scholarly journals The Promise of Sustainable Happiness

2009 ◽  
pp. 666-678 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia K. Boehm ◽  
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Keyword(s):  
Social Comparisons ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Life Circumstances ◽  
Intentional Activities ◽  
Happiness Level ◽  
Sustainable Happiness ◽  
Do So

From ancient history to recent times, philosophers, writers, self-help gurus, and now scientists have taken up the challenge of how to foster greater happiness. This chapter discusses why some people are happier than others, focusing on the distinctive ways that happy and unhappy individuals construe themselves and others, respond to social comparisons, make decisions, and self-reflect. We suggest that, despite several barriers to increased well-being, less happy people can strive successfully to be happier by learning a variety of effortful strategies and practicing them with determination and commitment. The sustainable happiness model (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005 ) provides a theoretical framework for experimental intervention research on how to increase and maintain happiness. According to this model, three factors contribute to an individual's chronic happiness level: (a) the set point, (b) life circumstances, and (c) intentional activities, or effortful acts that are naturally variable and episodic. Such activities, which include committing acts of kindness, expressing gratitude or optimism, and savoring joyful life events, represent the most promising route to sustaining enhanced happiness. We describe a half-dozen randomized controlled interventions testing the efficacy of each of these activities in raising and maintaining well-being, as well as the mediators and moderators underlying their effects. Future researchers must endeavor not only to learn which particular practices make people happier, but how and why they do so.

The Promise of Fostering Greater Happiness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia K. Boehm ◽  
Peter Ruberton ◽  
Sonja Lyubomirsky
Keyword(s):  
Social Comparisons ◽  
Optimal Conditions ◽  
Controlled Experiments ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Do So

Philosophers, writers, self-help gurus, and now scientists have undertaken the challenge of how to foster greater happiness. In this chapter, we first discuss the different ways that happy and unhappy individuals construe their worlds, respond to social comparisons, make decisions, and self-reflect. Next, we examine whether deliberate strategies to improve happiness can be effective, and consider factors that may curtail their effectiveness. Specifically, we review evidence from randomized controlled experiments indicating that people can increase their happiness by practicing simple positive activities with effort and commitment. Such activities—including performing kind acts, expressing gratitude or optimism, and re-experiencing joyful events—represent the most promising route to enhanced happiness. We also discuss the optimal conditions under which positive activities increase happiness, and the mechanisms that underlie their success. Future researchers must continue not only to investigate which particular practices make people happier, but how and why they do so.

scholarly journals Easy as (Happiness) Pie? A Critical Evaluation of a Popular Model of the Determinants of Well-Being

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas J. L. Brown ◽  
Julia Marie Rohrer
Keyword(s):  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Conceptual Level ◽  
Scientific Inference ◽  
Underlying Principle ◽  
Life Circumstances ◽  
Seminal Article ◽  
Happiness Level

An underlying principle behind much of the research in positive psychology is that individuals have considerable leeway to increase their levels of happiness. In an influential article that is frequently cited in support of such claims, Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, and Schkade (2005) put forward a model (subsequently popularized under the name of the “happiness pie”) in which approximately 50% of individual differences in happiness are due to genetic factors and 10% to life circumstances, leaving 40% available to be changed via volitional activities. We re-examined Lyubomirsky et al.’s claims and found several apparent deficiencies in their chain of arguments on both the empirical and the conceptual level. We conclude that there is little empirical evidence for the variance decomposition suggested by the “happiness pie,” and that even if it were valid, it is not necessarily informative with respect to the question of whether individuals can truly exert substantial influence over their own chronic happiness level. We believe that our critical re-examination of Lyubomirsky et al.’s seminal article offers insights into some common misconceptions and pitfalls of scientific inference, and we hope that it might contribute to the construction of a more rigorous and solid empirical basis for the field of positive psychology.

scholarly journals A Mobile Health Intervention (LifeBuoy App) to Help Young People Manage Suicidal Thoughts: Protocol for a Mixed-Methods Randomized Controlled Trial

10.2196/23655 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. e23655
Author(s):  
Jin Han ◽  
Lauren McGillivray ◽  
Quincy JJ Wong ◽  
Aliza Werner-Seidler ◽  
Iana Wong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Randomized Controlled Trial ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Young People ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Suicidal Thoughts ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Mental Well Being

Background Self-help smartphone apps offer a new opportunity to address youth suicide prevention by improving access to support and by providing potentially high fidelity and cost-effective treatment. However, there have been very few smartphone apps providing evidence-based support for suicide prevention in this population. To address this gap, we developed the LifeBuoy app, a self-help smartphone app informed by dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), to help young people manage suicidal thoughts in their daily life. Objective This study describes the protocol for a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of the LifeBuoy app for reducing suicidal thoughts and behaviors, depression, anxiety, and psychological distress, and improving general mental well-being in young adults aged 18 to 25 years. Methods This is a randomized controlled trial recruiting 378 young adults aged between 18 and 25 years and comparing the LifeBuoy app with a matched attention control (a placebo app with the same display but no DBT components). The primary outcome is suicidal thoughts measured by the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale (SIDAS). The secondary outcomes are suicidal behavior, depression, anxiety, psychological distress, and general mental well-being. The changes in the levels of insomnia, rumination, suicide cognitions, distress tolerance, loneliness, and help seeking before and after using the app are evaluated in this study. The study also addresses risk factors and responses to the intervention. A series of items assessing COVID-19 experiences is included in the trial to capture the potential impact of the pandemic on this study. Assessments will occur on the following three occasions: baseline, postintervention, and follow-up at 3 months postintervention. A qualitative interview about user experience with the LifeBuoy app will take place within 4 weeks of the final assessment. Using linear mixed models, the primary analysis will compare the changes in suicidal thoughts in the intervention condition relative to the control condition. To minimize risks, participants will receive a call from the team clinical psychologist by clicking a help button in the app or responding to an automated email sent by the system when they are assessed with elevated suicide risks at the baseline, postintervention, and 3-month follow-up surveys. Results The trial recruitment started in May 2020. Data collection is currently ongoing. Conclusions This is the first trial examining the efficacy of a DBT-informed smartphone app delivered to community-living young adults reporting suicidal thoughts. This trial will extend knowledge about the efficacy and acceptability of app-based support for suicidal thoughts in young people. Trial Registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12619001671156; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=378366. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) PRR1-10.2196/23655

scholarly journals Negotiating Intimate and (A)sexual Stories

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Woodiwiss
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Traumatic Experiences ◽  
Western World ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Sexually Active ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Sexual Stories ◽  
Compulsory Sexuality ◽  
Do So

Drawing on a research project looking at women's engagement with therapeutic/self-help literature this paper uses the concept of narrative frameworks to explore women's negotiation of currently circulating stories of healthy womanhood, intimacy and sexuality. In a (western) world increasingly informed by therapeutic discourses, adult women are told they are entitled to happiness and success and failure to do so is seen to result from past (often traumatic) experiences which might or might not be remembered. Central to this construction of womanhood is what (drawing on Rich 1980) I have called ‘compulsory sexuality’ whereby the healthy adult woman is constructed as sexually knowledgeable, active and desirous. This not only puts pressure on all women to construct a (particular) active sexual self but helps to construct those who do not as problematic and directs them to seek both cause and solution in their damaged psychologies. One such cause is said to be childhood sexual abuse and the self-help literature aimed at survivors of such abuse encourages readers to use the idea(l) of an active sexual self as a measure of health, well-being and ultimately womanhood. In this paper I argue that contemporary narrative frameworks of healthy womanhood not only allows for women who are not, or do not wish to be, sexually active to be identified as problematic, but directs them to see themselves as damaged. In critiquing the sexual abuse recovery literature I also show how this can be used to create different a/sexual selves, albeit ones currently perceived to be ‘damaged’.

scholarly journals A Mobile Health Intervention (LifeBuoy App) to Help Young People Manage Suicidal Thoughts: Protocol for a Mixed-Methods Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin Han ◽  
Lauren McGillivray ◽  
Quincy JJ Wong ◽  
Aliza Werner-Seidler ◽  
Iana Wong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Randomized Controlled Trial ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Young People ◽  
Controlled Trial ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Suicidal Thoughts ◽  
Randomized Controlled ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Mental Well Being

BACKGROUND Self-help smartphone apps offer a new opportunity to address youth suicide prevention by improving access to support and by providing potentially high fidelity and cost-effective treatment. However, there have been very few smartphone apps providing evidence-based support for suicide prevention in this population. To address this gap, we developed the LifeBuoy app, a self-help smartphone app informed by dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), to help young people manage suicidal thoughts in their daily life. OBJECTIVE This study describes the protocol for a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of the LifeBuoy app for reducing suicidal thoughts and behaviors, depression, anxiety, and psychological distress, and improving general mental well-being in young adults aged 18 to 25 years. METHODS This is a randomized controlled trial recruiting 378 young adults aged between 18 and 25 years and comparing the LifeBuoy app with a matched attention control (a placebo app with the same display but no DBT components). The primary outcome is suicidal thoughts measured by the Suicidal Ideation Attributes Scale (SIDAS). The secondary outcomes are suicidal behavior, depression, anxiety, psychological distress, and general mental well-being. The changes in the levels of insomnia, rumination, suicide cognitions, distress tolerance, loneliness, and help seeking before and after using the app are evaluated in this study. The study also addresses risk factors and responses to the intervention. A series of items assessing COVID-19 experiences is included in the trial to capture the potential impact of the pandemic on this study. Assessments will occur on the following three occasions: baseline, postintervention, and follow-up at 3 months postintervention. A qualitative interview about user experience with the LifeBuoy app will take place within 4 weeks of the final assessment. Using linear mixed models, the primary analysis will compare the changes in suicidal thoughts in the intervention condition relative to the control condition. To minimize risks, participants will receive a call from the team clinical psychologist by clicking a help button in the app or responding to an automated email sent by the system when they are assessed with elevated suicide risks at the baseline, postintervention, and 3-month follow-up surveys. RESULTS The trial recruitment started in May 2020. Data collection is currently ongoing. CONCLUSIONS This is the first trial examining the efficacy of a DBT-informed smartphone app delivered to community-living young adults reporting suicidal thoughts. This trial will extend knowledge about the efficacy and acceptability of app-based support for suicidal thoughts in young people. CLINICALTRIAL Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12619001671156; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=378366. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT PRR1-10.2196/23655

Economics of Happiness as an Academic Research Discipline

2012 ◽  
pp. 94-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Antipina
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Indicators ◽  
Research Discipline ◽  
Happiness Economics ◽  
Education And Health ◽  
Economics Of Happiness ◽  
Happiness Level

The article contains a review of the contemporary research in the field of economics of happiness. Economics of happiness deals with correlation between the subjective notion of well-being and happiness with ones life (happiness level) and economic indicators. The author considers the correlation of economic and noneconomic factors. The last ones —  such as education and health — also affect the level of happiness. The author dwells upon the following questions: research methodology in economics of happiness, correlation between subjective notion of well-being and happiness with ones life and economic performance on micro- and macrolevels.

Investigating the Efficacy and Cost-Effectiveness of a Web-based Self-help Program for People With Adjustment Problems After an Accident (SelFIT): Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Hegy ◽  
Noemi Anja Brog ◽  
Thomas Berger ◽  
Hansjoerg Znoj
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Psychological Distress ◽  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Well Being ◽  
User Friendliness ◽  
Adjustment Problems ◽  
Health Care Consumption ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Wide Range

BACKGROUND Accidents and the resulting injuries are one of the world’s biggest health care issues often causing long-term effects on psychological and physical health. With regard to psychological consequences, accidents can cause a wide range of burdens including adjustment problems. Although adjustment problems are among the most frequent mental health problems, there are few specific interventions available. The newly developed program SelFIT aims to remedy this situation by offering a low-threshold web-based self-help intervention for psychological distress after an accident. OBJECTIVE The overall aim is to evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of the SelFIT program plus care as usual (CAU) compared to only care as usual. Furthermore, the program’s user friendliness, acceptance and adherence are assessed. We expect that the use of SelFIT is associated with a greater reduction in psychological distress, greater improvement in mental and physical well-being, and greater cost-effectiveness compared to CAU. METHODS Adults (n=240) showing adjustment problems due to an accident they experienced between 2 weeks and 2 years before entering the study will be randomized. Participants in the intervention group receive direct access to SelFIT. The control group receives access to the program after 12 weeks. There are 6 measurement points for both groups (baseline as well as after 4, 8, 12, 24 and 36 weeks). The main outcome is a reduction in anxiety, depression and stress symptoms that indicate adjustment problems. Secondary outcomes include well-being, optimism, embitterment, self-esteem, self-efficacy, emotion regulation, pain, costs of health care consumption and productivity loss as well as the program’s adherence, acceptance and user-friendliness. RESULTS Recruitment started in December 2019 and is ongoing. CONCLUSIONS To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study examining a web-based self-help program designed to treat adjustment problems resulting from an accident. If effective, the program could complement the still limited offer of secondary and tertiary psychological prevention after an accident. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03785912; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03785912?cond=NCT03785912&draw=2&rank=1

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