The thesis deals with the topic of happiness and happiness increasing intervention strategies. The theoretical chapters discuss different approaches to defining the term and they are inclined to the view that the term reflects the subjective satisfaction with life of an individual. The thesis further deals with a number of major theories of happiness, analyzes its relationship to other variables, such as heredity, health, money or work and it gives an overview of the best known intervention strategies affecting experiencing happiness in the end of the theoretical part of it. Empirical research is aimed at testing the effectiveness of the chosen strategy - attentivenes - on the changes in experiencing happiness. Although the statistical analysis does not confirm the validity of the hypothesis of an increase in subjective levels of happiness after applying the intervention, the results tend to indicate the effectiveness of the method. Keywords: positive psychology, happiness, satisfaction, attentiveness.

Throughout the course of a day, individuals experience a number of different situations that affect how they think, feel, and behave. However, until recently, there was little research aimed at describing what factors may be related to the psychological properties of situations in individuals' everyday lives. Recent theoretical (e.g., the Situational Eight DIAMONDS) and methodological (e.g., experience sampling, Day Reconstruction Method) advances make the present research tractable. Based on the extant literature, three studies, employing different methodologies, were designed to explore whether three specific factors are related to the experience of situations: time of day, gender, and employment status. Study 1 employs data from 835 participants recruited on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (AMT). Participants reported a recent situation (single time-point method) and completed a 290-item measure of situations, the Comprehensive Situations Item Pool (CSIP). The results demonstrated consistent daily patterns in the experience of situations. For example, the situational characteristic Duty tends to increase throughout the day, peak at noon, decreasing thereafter. Study 2 uses an experience sampling method to further investigate the daily and weekly temporal patterns in the situational characteristics from a within-person perspective. University participants (N = 210) were contacted via smartphone and rated their situation up to 8 times per day for 7 days. The results showed that there are some similarities and differences in the temporal pattern of situations at the within-person level. Duty, for instance, exhibits a different pattern depending on the day of the week (e.g., negative and linear on weekends, but quadratic on weekdays). Overall, Study 2 demonstrates that there are clear within- and between-day patterns in situation characteristics. Lastly, Study 3 employs a full-day method using archival data from the 2013 American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Participants drawn from a representative sample of Americans (N = 11,384) reported all of their situations for a recent day using the Day Reconstruction Method. The results found that, in addition to consistent daily and weekly trends, patterns for situation characteristics are related to individual differences such as gender and employment status. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Background: Increasingly, it is recommended that to improve access to depression treatment, low-intensity psychological interventions should be developed and investigated. To date, resource-oriented approaches, such as positive psychology, that focus on patients' strengths and positive feelings have not been systematically developed and evaluated, despite evidence of potential effectiveness. This thesis aimed to systematically develop a theoretically sound online intervention using positive psychology and investigate its acceptability. Methods: The intervention's conceptual model was based on evidence synthesised from a systematic review, which identified commonly applied positive psychology components, and a qualitative study with 18 patients and 5 clinicians on the potential acceptability of online positive psychology. The intervention was tested in a feasibility study with 103 participants with depression, to identify the feasibility of study procedures and the acceptability and potential outcomes of the intervention. Intervention acceptability was further explored qualitatively with twenty-three purposively selected participants. Results: Six positive psychology components were included in the intervention to promote positive affect, strengths, and social connections. Half of the sample used the intervention minimally, a third used it moderately, and one fifth used it regularly. The intervention was rated as helpful by a fifth of the overall sample. Participants reported improved symptoms of depression. The qualitative evidence suggested that intervention acceptability could be explained by the extent to which the positive psychology components were perceived as relevant to participants' depression and how empowering they found a low-intensity website. Conclusions: A low-intensity online positive psychology intervention is acceptable and potentially beneficial to some patients with depression. Future research is needed to establish whether online positive psychology is attractive to a distinct population. If so, the developed intervention should be refined and evaluated for effectiveness. However, if there are people who generally prefer online treatments for depression, research should focus on developing the best-evidenced approach.

Research in the areas of religion and spirituality and positive psychology have experienced considerable growth within the past two decades. Such growth has led to a plethora of research identifying important constructs in both areas and key relationships among them. The current literature is, however, limited by unclear distinctions between the constructs of religion and spirituality, and a general lack of research into their associations with positive psychological traits and mental health status. As such, the present study aimed to investigate a new model of spirituality, the RiTE model, which is a three-part model designed to capture the multifaceted nature of the spiritual experience. The RiTE model was investigated in its relationship with mental health status in the context of a parallel mediation model, with self-forgiveness, gratitude, and mindfulness serving as parallel mediators. Results suggested that ritualistic and existential spirituality displayed direct associations with mental health status (positive and negative, respectively), while theistic spirituality displayed indirect associations. Indirect associations between theistic spirituality and mental health status were primarily a function of higher levels of gratitude, while existential spirituality was associated with higher levels of all three mediator variables. Clinicians may benefit from utilizing this knowledge when conceptualizing an individual’s spiritual worldview and utilizing spirituality when attempting to enhance client resilience via positive psychological approaches. Future studies should provide further insight into these treatment applications in addition to further clarifying the nuanced mechanisms of the spirituality-mental health association.

The "always on" aspect of social media creates a complex zone of self-expression for children and adolescents. The relentless quality of the potential for interaction encourages impulsive communication and response, a primary feature of what we think of as "bullying" in social media. In addition, social media creates a forum for people to connect within a community larger and more extensive than the physical. Different social media outlets even connect with each other to create an even larger sense of community. Increased understanding of the psychology of these dynamics may contribute to successful interventions to educate and reach out to young social media users. Application of positive psychological principles can help elicit emotions such as empathy in order to help resolve conflicts and curb online bullying. While social media receives a great deal of criticism for the platform it provides bullying, social media outlets can also provide an effective platform for promoting positive social change by playing into the psychology of inclusion to combat exclusion through the internet.

Research on humility has long been handicapped by the lack of a valid and reliable measure. This research focuses on constructing and validating a measure of Healthy Humility, defined as an unexaggerated, open perception of the abilities, achievements, accomplishments, and limitations of oneself and of others - a perception that focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on the value of the non-self. Through a series of two separate studies using a total sample of 678 undergraduates, an 11-item scale scored on a 6-point Likert scale was developed. A third study using a sample of 183 undergraduates used measures of self-esteem, hope, existential meaning, depression, and anxiety to validate and explore the relationship between the Healthy Humility Inventory (HHI) and the aforementioned variables. Regression analyses supported hypothesized relationships between the HHI and measures of hope and existential meaning, and the trend of the relationship between measures of self-esteem and the HHI, though not significant, also followed along the lines of the hypothesized relationship. A hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that the HHI explained a significant amount of variance (p<.05) on measures of depression and anxiety above and beyond that explained by self-esteem.

How information technology (IT) influence peoples' everyday lives is becoming one of the most important research issues in IS field. In this study a theoretical model based on the self-disclosure theory and the social capital theory has been constructed to research how the bloggers' self-disclosure behaviors in the blogosphere may influence their subjective well-being (SWB). The results suggest that the trust in audiences, self-efficacy for self-disclosure, and stress were the key factors influencing the bloggers' self-disclosure behaviors. In addition, writing blogs provides a channel for users to release their inhibition, enhance their experiences of positive affect, increase their social support and social integration, and extend their social network, all of which in turn enhance the bloggers' perception of subjective well-being. These results provide significant theoretical and practical implications to researchers, enterprises, blog platform designers, and IT policy makers in understanding the roles of blogs in peoples' everyday lives.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [84]-94). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [84]-94). Also available on the Internet.

The aim of this research was to determine the way in which informal caregivers of HIV/AIDS patients experience their task as caregivers as well as to identify factors, or general resistance resources, which exercise an influence on their psychological well-being, and more specifically on their sense of coherence. The stressors encountered by informal caregivers of HIVIAIDS patients have previously been investigated thoroughly in a number of studies. The tasks of informal caregivers very often encompass much more than what would be, for example, included in the nursing context and therefore exceed the limits applying to the formal sector. Stressors to which caregivers are exposed include physical, financial and emotional aspects. It has been proved that this state of affairs has a negative impact on their physical health conditions as well as their psychological well-being. Caregivers do, however, at times report a certain extent of growth experienced by them which can be related to the care giving situation. The salutogenic perspective allows for a study of the origin of health and has, for the purposes of this study, been applied to obtain an alternative description of the caregivers' experiences. According to this perspective health does not merely mean the absence of disease, but also refers to health being influenced by an individual's management of stressful events. When an individual, even if confronted with stressful circumstances, has adequate general resistance resources at his/her disposal, a strong sense of coherence can develop and this will have a positive influence on his/her psychological well-being. In the South African context little if any literature can be found on the salutogenic factors that may affect informal caregivers of HIV/AIDS patients. The investigation of this study was based on an availability sample consisting of 8 informal caregivers of HIVIAIDS patients. A one shot cross sectional design with triangulation of data assessment techniques was used. The researcher obtained data with regard to the caregivers' sense of coherence by means of the Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC) (Antonovsky, 1987). Semistructured interviews were conducted with all the caregivers involved and a qualitative analysis followed. The results revealed that informal caregivers' sense of coherence was much lower than- that of a group of nurses (formal caregivers) as described by Cilliers (2003). One of the reasons for this significant difference could be the lack of a structured setting or environment in which caregivers still have to perform their duties and responsibilities. According to the results a variety of factors exercising a negative impact on informal caregivers' sense of coherence could be identified. These included (a) stress, (b) exposure to unfamiliar situations, and (c) a lack of counselling skills. Within the framework of the salutogenic perspective there were, however, different factors also known as general resistance resources, that exercised a positive impact on the caregivers' sense of coherence. Among these the following could be counted: (a) spirituality, (b) insight into interpersonal situations, (c) utilisation of social support systems, and (d) multi-disciplinary cooperation. It would therefore seem that informal caregivers do possess general resistance resources which enable them to persevere with their tasks as caregivers in spite of the stressors they encounter on a daily basis. One of the recommendations that can be posed after having carried out this study and after having analysed the results, is the compilation as well as the evaluation and implementation, of a psycho-education training programme for informal caregivers, with special emphasis on such general resistance resources. / Thesis (M.A. (Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.