A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of MA by coursework and research report in the field of Organisational Psychology in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand,Johannesburg 2018 / With the change in nature of work, the spaces in which work is done has also changed, prompting research into the effects of the work environment on employees. The purpose of this study is to investigate how different types of workplace office spaces will have different impacts on aspects of wellbeing in employees. The facets explored are how employees perceive their satisfaction of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) attributes, how they perceive their performance and health within these IEQ conditions, how they perceive their current workspace affecting their physical and psychological discomfort, and how they perceived their own psychological wellbeing. A quantitative survey was compiled from previous literature, appropriate to exploring these variables. The questionnaire was piloted at a company that owns, develops, and manages property before being conducted over a two-week period at a large health insurance company in Johannesburg, Gauteng. The final survey consisted of three subscales of the Green Building Survey (Hedge & Dorsey, 2012) measuring perceived satisfaction of indoor environmental quality and its impact on health and performance; the GABO questionnaire (Pierrette et al., 2015) assessed six aspects of perceived noise; the extended Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire assessed physical discomfort in nine body regions; perceived psychological comfort; and perceived psychological wellbeing using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale. Data were collected using an online survey platform. The final sample consisted of 1853 participants of different genders, races, ages, and organisational levels of a prominent South African organisation. The results of this study are beneficial to the field as literature pertaining to workspace layout is outdated and new research is needed as innovative trends in layout types are emerging. Most previous research on employee perceptions addresses productivity but not necessarily different aspects of perceived health, wellbeing, and comfort. It is expected that this study will contribute to finding clarity in a still-ambiguous field and will add to the present-day change in how and where work is done. / TL2019

This project investigates how interaction design can support handcrafting and foster well-being. The design process has been user-centered, focusing on people who handcraft during their leisure. Along the process, the focus was narrowed down to the practices of artistic handcrafting such as painting and sketching. The design project resulted in a concept with an associated digital prototype that supports users to handcraft personal artistic work by inspiring them to realize one's ideas or visions. The final concept supports a free and exploratory handcrafting process, proven by the design process to be important for people engaged in artistic handcrafting. This thesis further discusses the design process, the reasoning behind the prototype role, and its features. The outcome contributes knowledge to the field of Interaction Design regarding essential aspects of design that support the practice of handcrafting and fosters well-being.

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The overarching goal of this dissertation is to examine the complex trip-, activity-, and personal-level factors impacting individuals’ well-being. This is achieved through fulfilling three research objectives. The first objective examines the fluctuation of happiness induced by the influences of daily trip and activity factors. The second objective examines the sensitivity of affective well-being to trip and activity duration. The third objective evaluates the gender differences in trip- and activity-induced well-being. Three notable findings are discerned using trip and activity episodes as well as self-reported well-being of 357 participants collected by the Daynamica smartphone application in Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area from October 17, 2016, to October 25, 2017. The first finding shows the daily happiness deviation is zero in 6% of the number of trip and activity episodes recorded in a day for all individuals. Trip-level factors associated with share of time spent on education, work, and traveling alone result in the largest happiness variability. The number of activities is the sole activity-level factor with positive influence on happiness variability. Personal level factor of gender results in a low happiness variability. The second finding indicates that positive affect is more sensitive to trip duration than negative affect. Among trip-level factors, the sensitivity of affective well-being during a trip is relatively weak when traveling by bike, bus, and rail; conducting discretionary trip purposes; traveling with spouse, family, children, and friends; conducting secondary activities while traveling; and being satisfied with the travel environment. Among personal-level factors, the sensitivity of affective well-being during a trip is relatively strong for women and African Americans. The third finding demonstrates that the top three factors yielding the highest magnitude of impact for females are associated with biking, trip destination associated with discretionary activities, and walking. The likelihood of gain to loss happiness is four times for male bikers and two and a half times for female bikers. Results of both discretionary and mandatory trip origins have the least magnitude of impact for both females and males. For personal-level factors, the magnitude of impact is low for African American females, and not significant for males.

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Recent years have observed significant change in the landscape of American religious/spiritual environment and religious/spiritual groups called new religious movements (NRMs) have developed as an alternative for many individuals to engage in religious/spiritual beliefs and practices outside the traditional religions. It was unclear if participation in NRMs provide adherents with similar mental health benefits as participation in traditional religious groups, or whether there might be important differences. The current study examined the link between participation in NRMs and relevant social and psychological outcomes including mental health symptoms, emotional well-being, attachment style, and social relationships. I recruited participants from three groups: (1) NRMs, (2) traditional religious groups, and (3) no religious/spiritual identification. I explored group differences in five key areas of mental health and well-being: (1) mental health symptoms, (2) subjective well-being, (3) attachment, (4) social belonging, and (5) meaning in life. The overall results suggested that NRM participants showed relatively few differences compared to traditional religious participants in regard to the above psychological profile. NRM participants reported more differences compared to participants who were neither religious nor spiritual. In this regard, NRM involvement was associated with some positive outcomes, including positive emotional well-being and meaning in life, and some negative outcomes, including anxious adult attachment, low sense of belonging compared to non-religious individuals, and higher rates of depression. Limitations, suggestions for future research, and practical applications are discussed.

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Exposure to negative media messages related to LGBTQ+ issues have been associated with negative affect, depression, stress, and psychological distress among that population (e.g. Rotosky, Riggle, Horne, & Miller, 2009). Frost and Fingerhut (2016) have suggested that this exposure to negative media messages is a form of distal minority stress, which has been theorized to contribute to anticipated stigma or unfair treatment (Meyer, 2003). Thus, in the present study, we predicted that individuals who were exposed to more negative messages in the media will have more negative feelings about the election, report more anxiety and fear, and anticipate more discrimination due to their LGBT identity. Further, we hypothesized that negative feelings about the election would relate to more anxiety, fear, anticipated discrimination. However, because connection with the LGBTQ+ community and spiritual well-being have been associated with better mental health (Pflum et al., 2015; Greenfield et al., 2009), the current study explored whether community connection and spirituality relate to the other relations tested. Participants (N = 207) were recruited online through various social media platforms and participated in an online survey using Survey Monkey. The survey included the following measures: the Exposure to Negative Campaign Messages (adapted; Frost & Fingerhut, 2016), a self-created Presidential Election 2016 Response Questionnaire, Discrimination Scale (adapted; Kessler, Mickelson, and Williams, 1999), Connectedness to the LGBT Community Scale (Frost & Meyer, 2012), State-Trait Anxiety Form for Adults (Form Y1; Spielberg, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1977), Fear and Sense of Control Scale (Salcioglu, Urhan, Pirinccioglu, & Aydin, 2016), Spiritual Index of Well-Being Scale (Daaleman & Frey, 2004), Centrality Scale (Quinn, Williams, Quintana, Gaskins, & Pishori, 2014), and questions about frequently used social media sites. Results revealed, contrary to our hypotheses, that more negative messages in the media was not significantly related to negative feelings about the presidential election, r = .05, p = .524, or state-trait anxiety, r = .079, p = .341. In support of our hypotheses, negative feelings about the presidential election were significantly related to more anticipated discrimination in everyday life, r = .631, p < .001, state-trait anxiety, r = .577, p < .001, and fear, r = .663, p < .001. Exploratory analyses revealed that those with more negative feelings about the election felt less connected to the LGBTQ+ community, r = -.224, p = .001, and had a lower spiritual life schema, r = -.362, p < .001. Additional exploratory findings highlight the possibility that spiritual well-being may moderate the effect of being exposed to negative media messages and should be examined more specifically in the future. In sum, feelings resulting from media exposure may be more influential to mental health than media exposure itself.