scholarly journals The Complexity and Phylogenetic Continuity of Laughter and Smiles in Hominids

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Davila-Ross ◽  
Guillaume Dezecache
Keyword(s):  
Positive Affect ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Continuity Hypothesis ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
And Function ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Human Laughter ◽  
Selection Of

Laughter and smiles are often, but not always, associated with positive affect. These expressions of humans help to promote social relationships as well as the development of cognitive and socio-emotional skills and they may have a positive impact on health and well-being, hereby covering a selection of fitness-relevant benefits. Both laughter and smiles of positive affect also occur early in human development and across cultures, suggesting deep roots in human biology. The present work provides an evolutionary reconstruction of the evolution of human laughter and smiles of positive affect in form and function, based on the principle of maximum parsimony. According to the Complexity and Continuity Hypothesis, human laughter and smiles of positive affect must have evolved within the context of play from ancestral species. Furthermore, ancestral ape laughter and their open-mouth faces must already have been complex in form and function and changed over time via categorically different phylogenetic pathways to become characteristic, effective, and pervasive behaviors of everyday social interactions in humans.

scholarly journals The broaden–and–build theory of positive emotions

2004 ◽  
Vol 359 (1449) ◽  
pp. 1367-1377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara L. Fredrickson
Keyword(s):  
Close Relationships ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Resources ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Broaden And Build Theory ◽  
And Function ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Action Tendencies

The broaden–and–build theory describes the form and function of a subset of positive emotions, including joy, interest, contentment and love. A key proposition is that these positive emotions broaden an individual's momentary thought–action repertoire: joy sparks the urge to play, interest sparks the urge to explore, contentment sparks the urge to savour and integrate, and love sparks a recurring cycle of each of these urges within safe, close relationships. The broadened mindsets arising from these positive emotions are contrasted to the narrowed mindsets sparked by many negative emotions (i.e. specific action tendencies, such as attack or flee). A second key proposition concerns the consequences of these broadened mindsets: by broadening an individual's momentary thought–action repertoire—whether through play, exploration or similar activities—positive emotions promote discovery of novel and creative actions, ideas and social bonds, which in turn build that individual's personal resources; ranging from physical and intellectual resources, to social and psychological resources. Importantly, these resources function as reserves that can be drawn on later to improve the odds of successful coping and survival. This chapter reviews the latest empirical evidence supporting the broaden–and–build theory and draws out implications the theory holds for optimizing health and well–being.

scholarly journals Residential Meditation Retreats: Their Role in Contemplative Practice and Significance for Psychological Research

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon King ◽  
Quinn Conklin ◽  
Anthony Paul Zanesco ◽  
Clifford Saron
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Meditation Practice ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Meditation Experience ◽  
And Function ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Over Time

Contemporary investigations of mindfulness and meditation have predominately emphasized the short-term effects of brief inductions or standardized, multi-week interventions in people with little to no prior meditation experience. Considerably less is known about the effects of continued or intensive meditation practice as proficiency and expertise are acquired over time. In this article, we describe the form and function of residential retreats, an understudied class of meditation intervention that holds promise for bridging this gap in the empirical literature. We outline a number of design features that distinguish retreats from other meditation-based interventions, and highlight their utility for informing functional and developmental perspectives on meditation, cognition, health, and well-being.

Stress and Burnout in Neurology

2020 ◽  
pp. 4-35
Author(s):  
Marsha W. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Positive Psychology ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Positive Relationships ◽  
Positive Health ◽  
Healthcare Crisis ◽  
Health And Well Being

Stress and burnout are epidemic in medicine in general and neurology in particular. This has resulted in a healthcare crisis because burned-out physicians are subject to multiple adverse personal outcomes and are more likely to make mistakes in their work. The seeds of this crisis are found in the earliest stages of medical education and acculturation. Resilience is produced by a set of cognitive skills that can be taught and nurtured, building on a strengths-based rather than a deficit-based approach. Positive health and well-being is built on positive affect, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment (PERMA for short) according to the formulation of Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology. PERMA and positive psychology form the framework for combating stress and burnout in neurology.

scholarly journals Implementing person centred dementia care: a musical intervention

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Argyle ◽  
Tony Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Care Setting ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Care Service ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Dementia Care ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Eclectic Approach ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Health And Well Being

Purpose – Recent years have seen the advocacy of person-centred approaches to dementia care. An important component of this approach has been the use of arts in the promotion of health and well-being. However, relatively little attention has been given to the barriers and facilitators experienced in trying to implement these types of interventions in a dementia care setting. It is therefore, the purpose of this paper is to help to redress this neglect by examining the process of implementing a personalised musical intervention for the clients of a specialist dementia home care service. Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on interviews with five project stakeholders, the paper examines, not only the potential benefits to be gained from the musical intervention but also identifies the barriers experienced in its implementation and ways in which they could be overcome. Findings – It was found that although the musical intervention had a potentially positive impact, there were multi-levelled barriers to its implementation including issues of training, leadership as well as contextual issues such as commissioning and resourcing more generally. Originality/value – The key role played by these issues in the process of implementation suggests that practice should transcend its focus on individual wellbeing and address the wider factors that can facilitate or prevent its fulfilment. While the multi-levelled nature of the obstacles identified suggest that the implementation of innovative interventions within health and social care settings should adopt a similarly eclectic approach.

scholarly journals “This Brings you to Life” The Impact of Friendship on Health and Well-being in Old Age: the Case of La Verneda Learning Community

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 192
Author(s):  
Susana León-Jiménez
Keyword(s):  
Learning Community ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Health And Well Being

Friendship has been studied along centuries, since ancient times to present-day, as the basis of the social cornerstone, present at all stages of the lifespan and belonging to the world of truthful sentiments. Benefits of friendship on health have been demonstrated. Less is known about the role of friendship on seniors. The aim of this case study has been to show how the end friendship developed in an adults’ school operating for more than 40 years in Barcelona is having a positive impact on the well-being and health of their participants. Through the communicative discussion group, we have deepened in the trajectories of some of the school participants. The results show how participation in the school and the dialogic gatherings have contributed to the emergence of a non-instrumental friendship feeling and to consider an impact on the perceived general wellness and health and an improvement of their life quality. It is discussed how this research provides more elements to the existing literature. More research on how other communitarian environments have similar effects on this population, or on the impact of these dialogical spaces in the development of end friendships in other stages of the life cycle would be of interest.

scholarly journals The Role of Tourism Impacts on Cultural Ecosystem Services

Environments ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taff ◽  
Benfield ◽  
Miller ◽  
D'Antonio ◽  
Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽  
Tourism Impacts ◽  
Parks And Protected Areas ◽  
Health And Well Being

Parks and protected areas are recognized for the important ecosystem services, or benefits, they provide society. One emerging but understudied component is the cultural ecosystem services that parks and protected areas provide. These cultural ecosystem services include a variety of benefits, such as cultural heritage, spiritual value, recreation opportunities, and human health and well-being. However, many of these services can only be provided if people visit these parks and protected areas through tourism opportunities. However, with this tourism use comes a variety of inevitable resource impacts. This current research connects potential impacts from tourism in parks and protected areas to the health and well-being aspect of cultural ecosystem services. We used an MTurk sample to record affective responses across a range of resource conditions. Results demonstrate that as tourism-related ecological impacts increased, positive affect decreased. Decreases in positive affect were more severe for park and protected area scenes featuring informal and/or undesignated social trails when compared to scenes with increasing levels of trampling/vegetation loss. Collectively, the results show that managing tourism in parks and protected areas in a manner that reduces impact is essential to providing beneficial cultural ecosystem services related to human health and well-being.

Exploring Singing Vocal Pedagogy in the Greek Elementary School through Interactive Technologies

2016 ◽  
pp. 310-324
Author(s):  
Sofia Stavropoulou ◽  
Anastasia Georgaki
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Voice Quality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Vocal Pedagogy ◽  
Interactive Technologies ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Health And Well Being

A growing body of interdisciplinary research suggests that children's structured engagement in musical activities may have a positive impact on social inclusion by means of offering opportunities for social bonding, developing interpersonal relationships and empowering self-expression, health and well-being. In this paper we investigate the amelioration of children's voice accuracy and quality in signing through a visual feedback software. The research took place in two public elementary schools in Athens in a total of sixty children aged 6-9 years old and with a different cultural background. The statistical analysis on the effectiveness of the software has proved the amelioration of the children's voice quality before and after its use.

Sociology

Urban Health ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 188-197
Author(s):  
Lei Jin ◽  
Chenyu Ye ◽  
Eric Fong
Keyword(s):  
Urban Health ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Racial And Ethnic Relations ◽  
And Function ◽  
Development Structure ◽  
Health And Well Being

Sociology is perhaps best seen classically as the study of the development, structure, and function of human societies, and sociologists have long been interested in urbanization and the ways in which urban living influences people’s health and well-being. These interests intersect with other core sociological concerns, such as socioeconomic inequality, racial and ethnic relations, migration, social cohesion, and social control to inform unique sociological perspectives on urban health. Urban environments, bringing together heterogeneous populations in dynamic, rapidly evolving settings, are natural laboratories for understanding human societies, thus suggesting a critical role for sociological perspectives in the study of urban health. This chapter introduces a sociological lens to the study of urban health, offering how sociology can advance our understanding of the health of urban populations.

Form and function in the acquisition of Korean wh-questions

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Clancy
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Korean Children ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Form Function ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Acquisition Order ◽  
And Function ◽  
Selection Of

ABSTRACTIn this paper the order in which wh-questions are acquired in the production and comprehension of two Korean children, aged 1;8–2;8 and 1;10–2; 10, is analysed and compared with the available crosslinguistic data. Consistencies in acquisition order are hypothesized to be based on universals of cognitive development, which constrain the comprehension and production of wh-forms and influence the order in which mothers introduce them, and on functionally based similarities in the input of form/function pairs across children and languages. Discrepancies in acquisition order are attributed to differences in interactive style across caregivers and children, leading to different input frequencies of particular forms and individual children's selection of different forms for use.

scholarly journals Diversity and inclusion depend on effective engagement

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 21-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandana Sanyal ◽  
Doirean Wilson ◽  
Charlotte Sweeney ◽  
Jude Smith Rachele ◽  
Satwant Kaur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Business Performance ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Business And Society ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
Transformational Process ◽  
Health And Well Being

Purpose – Highlights some of the things that can be done to ensure that organizations embed diversity and inclusion. Design/methodology/approach – Considers the need for effective engagement, the importance of performance indicators for diversity and inclusion and the key role of sharing stories. Discusses, too, how critical race theory could help to bring about improvements. Findings – Advances the view that a transformational process that supports employees with the knowledge and sustainable skills needed to improve business performance via ethical means will form a significant part of future-proofing organizations. Practical implications – Argues that, to achieve this organizations have to drive home the message that diversity and inclusion are everyone’s business. Social implications – Advances the view that a unified approach to diversity and inclusion, which is embedded in the business ethics of the organization, can have a sustainable positive impact on the health and well-being of individuals, business and society. Originality/value – Considers diversity and inclusion from diverse perspectives and draws conclusions that can help organizations to perform better in these areas.

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