scholarly journals Psychocapital and Shangri-Las: How happiness became both a means and end to governmentality

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Mckay

In this paper a paradox is revealed in the politics of well-being over the means and ends of happiness. That paradox, in brief, is that although happiness is argued to be the ultimate end of all governmentality, in order to serve as that end, it first needs to be translated into a means for bolstering the economy, for only that way can a teleology of happiness gain a foothold in a world which prioritizes economic growth as an end in itself. To show this the paper gives a history of subjective well-being (SWB) research, and contrasts it with the politics of happiness in the UK, where SWB has in the past decade been translated into a discourse around the psychological wealth of the nation via the concepts of mental capital (MC) and mental well-being (MWB).

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaling Liang ◽  
Junyi Shen

<p>Using household survey data collected in 2013, this paper empirically investigates the determinants of individual subjective well-being in China, where there has been rapid economic development over the past three decades. The main results are as follows. First, factors such as good health, marital status, life satisfaction, body mass index, physical exercise, and expectations of inflation are all significantly correlated with the reported level of happiness. Second, income has no significant effect on the level of happiness, and happiness has an inverted U-shaped relationship to wealth. Third, increased education decreases the level of happiness. To some extent, these findings can explain why subjective well-being has declined in China, despite its spectacular economic growth. </p>


Author(s):  
Wei Yue ◽  
Marc Cowling

It is well documented that the self-employed experience higher levels of happiness than waged employees even when their incomes are lower. Given the UK government’s asymmetric treatment of waged workers and the self-employed, we use a unique Covid-19 period data set which covers the months leading up to the March lockdown and the months just after to assess three aspects of the Covid-19 crisis on the self-employed: hours of work reductions, the associated income reductions and the effects of both on subjective well-being. Our findings show the large and disproportionate reductions in hours and income for the self-employed directly contributed to a deterioration in their levels of subjective well-being compared to waged workers. It appears that their resilience was broken when faced with the reality of dealing with rare events, particularly when the UK welfare support response was asymmetric and favouring waged employees.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie A. E. Mueller ◽  
Eirini Flouri

Mental health and well-being in adolescence are associated with many short- and long-term outcomes. The evidence suggests that greenspace may play a role in adolescents' mental well-being, but we do not know much about the specifics of this link. In this paper, we investigated the role of other factors in the association. In a cross-sectional study, we investigated the role of neighbourhood greenspace in emotional and behavioural outcomes in 11-year-old urban adolescents participating in the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 4,534). We used linear regression models to test for an association of greenspace with self-esteem, happiness, positive mood, negative mood, and antisocial behaviour. We also investigated effect modification/moderation by garden access, physical activity, and perceived area safety. We did not find a main effect of greenspace, but we did find interaction effects. First, in adolescents without a garden, higher levels of greenspace were associated with lower levels of self-esteem and positive mood. Second, in adolescents who reported lower levels of physical activity, higher levels of greenspace were associated with lower levels of negative mood. Third, in adolescents who perceived their areas to be unsafe, higher levels of greenspace were associated with higher levels of antisocial behaviour. Our findings suggest that merely more greenspace in the neighbourhood may not be sufficient to promote the mental well-being of urban adolescents in the UK. However, greenspace does seem to have an influence under certain conditions which should be investigated further in future studies.


Author(s):  
Volodymyr Shevchenko ◽  
Viktoriia Kopach

This article highlights the psychological features of counseling with problem clients of old age and there adiness of future and practicing psychologists for this work. It is determined that the modern world, duetoits complexity, dynamism and contradictions, creates various problems for the elderly and actively in terferesin his personal space. All this has a negative effecton the health of the elderly and onthestate of their mental well-being. This leads to certain changesin the personality of the old person: in creased feelings of in feriority, in security, fluctuationsin self-esteem, increased sensitivity; depressed mood, feelings of loneliness, helplessness, anxiety, reducedefficiency; restructuringofthe motivational-needs system, valueorientations; adjustmentof «I-concept»; in creasing interestin experiencing the past, its revaluation; exacerbation and changesin some traits; decreas edvoliti on alactivity, apathymayoccur. As a result, the number of elderlypeoplein need of psychological helpissig nificantly increasing. At the same time, dueto subjective and objective reasons, they may not always behavea dequately during psychological counseling, preventing specialists from solving their psychological problems. It was fo undthat the problem clients of the psychologists hould include: anxious individuals; individuals who experiencefear and phobias; hostileandaggressiveindividuals; unmotivatedclients; customers with inflatedrequirements; individuals who experienceguilt (loss); payingcustomers; hysterical personalities; obsessive personalities; paranoid personalities; schizophrenic personalities; antisocial personalities; individuals who abusealcohol; individuals in a state of depression and suicidalideation. Counseling for the elderly can be carried out on the following issues: severeloss and acutegrief, lossoffunctionalability, difficulties or conflictsin relationships and communication, understanding and changingliving conditions, adaptation to new life circumstances, needs assessment, work withstress, loss of meaningin life , fear of death, etc.


Author(s):  
Julia Evangelista ◽  
William A. Fulford

AbstractThis chapter shows how carnival has been used to counter the impact of Brazil’s colonial history on its asylums and perceptions of madness. Colonisation of Brazil by Portugal in the nineteenth century led to a process of Europeanisation that was associated with dismissal of non-European customs and values as “mad” and sequestration of the poor from the streets into asylums. Bringing together the work of the two authors, the chapter describes through a case study how a carnival project, Loucura Suburbana (Suburban Madness), in which patients in both long- and short-term asylum care play leading roles, has enabled them to “reclaim the streets,” and re-establish their right to the city as valid producers of culture on their own terms. In the process, entrenched stigmas associated with having a history of mental illness in a local community are challenged, and sense of identity and self-confidence can be rebuilt, thus contributing to long-term improvements in mental well-being. Further illustrative materials are available including photographs and video clips.


Author(s):  
Eiko Maruko Siniawer

Affluence of the Heart explores the many and various ways in which waste—be it of time, stuff, money, possessions, and resources—was thought about in Japan from the immediate aftermath of devastating war to the early twenty-first century.It shows how questions about waste were deeply embedded in the decisions of the everyday and shaped by the central forces of postwar Japanese life from economic growth and mass consumption to material abundance and environmentalism.What endured from the late 1950s onward was a defining element of Japan’s postwar experience: the tension between the desire to achieve and defend the privileges of middle-class lifestyles made possible by affluence, and the discomfort and dissatisfaction with the logics, costs, and consequences of that very prosperity. This tension complicated the persistent search in these decades for what might be called well-being, happiness, or a good life. Affluence of the Heart is a history of how people lived—how they made sense of, gave meaning to, and found value in the acts of the everyday.


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