In “Flourish,” Martin Seligman maintained that the elements of well-being consist of “PERMA: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.” Although the question of what constitutes human flourishing or psychological well-being has remained a topic of continued debate among scholars, it has recently been argued in the literature that a paradigmatic or prototypical case of human psychological well-being would largely manifest most or all of the aforementioned PERMA factors. Further, in “A Neuroscientific Perspective on Music Therapy,” Stefan Koelsch also suggested (...) that “Music therapy can have effects that improve the psychological and physiological health of individuals,” so it seems plausible that engaging in practices of music can positively contribute to one living a more optimally flourishing life with greater psychological well-being. However, recent studies on music practice and participation have not yet been reviewed and integrated under the PERMA framework from positive psychology to further explore and explicate this possibility. This article therefore contributes to extant work by reviewing recent research on psychological well-being and music to offer support for the claim that music practice and participation can positively contribute to one living a flourishing life by positively influencing their emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. (shrink)

This paper is about the role of interpersonal comparisons in Harsanyi's aggregation theorem. Harsanyi interpreted his theorem to show that a broadly utilitarian theory of distribution must be true even if there are no interpersonal comparisons of well-being. How is this possible? The orthodox view is that it is not. Some argue that the interpersonal comparability of well-being is hidden in Harsanyi's premises. Others argue that it is a surprising conclusion of Harsanyi's theorem, which is not presupposed by any one (...) of the premises. I argue instead that Harsanyi was right: his theorem and its weighted-utilitarian conclusion do not require interpersonal comparisons of well-being. The key to making sense of this possibility is to treat Harsanyi's weights as dimensional constants rather than dimensionless numbers. (shrink)

Common mental health disorders are rising globally, creating a strain on public healthcare systems. This has led to a renewed interest in the role that digital technologies may have for improving mental health outcomes. One result of this interest is the development and use of artificial intelligence for assessing, diagnosing, and treating mental health issues, which we refer to as ‘digital psychiatry’. This article focuses on the increasing use of digital psychiatry outside of clinical settings, in the following sectors: education, (...) employment, financial services, social media, and the digital well-being industry. We analyse the ethical risks of deploying digital psychiatry in these sectors, emphasising key problems and opportunities for public health, and offer recommendations for protecting and promoting public health and well-being in information societies. (shrink)

It is argued that Nozick's experience machine thought experiment does not pose a particular difficulty for mental state theories of well-being. While the example shows that we value many things beyond our mental states, this simply reflects the fact that we value more than our own well-being. Nor is a mental state theorist forced to make the dubious claim that we maintain these other values simply as a means to desirable mental states. Valuing more than our mental states is compatible (...) with maintaining that the impact of such values upon our well-being lies in their impact upon our mental lives. (shrink)

There is a widespread belief that for their own safety and for the protection of wildlife, cats should be permanently kept indoors. Against this view, I argue that cat guardians have a duty to provide their feline companions with outdoor access. The argument is based on a sophisticated hedonistic account of animal well-being that acknowledges that the performance of species-normal ethological behavior is especially pleasurable. Territorial behavior, which requires outdoor access, is a feline-normal ethological behavior, so when a cat is (...) permanently confined to the indoors, her ability to flourish is impaired. Since cat guardians have a duty not to impair the well-being of their cats, the impairment of cat flourishing via confinement signifies a moral failing. Although some cats assume significant risks and sometimes kill wild animals when roaming outdoors, these important considerations do not imply that all cats should be deprived of the opportunity to access the outdoors. Indeed, they do not, by themselves, imply that any cat should be permanently kept indoors. (shrink)

A common belief is that, among our sexual dispositions, sexual orientations are important and deep features of who someone is. This distinguishes them from other sexual dispositions—“mere” preferences—that are thought to be trivial in comparison. Is there a way to adequately account for this distinction? What is a plausible explanation for the belief that sexual orientation is a deep and important feature of who one is? This paper defends one necessary condition for a sexual disposition to be an orientation, the (...) well-being condition: if a sexual disposition is an orientation, then the inability to act on it lowers one’s well-being by rendering one’s life sexually deprived. The paper argues that the well-being condition better explains than other criteria the belief that orientations are important features of who one is. The paper concludes by tracing the implications of this view to the common understanding of sexual orientation. (shrink)

Life's Values offers new analyses of the nature of pleasure, happiness, well-being, and meaning in life. Recognizing how individuals have different priorities, Goldman explains what is of ultimate value in our lives and argues that making our desires rational - relevantly informed of what it's like to satisfy them - maximizes well-being.

The narrative view of personhood suggests that we as persons are constituted by self-narratives. Self-narratives support not only the sense of personal persistence but also agency. However, it is rarely discussed how self-narratives promote or hinder personal well-being. This paper aims to explore what a healthy self-narrative looks like. By reframing a famous debate between Strawson and Schechtman about narrative personhood, I argue that self-narratives can hinder our personal well-being when affective identification leads to inflexible self-images, illustrated with the examples (...) of imposter syndrome and rationalization. Furthermore, I explore how having a healthy self-narrative is not about disengaging from one's personal past and future, but about fostering affective identification in ways that allow flexible self-images. (shrink)

The current research tested the idea that it is the cultural fit of emotions, rather than certain emotions per se, that predicts psychological well-being. We reasoned that emotional fit in the domains of life that afford the realization of central cultural mandates would be particularly important to psychological well-being. We tested this hypothesis with samples from three cultural contexts that are known to differ with respect to their main cultural mandates: a European American ( N = 30), a Korean ( (...) N = 80), and a Belgian sample ( N = 266). Cultural fit was measured by comparing an individual’s patterns of emotions to the average cultural pattern for the same type of situation on the Emotional Patterns Questionnaire ( De Leersnyder et al., 2011 ). Consistent with our hypothesis, we found evidence for “universality without uniformity”: in each sample, psychological well-being was associated with emotional fit in the domain that was key to the cultural mandate. However, cultures varied with regard to the particular domain involved. Psychological well-being was predicted by emotional fit (a) in autonomy-promoting situations at work in the U.S., (b) in relatedness-promoting situations at home in Korea, and (c) in both autonomy-promoting and relatedness-promoting situations in Belgium. These findings show that the experience of culturally appropriate patterns of emotions contributes to psychological well-being. One interpretation is that experiencing appropriate emotions is itself a realization of the cultural mandates. (shrink)

Prior studies have shown that people imagine their personal future to be more positive than their country’s collective future. The present research extends the nascent literature by examining the valence and perceived control of personal and national future events in a new experimental paradigm, the cultural generalizability of the findings, and the relation of future thinking to psychological well-being. US college students (Study 1) and US and Turkish community participants (Study 2) imagined what might happen to them and their country (...) in three time points (i.e., next week, next year, and in 10–15 years). They then rated the emotional valence and perceived control of the events and completed a psychological well-being measure. Both US and Turkish participants imagined their personal future to be more positive than their country’s future, whereas they attributed higher perceived control to their countries for national future events than to themselves for personal future events. The positivity of national (Study 1) and personal future events (Study 2) predicted better psychological well-being, whereas perceived control did not. These original findings enrich our theoretical understanding of future thinking. (shrink)

The physical activity and sport are key elements for a healthy lifestyle. However, a little-investigated element is the presence of a possible relationship between school or academic performance an...

Do unknown and unrealized risks of harm diminish an individual’s well-being? The traditional answer is no: that the security of prudential goods benefits an individual only instrumentally or by virtue of their subjective sense of security. Recent work has argued, however, that the security of prudential goods non-instrumentally benefits an individual regardless of whether or not they enjoy subjective security. In this paper, I critically examine three claims about the way in which unknown and unrealized risks of harm might diminish (...) individual well-being: it frustrates a desire to be secure, it frustrates the enjoyment of modally-robust goods, and it undermines the ability to make reasonable plans. Ultimately, I argue that all three of these hypotheses are mistaken, but that they deepen our understanding of the ways in which subjective security is an important constituent of individual well-being. (shrink)

Introduction : health humanities -- Patient as storyteller : determinants of health -- Unconscious bias -- Bearing witness to suffering -- Resilience and burnout -- Recognizing our interdependence -- The influence of time on meaning -- Uncertainty and decision making -- Professional identity : perspectives, roles, values, and attributes.

In this chapter I explore what painful art can tell us about the nature and importance of human welfare. My goal is not so much to defend a new solution to the paradox of tragedy, as it is to explore the implications of the kinds of solutions that I find attractive. Both nonhedonic compensatory theories and constitutive theories explain why people seek out painful art, but they have troublesome implications. On some narrow theories of well-being, they imply that painful art (...) is bad for us. Accordingly, we may rightly wonder if it rational for people to watch melodramas or to listen to love songs. One might think that we should generally avoid unpleasant works of art. This implication flirts with absurdity. I show how it can be avoided by making a distinction between well-being and worth. (shrink)

Institutions of higher learning have continued to record high cases of gender-based violence (GBV) despite all efforts put in place to fight the vice. The most common forms of GBV are physical, sexual assault and psychological violence. Women and girls make up the majority of the GBV victims worldwide. For many years, institutions of higher learning have proved to be fertile environments for GBV cases. The purpose of this study was to investigate effects of GBV on the well-being of students (...) in institutions of higher learning in Zambia. The study employed a mixed research methodology, and it was anchored on pragmatic philosophical paradigm. An explorative study design was used. Data were collected using both probabilistic and non-probabilistic methods, and the sample size was 150 respondents. The main findings of the study showed both academic and non-academic effects of GBV on students and included stigma, low academic performance, mental and psychological trauma as well as high drop outs. Contribution: The study highlighted effects of GBV as being both academic and non-academic in nature. Once students and staff ignore the word of God spoken in scriptures and begin to follow their egos, the consequences are devastating. For scriptures says love one another, forgive each other and bear each other’s burdens in love. Do unto others as you would want then to do unto you. For where there is love, no one will desire to hurt others. Where there is no love of God or forgiveness, there is pain and damage that can spoil someone’s future, especially that of the youth. (shrink)

This chapter replies to some standard objections to consequentialist moral principle, including the problem of expensive tastes, and R. Dworkin’s circularity objection. The chapter compares the main principle with Rawls’s resource-based theory of primary goods and the capabilities theories of Nussbaum and Sen. It then compares the main principle with J. S. Mill’s utilitarian principle and Rawls’s maximin expectation principle. This requires a further development of the idea of life prospects. The chapter then shows that both Mill’s and Rawls’s principles (...) have a distributional blindspot and explains why the main principle does not. As a heuristic for making determinations of the equitable promotion of life prospects, the chapter defines an expanded original position that makes it possible to extend the application of the main principle extend beyond the application of Rawls’s principles to include those with special health care needs and those with severe mental or physical impairments. The chapter explains why the main principle is prioritarian, rather than egalitarian or sufficientarian. It explains how the application of the main principle to social practices solves the problem of descriptive relativity. Finally, he explains his reasons for classifying the main principle as a consequentialist principle of moral improvement. (shrink)

The aim of this work is to investigate the factors promoting students’ engagement at school and supporting their well-being experience. According to the Positive Education there is a strong relationship between school environment and student’s well-being. Moreover, the quality of the school climate perceived by the students was found to influence engagement in school activities, as well. In this study, 153 students ( M = 67) attending 10th grade were presented with tests and questionnaires to assess individual assets (personality traits, (...) literacy skills), emerging appraisals (school-climate, well-being experience) and emerging actions (school engagement), according to the Student Well-Being Model. Path analysis showed that the best model does include neither individual assets nor direct effect of school climate on engagement, as the effect of school climate on engagement is mediated by well-being experience. The main result is that school climate has been confirmed as an important factor to be considered to improve engagement in school activities, but it is effective only when its influence can modify the well-being experience of the students. Moreover, the lack of significant effects of individual assets in the model suggests that improving school climate means to support well-being experience and, indirectly school engagement, irrespective to learning abilities and personality traits. This work encourages working in/with schools to implement positive education programs that support and sustain a positive school climate and culture for school-community wellbeing. (shrink)

In spring 2020, COVID-19 and the ensuing social distancing and stay-at-home orders instigated abrupt changes to employment and educational infrastructure, leading to uncertainty, concern, and stress among United States college students. The media consumption patterns of this and other social groups across the globe were affected, with early evidence suggesting viewers were seeking both pandemic-themed media and reassuring, familiar content. A general increase in media consumption, and increased consumption of specific types of content, may have been due to media use (...) for coping strategies. This paper examines the relationship between the stress and anxiety of university students and their strategic use of media for coping during initial social distancing periods in March-April 2020 using data from a cross-sectional survey. We examine links between specific types of media use with psychological well-being concepts, and examine the moderating roles of traits (hope, optimism, and resilience) as buffers against negative relationships between stress and anxiety and psychological well-being. Our findings indicate that stress was linked to more hedonic and less eudaimonic media use, as well as more avoidant and escapist media-based coping. Anxiety, on the other hand, was linked to more media use in general, specifically more eudaimonic media use and a full range of media-based coping strategies. In turn, escapist media was linked to negative affect, while reframing media and eudaimonic media were linked to positive affect. Avoidant coping was tied to poorer mental health, and humor coping was tied to better mental health. Hedonic and need-satisfying media use were linked to more flourishing. Hope, optimism, and resilience were all predictive of media use, with the latter two traits moderating responses to stress and anxiety. The findings give a nuanced portrait of college students’ media use during a pandemic-induced shutdown, showing that media use is closely intertwined with well-being in both adaptive and maladaptive patterns. (shrink)

Many older gay men experience diminished psychological well‐being (PWB) due to unique circumstances including discrimination, living with HIV, and aging through the HIV/AIDS crisis. However, there remains ambiguity as to how older gay men define and understand PWB. Our team interviewed and analyzed the accounts of 26 older (50+) self‐identifying English‐speaking men living in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. We drew on tenets of constructivist grounded theory and intersectionality to account for unique contextual considerations and power relations. Semi‐structured Zoom interviews (...) were conducted from August‐October 2022. Interview transcripts were compared to generate high‐order conceptual findings underpinned by processes understood as central to PWB. Three PWB temporal processes highlighted interlocking social and contextual circumstances intersecting with power and maturation: (1) being emotionally balanced, (2) living gratitude (3) and fully embracing self‐acceptance. Being emotionally balanced supported the affective and sustainable state of contentment, living gratitude drew from the wisdom of accrued experiences to cultivate a positive affective state inclusive to recognising social location privileges, whilst fully embracing self‐acceptance redressed the harms of anti‐gay discourses that men endured throughout their lives. The knowledge is relevant to service and resource development to deliver tailored PWB supports to older gay men. (shrink)

A person’s financial well-being is the complete contentment gained from one’s present financial condition. This has a powerful impact on the entire achievement of an employee’s “well-being.” Researchers, financial analysts, financial planners, educationists, and economists have explored the “enablers” to improve employees’ living standards by investigating the possible “FWB” resources for decades. There is no literature available to show the connection between social capital theory, social exchange theory, social cognitive theory, financial literacy and FWB, and employees’ financial knowledge sharing a (...) moderator to expand the complete FWB. (shrink)

When individuals read literary fiction, contemplate philosophical arguments, view art, or listen to music, they experience emotions that vary in both valence and intensity. Engagement with the humanities can enhance individual emotional intelligence (EI) and well-being. This narrative review proposes links between engagement with literary fiction, moral philosophy, visual art, and music with EI and well-being. The work details the mechanisms by which (i) literary fiction increases the ability to perceive emotions, (ii) moral philosophy improves the use of emotions for (...) ethical decision-making, (iii) visual art elevates the ability to understand emotion, and (iv) music enhances the ability to manage emotions. The concluding section presents theoretical implications and practical suggestions for designing interventions that promote EI and flourishing. (shrink)

Each person has a special relation to his or her own well-being. This rough thought, which can be sharpened in different ways, is supposed to substantially count against objectivist theories on which one can intrinsically benefit from, or be harmed by, factors that are independent of one’s desires, beliefs, and other attitudes. It is often claimed, contra objectivism, that one cannot be _alienated_ from one’s own interests, or that improvements in a person’s well-being must _resonate_ with that person. However, I (...) argue that every theory of well-being must allow that we can be alienated from our own well-being, and that sophisticated objectivists can accept and make use of a resonance constraint against their opponents. (shrink)

Nature contact has associations with emotional ill-being and well-being. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations are not fully understood. We hypothesised that increased adaptive and decreased maladaptive emotion regulation strategies would be a pathway linking nature contact to ill-being and well-being. Using data from a survey of 600 U.S.-based adults administered online in 2022, we conducted structural equation modelling to test our hypotheses. We found that (1) frequency of nature contact was significantly associated with lesser emotional ill-being and greater emotional (...) well-being, (2) effective emotion regulation was significantly associated with lesser emotional ill-being and greater emotional well-being, and (3) the associations of higher frequency of nature contact with these benefits were partly explained via emotion regulation. Moreover, we found a nonlinear relationship for the associations of duration of nature contact with some outcomes, with a rise in benefits up to certain amounts of time, and a levelling off after these points. These findings support and extend previous work that demonstrates that the associations of nature contact with emotional ill-being and well-being may be partly explained by changes in emotion regulation. (shrink)

The present study investigates the interaction between personal characteristics that are considered nowadays strengths used to face difficult events or transition period. A number of 200 married or living together participants completed self-reports for common goals, motivational persistence, resilience and well-being. Results show that persistence and resilience do interact with each other at an individual level but also from a family concept perspective. Moreover, maintaining apositive outlook and family spirituality do have an impact over the intensity and direction of the (...) relationship between long term purposes pursuing (LTPP) and recurrence of unattained purposes (RUP) and changes in well-being registered in time. Resiliency as a personal characteristic and family resilience show good psychometric qualities for this study. Although some of the results are descriptive, in-depth analyses of direction and intensity of the relationships lead the finalconclusions to suggestions for further research and implications for psychological practice. (shrink)

This article advances sustainability towards a new logic that favors the flourishing of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and well-being from North to South. It presents a Global Dual-Perspective (GDP) and a Dynamic Equilibrium Framework (DEF) that inform sustainability, management, and international business with a paradoxical view of the SDGs and a strengthened analysis that outlines the role of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in addressing the SDGs within and across the North–South. This article reveals that organizations will effectively unleash virtuous cycles of (...) SDGs and well-being when confronting and juxtaposing environmental, health, social, economic, and law-oriented goals. Furthermore, virtuous cycles will be more successful when splitting and integrating short- and long-term conflicting goals within and across the North–South to fuel systemic resilience and sustainable development. (shrink)

Here, we report on a quasi-experimental study to explore the applicability and perceived benefits of the CRAFT program, which is based on mindfulness, yoga, positive psychology, and emotional intelligence, to improve higher education student musicians’ health and well-being during the lockdown. A subset of student musicians at a Higher Conservatory of Music in Spain followed the CRAFT program during the academic year 2019/2020, 1 h per week as part of their curriculum. Students enrolled in CRAFT-based elective subjects formed the CRAFT (...) program group, while other students represented the control group. The onset of the national lockdown elicited by the COVID-19 pandemic occurred halfway through the program, which was subsequently delivered in an online format. We administered an online survey to explore the effect that the exposure to the CRAFT program had in terms of how participants dealt with various health and well-being concerns arising from the COVID-19 lockdown. There was a significantly higher proportion of proactive participants in the CRAFT program group, 92%, than in the control group, 58%, in terms of implementing practices to improve their health and well-being during the lockdown. Additionally, significantly more participants acknowledged perceived benefits from their practices in the CRAFT program group, 78%, than in the control group, 52%. Among proactive participants, yoga/meditation was the most implemented in the CRAFT program group, followed by exercise, and other yoga/meditation practices, whereas in the control group, exercise and Alexander technique-based practices were the most applied. In the CRAFT program group, the highest rate of perceived benefits was from yoga/meditation CRAFT-based practices, 51%, followed by exercise, 32%, and other yoga/meditation practices, 27%, whereas in the control group, benefits were reported by 29% of exercising participants and 16% for those having practiced the Alexander technique. A similar pattern was observed when excluding participants with previous yoga/meditation experience. This study revealed how participants can independently apply learned skills from the CRAFT program in response to a naturally occurring life event of unprecedented global impact, suggesting that previous exposure to mindfulness and yoga is likely to have a beneficial effect on how young adults react towards exceptionally stressful conditions. (shrink)

This paper is not merely an attempt to come to terms with Edward Schillebeeckx’s theology and his philosophical mindset. Such attempts have already been made years back, when his ties with phenomenology, and also with postmodern hermeneutics and culture were pivotal for us in order to better understand his influence on mid-20th century Continental philosophy. This present study partially remains on those premises, but also brings Schillebeeckx’s thought closer to the 21st century, since nowadays concepts like salvation and resurrection tend (...) to embed particular meanings, such as well-being and ancestrality, which until recently were considered halfway synonyms of the previous images, and thus were looked upon with less persuasion. This study follows their interchangeable use in Schillebeeckx’s doctrine of creation, where the purpose of the Christian creedal formula is to appease in a tribal sense, rather than to fun­ction as a confession of faith. On the other hand, Schillebeeckx’s take on the resurrection as a means to reconnect humanity to its ancestral faith will further be inspected as the starting point of his rehabilitated anthropology or the humanum. The initial discussion on the relationship between God and Jesus in the history of salvation finalized with Jesus’ death receives a new turn in Schillebeeckx’s thought when in this same context he talks about the resurrection. Jesus’ status after the resurrection is analyzed here considering the tribal flavors it receives in Schillebeeckx’s work with an accent on its outcome for the new humanity and its well-being. (shrink)

The present study examined how emotional fit with culture – the degree of similarity between an individual’ emotional response to the emotional response of others from the same culture – relates to well-being in a sample of Asian American and European American college students. Using a profile correlation method, we calculated three types of emotional fit based on self-reported emotions, facial expressions, and physiological responses. We then examined the relationships between emotional fit and individual well-being (depression, life satisfaction) as well (...) as collective aspects of well-being, namely collective self-esteem (one’s evaluation of one’s cultural group) and identification with one’s group. The results revealed that self-report emotional fit was associated with greater individual well-being across cultures. In contrast, culture moderated the relationship between self-report emotional fit and collective self-esteem, such that emotional fit predicted greater collective self-esteem in Asian Americans, but not in European Americans. Behavioral emotional fit was unrelated to well-being. There was a marginally significant cultural moderation in the relationship between physiological emotional fit in a strong emotional situation and group identification. Specifically, physiological emotional fit predicted greater group identification in Asian Americans, but not in European Americans. However, this finding disappeared after a Bonferroni correction. The current finding extends previous research by showing that, while emotional fit may be closely related to individual aspects of well-being across cultures, the influence of emotional fit on collective aspects of well-being may be unique to cultures that emphasize interdependence and social harmony, and thus being in alignment with other members of the group. (shrink)

I once opened a fortune cookie containing the message, ‘All happiness is in the mind’; it is still affixed to my refrigerator. I did not put it there to signal.