Experiencing the Presence of the Dead: Discrepancies in “The Sensing Experience” and Their Psychological Concomitants

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torill Christine Lindstrõm

Relationships between experiencing “the presence of the dead” and psychological outcome parameters were studied in thirty-nine widows, early in bereavement and twelve months later. Self-evaluation of coping, expectancies about future coping, and scores on psychological standard questionnaires (“Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Scale” (STAI), “Goldberg Health Questionnaire” (GHQ), “General Well-Being Schedule” (GWB), “Sjõberg Measurement of Mood” (SJO) and “Life Style Index” (LSI) were used as indicators of outcome. A majority of the widows reported “sensing experiences” at both occasions. The sensing experiences were categorized as being “neutral to slightly positive,” “extremely positive,” and “extremely negative.” “Extremely positive,” and “extremely negative” experiences were found to be associated with poor adaptational outcomes, whereas “neutral to slightly positive experiences” and no sensing experiences were associated with good outcomes. The nature of the sensing experience, therefore, seems to predict adaptation after bereavement.

Propelled ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Andreas Elpidorou

The chapter explores the nature of the good life, articulates the role that happiness, pleasure, and positive emotions play in such a life, and considers the effects of emotional adaptation and emotional diversity on our well-being. By drawing upon both philosophical literature and research in social psychology and cognitive neuroscience, it argues for a broad conception of the good life, one that does not identify the good life simply with the presence of positive experiences and the absence of negative ones. The chapter shows not only that negative experiences aren’t detrimental to our well-being, but that they are often necessary to achieve it.


Author(s):  
Ernesto Noronha ◽  
Premilla D'Cruz

Though outsourcing has created enormous employment potential in India’s information technology enabled services/business process outsourcing (ITES/BPO) sector, the implications for employees remain to be understood. The present paper describes employee experiences in telemarketing outbound call centers in Bangalore and Mumbai, India. Following van Manen’s (1998) hermeneutic phenomenological approach, data were collected through unstructured conversational interviews with 18 telemarketing agents identified vi a snowball sampling and were subject to holistic and sententious thematic analyses. Reconciling dichotomous experiences at work was the label used to capture participants’ core experiences and indicated that while participants’ simultaneous positive and negative experiences contributed to a sense of concomitant stress and well-being, they employed various strategies to maintain a balance between positive experiences/well-being and negative experiences/stress.


Author(s):  
Nancy L. Sin ◽  
David M. Almeida

Positive emotions and minor positive events are more likely to occur in people’s daily lives than negative emotions and stressors. This chapter provides an overview of theoretical perspectives and previous research linking positive experiences with stress and health. A conceptual framework is proposed that describes constructs within the realm of “daily positive experiences.” The framework posits that daily positive experiences contribute to health through biological, behavioral, and stress-buffering pathways. The sociodemographic patterning of daily positive experiences by age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status is described. Multidisciplinary work is presented linking between-person differences and within-person (day-to-day) variations in daily positive experiences to stressor reactivity, inflammation, and diurnal cortisol rhythms. The chapter concludes with a discussion of unanswered questions and key areas for future discovery and innovation. The study of everyday positive experiences provides insights into health and well-being that go beyond what can be learned from focusing solely on negative experiences.


Author(s):  
Melanie K. T. Takarangi ◽  
Deryn Strange

When people are told that their negative memories are worse than other people’s, do they later remember those events differently? We asked participants to recall a recent negative memory then, 24 h later, we gave some participants feedback about the emotional impact of their event – stating it was more or less negative compared to other people’s experiences. One week later, participants recalled the event again. We predicted that if feedback affected how participants remembered their negative experiences, their ratings of the memory’s characteristics should change over time. That is, when participants are told that their negative event is extremely negative, their memories should be more vivid, recollected strongly, and remembered from a personal perspective, compared to participants in the other conditions. Our results provide support for this hypothesis. We suggest that external feedback might be a potential mechanism in the relationship between negative memories and psychological well-being.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elvira Perez Vallejos ◽  
Liz Dowthwaite ◽  
Helen Creswich ◽  
Virginia Portillo ◽  
Ansgar Koene ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Algorithms rule the online environments and are essential for performing data processing, filtering, personalisation and other tasks. Research has shown that children and young people make up a significant proportion of Internet users, however little attention has been given to their experiences of algorithmically-mediated online platforms, or the impact of them on their mental health and well-being. The algorithms that govern online platforms are often obfuscated by a lack of transparency in their online Terms and Conditions and user agreements. This lack of transparency speaks to the need for protecting the most vulnerable users from potential online harms. OBJECTIVE To capture young people's experiences when being online and perceived impact on their well-being. METHODS In this paper, we draw on qualitative and quantitative data from a total of 260 children and young people who took part in a ‘Youth Jury’ to bring their opinions to the forefront, elicit discussion of their experiences of using online platforms, and perceived psychosocial impact on users. RESULTS The results of the study revealed the young people’s positive as well as negative experiences of using online platforms. Benefits such as being convenient and providing entertainment and personalised search results were identified. However, the data also reveals participants’ concerns for their privacy, safety and trust when online, which can have a significant impact on their well-being. CONCLUSIONS We conclude by making recommendations that online platforms acknowledge and enact on their responsibility to protect the privacy of their young users, recognising the significant developmental milestones that this group experience during these early years, and the impact that technology may have on them. We argue that governments need to incorporate policies that require technologists and others to embed the safeguarding of users’ well-being within the core of the design of Internet products and services to improve the user experiences and psychological well-being of all, but especially those of children and young people. CLINICALTRIAL N/A


Author(s):  
Germina-Alina Cosma ◽  
Alina Chiracu ◽  
Amalia Raluca Stepan ◽  
Marian Alexandru Cosma ◽  
Marian Costin Nanu ◽  
...  

The aim of this study was to analyze athletes’ quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study involved 249 athletes between 15 and 35 of age, M = 21.22, SD = 5.12. The sample was composed of eight Olympic Games medalists, three European medalists, 67 international medalists, and 63 national medalists. The instruments used were: (1) COVID-19 Anxiety Scale, (2) Athlete Quality of Life Scale, (3) Impact of Pandemic on Athletes Questionnaire, and (4) International Personality Item Pool (IPIP Anxiety, Depression, and Vulnerability Scales). The results indicate significant differences in COVID-19 anxiety depending on the sport practiced, F (9239) = 3.81, p < 0.01, showing that there were significant differences between sports. The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic mediates the relationship between trait anxiety and the athletes’ quality of life. The percentage of mediation was 33.9%, and the indirect effect was −0.11, CI 95% (−0.18, −0.03), Z = −2.82, p < 0.01. Trait anxiety has an increasing effect on the intensity of the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, 0.23, CI 95% (.10, 0.35), Z = 3.56, p < 0.01, and the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has a decreasing effect on quality of life, −0.47, CI 95% (−0.67, −0.27), Z = −4.62, p < 0.01. Gender and age did not moderate the relationship between the negative impact of COVID-19 and athletes’ quality of life. The results of the study highlighted the impact that social isolation and quarantine have on athletes’ affective well-being.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiaki Ura ◽  
Tsuyoshi Okamura ◽  
Sachiko Yamazaki ◽  
Masaya Shimmei ◽  
Keisuke Torishima ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Green care farms, which offer care for people with dementia in a farm setting, have been emerging in the Netherlands. The aim of this study was to 1) implement green care farms which use rice farming in Japan, 2) explore the positive experiences of rice farming care, and 3) compare the effect of rice farming care to that of usual care on well-being and cognitive ability. Methods We developed a new method of green care farm in Japan which uses rice farming, a farming that is practiced all over East Asia. The participants were 15 people with dementia (mean age = 75.6 ± 9.8 years) who participated in a one-hour rice farming care program once a week for 25 weeks. We also collected qualitative data on the positive experiences of study participants after the program. As a reference data, we also collected the corresponding data of the usual care group which included 14 people with dementia (mean age = 79.9 ± 5.8 years) who were attending the near-by day-care. Results The mean participation rate on the rice farming care group was 72.1%. After the intervention, participants reported experiencing enjoyment and connection during the program. It also changed the staff’s view on dementia. The green care farm group showed a significant improvement in well-being but no significant difference in cognitive function compared to the usual care group. Conclusions Green care farms by using rice farming is promising care method which is evidence-based, empowerment-oriented, strengths-based, community-based dementia service, which also delivers meaningful experience for the people with dementia in East Asia. Trial registration UMIN, UMIN000025020, Registered 1 April 2017.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingxi Zhao ◽  
Peris Musitia ◽  
Mwanamvua Boga ◽  
David Gathara ◽  
Catia Nicodemo ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Appropriate and well-resourced medical internship training is important to ensure psychological health and well-being of doctors in training and also to recruit and retain these doctors. However, most reviews focused on clinical competency of medical interns instead of the non-clinical aspects of training. In this scoping review, we aim to review what tools exist to measure medical internship experience and summarize the major domains assessed. Method The authors searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, ERIC, and the Cochrane Library for peer-reviewed studies that provided quantitative data on medical intern’s (house officer, foundation year doctor, etc.) internship experience and published between 2000 and 2019. Three reviewers screened studies for eligibility with inclusion criteria. Data including tools used, key themes examined, and psychometric properties within the study population were charted, collated, and summarized. Tools that were used in multiple studies, and tools with internal validity or reliability assessed directed in their intern population were reported. Results The authors identified 92 studies that were included in the analysis. The majority of studies were conducted in the US (n = 30, 32.6%) and the UK (n = 20, 21.7%), and only 14 studies (15.2%) were conducted in low- and middle-income countries. Major themes examined for internship experience included well-being, educational environment, and work condition and environment. For measuring well-being, standardized tools like the Maslach Burnout Inventory (for measuring burnout), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (depression), General Health Questionnaire-12 or 30 (psychological distress) and Perceived Stress Scale (stress) were used multiple times. For educational environment and work condition and environment, there is a lack of widely used tools for interns that have undergone psychometric testing in this population other than the Postgraduate Hospital Educational Environment Measure, which has been used in four different countries. Conclusions There are a large number of tools designed for measuring medical internship experience. International comparability of results from future studies would benefit if tools that have been more widely used are employed in studies on medical interns with further testing of their psychometric properties in different contexts.


1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 404-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Campbell ◽  
Graham Jones

This paper considered (a) the psychological well-being of wheelchair sport participants and wheelchair sport nonparticipants, and (b) the influence of competitive level on the psychological well-being of wheelchair sport participants. Psychological well-being was evaluated by considering mood, trait anxiety, self-esteem, mastery, and individual self-perceptions of health and well-being. Wheelchair sport participants exhibited an iceberg profile of positive well-being with lower tension, depression, anger, and confusion and higher vigor than the sport nonparticipant group. The sport participant group also showed significantly greater levels of mastery and more positive perceptions of their health and well-being than the sport nonparticipant group. International athletes had (a) higher levels of vigor than the national and recreational groups; (b) lower levels of anxiety than the regional and recreational groups; (c) higher levels of self-esteem than the national, regional, and recreational groups; (d) higher levels of mastery than the regional and recreational groups; and (e) more positive perceptions of their well-being than the national, regional, and recreational groups.


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