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This book brings together the latest research on positive psychology from an international cast of researchers and particularly from the growing body of European researchers. The chapters describe research and practice from diverse fields of positive psychology, covering topics such as happiness and well-being, motivation and goals, personality, academic performance and coping, measurement and interventions. The book emphasizes a cultural approach to the human pursuit of well-being. It is unique in that it presents research from a range of cultures, such as Russia, Croatia, and Egypt, in addition to ten different Western cultures. This approach helps broaden our understanding of those aspects of human experience that make life worth living in diverse cultural conditions. The book includes well-known and new authors from the field and contains selected papers that were presented at the 4th European Conference of Positive Psychology held in 2008 in Croatia.
This handbook informs the reader about how much progress we, the human race, have made in enhancing the quality of life on this planet. Many skeptics focus on how the quality of life has deteriorated over the course of human history, particularly given World War II and its aftermath. This handbook provides a positive perspective on the history of well-being. Quality of life, as documented by scientists worldwide, has significantly improved. Nevertheless, one sees more improvements in well-being in some regions of the world than in others. Why? This handbook documents the progress of well-being in the various world regions as well as the differences in those regions. The broad questions that the handbook addresses include: What does well-being mean? How do different philosophical and religious traditions interpret the concept of well-being within their own context? Has well-being remained the same over different historical epochs and for different regions and subregions of the world? In which areas of human development have we been most successful in advancing individual and collective well-being? In which sectors has the attainment of well-being proven most difficult? How does well-being differ within and between different populations groups that, for a variety of socially created reasons, have been the most disadvantaged (e.g., children, the aged, women, the poor, racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities)?
This book brings together the latest research on positive psychology from an international cast of researchers and particularly from the growing body of European researchers. The chapters describe research and practice from diverse fields of positive psychology, covering topics such as happiness and well-being, motivation and goals, personality, academic performance and coping, measurement and interventions. The book emphasizes a cultural approach to the human pursuit of well-being. It is unique in that it presents research from a range of cultures, such as Russia, Croatia, and Egypt, in addition to ten different Western cultures. This approach helps broaden our understanding of those aspects of human experience that make life worth living in diverse cultural conditions. The book includes well-known and new authors from the field and contains selected papers that were presented at the 4th European Conference of Positive Psychology held in 2008 in Croatia.
The pursuit of happiness is a defining theme of the modern era. But what if people aren't very good at it? This and related questions are explored in this book, the first comprehensive philosophical treatment of happiness in the contemporary psychological sense. In these pages, Dan Haybron argues that people are probably less effective at judging, and promoting, their own welfare than common belief has it. For the psychological dimensions of well-being, particularly our emotional lives, are far richer and more complex than we tend to realize. Knowing one's own interests is no trivial matter. As well, we tend to make a variety of systematic errors in the pursuit of happiness. We may need, then, to rethink traditional assumptions about human nature, the good life, and the good society. Thoroughly engaged with both philosophical and scientific work on happiness and well-being, this book will be a definitive resource for philosophers, social scientists, policy makers, and other students of human well-being.
Subjective well-being refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domains and activities in their lives. This information has already proven valuable to researchers, who have produced insights about the emotional states and experiences of people belonging to different groups, engaged in different activities, at different points in the life course, and involved in different family and community structures. Research has also revealed relationships between people's self-reported, subjectively assessed states and their behavior and decisions. Research on subjective well-being has been ongoing for decades, providing new information about the human condition. During the past decade, interest in the topic among policy makers, national statistical offices, academic researchers, the media, and the public has increased markedly because of its potential for shedding light on the economic, social, and health conditions of populations and for informing policy decisions across these domains. Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience explores the use of this measure in population surveys. This report reviews the current state of research and evaluates methods for the measurement. In this report, a range of potential experienced well-being data applications are cited, from cost-benefit studies of health care delivery to commuting and transportation planning, environmental valuation, and outdoor recreation resource monitoring, and even to assessment of end-of-life treatment options. Subjective Well-Being finds that, whether used to assess the consequence of people's situations and policies that might affect them or to explore determinants of outcomes, contextual and covariate data are needed alongside the subjective well-being measures. This report offers guidance about adopting subjective well-being measures in official government surveys to inform social and economic policies and considers whether research has advanced to a point which warrants the federal government collecting data that allow aspects of the population's subjective well-being to be tracked and associated with changing conditions.
This book tests the critical potential of happiness research to evaluate contemporary high-performance societies. These societies, defined as affluent capitalist societies, emphasize competition and success both institutionally and culturally. Growing affluence improves life in many ways, for a large number of people. We lead longer, safer, and more comfortable lives than previous generations. But we also live faster, and are competition-toughened, like top athletes. As a result, we suspect limits and detect downsides of our high-speed lives. The ubiquitous maximization principle opens up a systematic gateway to the pleasures and pains of contemporary life. Using happiness as a reference point, this book explores the philosophical and empirical limits of the maximization rule. It considers the answer to questions such as: Precisely, why did the idea of (economic) maximization gain so much ground in our Western way of thinking? When, and in which life domains, does maximization work, when does it fail? When do qualities and when do quantities matter? Does maximization yield a different (un)happiness dividend in different species, cultures, and societies? ​
This authoritative volume reviews the breadth of current scientific knowledge on subjective well-being (SWB): its definition, causes and consequences, measurement, and practical applications that may help people become happier. Leading experts explore the connections between SWB and a range of intrapersonal and interpersonal phenomena, including personality, health, relationship satisfaction, wealth, cognitive processes, emotion regulation, religion, family life, school and work experiences, and culture. Interventions and practices that enhance SWB are examined, with attention to both their benefits and limitations. The concluding chapter from Ed Diener dispels common myths in the field and presents a thoughtful agenda for future research.
Personal Project Pursuit is the first book to feature Brian Little's highly respected personal projects analysis (PPA), one of the pioneering theories in contemporary personality and motivational psychology. The book examines both the internal and external dynamics of personal goals and projects and clearly demonstrates that human flourishing is enhanced when individuals are engaged in the pursuit of personal projects. The book opens with the theory and methodologies of personal projects research. The historical perspective on the development of the two dominant research perspectives from personality and developmental psychology is explored. Section II examines the internal dynamics and competing demands of goal formulation and project inception. The third part accentuates the role that social ecologies play in shaping the nature and outcomes of personal projects. These chapters highlight the importance of interpersonal relationships, organizational contexts, and the societal and cultural expectations in affecting the pursuit of personal projects. Ideas for orchestrating the environment to enhance human flourishing are explored. Section IV demonstrates how personal projects can illuminate and enhance human flourishing, from psychological well being to physical health. The book concludes with applications for enhancing human flourishing from individual counseling to public policy. Personal Project Pursuit is intended for advanced students, researchers, and practitioners in personality, social, developmental, industrial/organizational, health, environmental, clinical and counseling psychology interested in motivation and well being. An excellent supplemental text for courses on personality, motivation, positive psychology, well being, personal and life span development, the book's applied focus will appeal to counselors and rehabilitation/occupational therapists.
Anthropology has long shied away from examining how human beings may lead happy and fulfilling lives. This book, however, shows that the ethnographic examination of well-being--defined as "the optimal state for an individual, a community, and a society"--and the comparison of well-being within and across societies is a new and important area for anthropological inquiry. Distinctly different in different places, but also reflecting our common humanity, well-being is intimately linked to the idea of happiness and its pursuits. Noted anthropological researchers have come together in this volume to examine well-being in a range of diverse ways and to investigate it in a range of settings: from the Peruvian Amazon, the Australian outback, and the Canadian north, to India, China, Indonesia, Japan, and the United States. Gordon Mathews is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has written What Makes Life Worth Living? How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds (1996) and Global Culture /Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket (2000), and co-written Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation (2007); he has co-edited Consuming Hong Kong (2001) and Japan's Changing Generations (2004). Carolina Izquierdo is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for the Everyday Lives of Families (CELF) at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research has centered on health and well-being among the Matsigenka in the Peruvian Amazon, the Mapuche in Chile, and middle-class families in the United States.
Is wealth the same as happiness? How is the quality of life to be evaluated, measured, and most importantly, achieved? The authors provide provocative and engaging answers to these questions in this new, multidisciplinary and pragmatic approach to an important area of social research. Taking the individual as the point of departure, the authors consider both objective circumstances and their subjective impact on people's lives. Prominent authors from an array of different academic disciplines discuss the quality of life as viewed from their distinctive perspectives: these include the psychology of subjective well-being, destitution and basic needs, the environment, women and the family, illness and health, employment and work, and the role of the state.