vella-Brodrick Nikki Rickard Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2011, null:1 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z doi:10.1186/2211-1522-1-1 /content/figures/2211-1522-1-1-toc.gif Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice 2211-1522 ${item.volume} 1 2011-10-24T00:00:00Z XML