In recent years, the Taiwan¡¦s TV talk shows about the political topic have a bias in favour of party. In Taiwan, there are two property of party, one is called Blue property of party, the other is called Green property of party. In order to get more audience rating, theTV stations make the program by the means of antagonism. In this background, it becomes more important that audience how to response the genus of TV program. In order to investigate the phenomenon, we use two main directions. One way is stimulus response, it assumes the audience is influnced by TV progarm. In this way, we apply the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion. The other way is audience¡¦s subjectivity, it assumes that audience can reflex what TV program want to talk to them. In this way, we apply the political philosopher-Hannah Arendt¡¦s doctrine. We found that audience¡¦s emotion be influenced by TV talk show, and no matter what party identification they belong to, most emotions are negative. But, when the TV talk show has a bias in favour of party which is the same with their party identification, they have moer higher positive emotion than which is no the same. And when the TV talk show has a bias in favour of party which is not the same with their party identification, they have moer higher positive emotion than which is no the same. But we can¡¦t justify the the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion. No mater what party indentification they are and no matter what TV talk show of property of party they watch, we can¡¦t found obvious subjectivity of audience. It¡¦s a crisis of public sphere.

Doctor of Philosophy / Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Fred O. Bradley / The broaden-and-build theory posits that frequently experiencing positive emotions leads to broadened awareness and functioning, and over time, built resources. These resources function as reserves during difficult times. Considering recommendations for increasing positive emotions and findings regarding human-animal interactions, it is reasonable to expect that companion animals might function in a manner to increase positive emotions. Many people have companion animals, and they are a preventative, natural intervention without associated stigmas. Therefore, knowing more about how companion animals impact their humans has practical implications for mental health professionals. The current study investigated various aspects of human-animal interactions that are conceivably related to positive emotions (human-animal bond and amount of time spent with animal) in different configurations (people with and without companion animals; people with dogs, cats, and horses), while considering potential confounds (time spent with humans in connected interactions and time spent outside). Time spent in connected interactions with other humans is the only variable that predicted positivity, and this was only in people without companion animals. This is consistent with previous findings that interacting with other people is related to positive emotions.

The purpose of this study was twofold in that it explored the relationships in which transformational and transactional leadership impact particular subordinate outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Secondly, once transformational leadership was tested and shown to be a better predictor of both job satisfaction and organizational commitment when compared to transactional leadership, employee motivation and one’s broaden-and-build schema, building off of concepts from the Broaden-and-Build theory, were proposed as mediators of the relationship between transformational leaders and their subordinate’s outcomes in terms of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Transformational leadership is a strong predictor of many subordinate outcomes, but the goal of this study was to better understand the “why” in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee outcomes. After pilot testing the Broaden-And-Build Schema Questionnaire, a cross-sectional sample of employees were surveyed to assess the mediation of broaden-and-build schema and employee motivation on the relationship between transformational leadership and subordinate outcomes, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Participants (N = 390) responded to a survey consisting of four scales previously developed and one scale developed specifically for this study. Examining seven different hypotheses, regression analysis and SEM models were utilized to analyze the data. Regression analyses was used to analyze hypotheses 1 through 3 and it was found that transformational leadership predicted both subordinate outcomes and the mediating variables better than transactional leadership. Mediation analyses was used to analyze hypotheses 4 through 7 and it was found that while the mediations were positive, the proposed mediators did not significantly mediate the relationships. This study strived to reiterate the importance of transformational leaders and help to give direction to leaders as to what focus is important when job satisfaction and organizational commitment are the desired outcomes. These findings add to the extensive research on transformational leaders and their subordinate outcomes.

Positive psychological capital (PsyCap), a second-order construct formed from optimism, hope, resilience, and self-efficacy, has predicted the performance and psychological well-being of a variety of full-time workers, and mediators of the relationships between PsyCap and performance and psychological well-being have rarely been examined. Using self-determination theory, broaden-and-build theory, and the conceptual framework of positive psychology, this study was an exploration of (a) the relationships among PsyCap, (b) basic psychological need satisfaction (i.e., autonomy, competence, relatedness), and (c) psychological well-being and performance using a sample of 103 working actors and stunt people. A serial mediation model was proposed whereby PsyCap predicted performance through need satisfaction and psychological well-being. Statistically significant bivariate correlations were found among PsyCap, autonomy, competence, relatedness, psychological well-being, and performance. Multiple regression analyses yielded indirect effects tested for statistical significance using bias-corrected bootstrapping. Results showed a total indirect effect of PsyCap on psychological well-being through need satisfaction and a specific indirect effect of PsyCap on psychological well-being through relatedness. Results showed no total indirect effect for PsyCap on performance through need satisfaction but did show a specific indirect effect of PsyCap on performance through relatedness. No statistically significant indirect effects of autonomy, competence, and relatedness on performance through psychological well-being were found. Theoretical and practical implications for future researchers, independent workers, and organizations supporting independent workers are discussed.

The number of displaced people around the world today is unprecedented in world history, with a third of those displaced below the age of 18. These children often undergo traumatic experiences which can cause serious mental health issues before and during their flight as well as afterwards when resettling in a new country. In Sweden, they are offered psychological aid in order to better deal with these issues and hence recover. However, due to the cultural stigma attached to mental health problems, psychosocial aid is often ruled out by the child themselves. In addition, up to 30% of these unaccompanied children have been reported to suffer from PTSD, where merely speaking about one's issue can trigger a relapse of the trauma. There is therefore a shortage of pragmatic approaches to help tackle the challenges that these children faces. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how creative programs such as the organisation Clowns without Borders works with unaccompanied refugees and how their methods affect the wellbeing of these children. This thesis explores the effects that laughter and playing has on a child’s well-being using a qualitative field research approach. The research is a contribution to the field of development since it offers new grounds on how to work towards increasing the living standards of resettled displaced persons.

Spending your time „nurturing what is right‟ enables people to grow and negotiate the problems of life which is more than only fixing what is wrong. The World Health Organisation also defined well-being as more than not ill-being. Flourishing is an optimal state of well-being. The question is, „what is it that flourishers do different from non-flourishers?‟ Pharmacy students prepare themselves for a profession which is being bombarded with change; they are the pharmacists of tomorrow. Among them some students flourish and the others do not. This study aimed to look at possible pathways to flourishing that flourishers utilise. In this way the study addressed several gaps in the knowledge regarding flourishing: 1) The prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students, 2) The role of demands and resources in flourishing of students, 3) The role of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction on the basic psychological need satisfaction of students and therefore in their flourishing, and 4) The use of positive affect regulation (an internal strategy) as a pathway to flourishing. A cross-sectional design was utilised. The study population was all the enrolled pharmacy students at the North West University during 2014. A convenience sample of 779 students participated. The measuring battery consisted of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF; Keyes, 2009), the Emotional Regulation Profile-Revised (ERP-R; Nelis, Quoidbach, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2011), the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (BMPN; Sheldon & Hilpert, 2012), statements about the antecedents of basic psychological need satisfaction and statements about demands and resources, developed for the purpose of this study, and a demographic questionnaire. Structural equation modelling, invariance testing and latent class analysis were some of the statistical techniques used to analyse the cross-sectional data. Manuscript one addressed the prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students as well as possible differences between the year groups. The manuscript also investigated the role of workload as a study demand and the lecturer as a study resource and the possible interaction between them in the flourishing of students. Year group as a possible moderator in the respective relationships between demands, resources, the interaction between them on the one hand and flourishing on the other, were also assessed. 40% of the group flourished whilst 57% was moderately healthy and 3% languished. The different year groups negotiated the demands and resources in their study environment differently in their path to flourishing. The possible pathways to flourishing in this context were identified as the use of lecturer support (a resource), especially when the workload (a demand) is high and the successful negotiation of workload over their four years of study. Manuscript two dealt with the impact of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction of pharmacy students on their basic psychological need satisfaction and therefore ultimately the influence of these contextual factors on their flourishing. The researcher wanted to determine whether there is a difference in the role(s) that family, peers, lecturers and workload play in the satisfaction of the students‟ basic psychological needs (relatedness, competence and autonomy). Year group as a moderator in these respective relationships was also investigated. Family and peers played the most important role in need satisfaction of students. However, lecturers can actively engage in supporting the need satisfaction of students, which would increase their levels of autonomous motivation and thereby their levels of flourishing. In manuscript three the use of internal strategies as pathways to flourishing were explored. Positive emotion regulation strategies have a positive relationship with well-being. However, a person can dampen or savour his or her positive emotions. The students were clustered into distinctive groups by means of a latent class analysis. Three distinctive groups were posterior identified based on the characteristics of group members, namely flourishers, languishers and moderately healthy students. Regression analyses of the three groups revealed that flourishers are the only group that most likely will utilise savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and refrain from utilising dampening positive emotion regulation strategies. Pathways to flourishing that flourishing pharmacy students utilise are therefore the use of savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and the non-use of dampening positive emotion regulation strategies.

Spending your time „nurturing what is right‟ enables people to grow and negotiate the problems of life which is more than only fixing what is wrong. The World Health Organisation also defined well-being as more than not ill-being. Flourishing is an optimal state of well-being. The question is, „what is it that flourishers do different from non-flourishers?‟ Pharmacy students prepare themselves for a profession which is being bombarded with change; they are the pharmacists of tomorrow. Among them some students flourish and the others do not. This study aimed to look at possible pathways to flourishing that flourishers utilise. In this way the study addressed several gaps in the knowledge regarding flourishing: 1) The prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students, 2) The role of demands and resources in flourishing of students, 3) The role of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction on the basic psychological need satisfaction of students and therefore in their flourishing, and 4) The use of positive affect regulation (an internal strategy) as a pathway to flourishing. A cross-sectional design was utilised. The study population was all the enrolled pharmacy students at the North West University during 2014. A convenience sample of 779 students participated. The measuring battery consisted of the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form (MHC-SF; Keyes, 2009), the Emotional Regulation Profile-Revised (ERP-R; Nelis, Quoidbach, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2011), the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (BMPN; Sheldon & Hilpert, 2012), statements about the antecedents of basic psychological need satisfaction and statements about demands and resources, developed for the purpose of this study, and a demographic questionnaire. Structural equation modelling, invariance testing and latent class analysis were some of the statistical techniques used to analyse the cross-sectional data. Manuscript one addressed the prevalence of flourishing among pharmacy students as well as possible differences between the year groups. The manuscript also investigated the role of workload as a study demand and the lecturer as a study resource and the possible interaction between them in the flourishing of students. Year group as a possible moderator in the respective relationships between demands, resources, the interaction between them on the one hand and flourishing on the other, were also assessed. 40% of the group flourished whilst 57% was moderately healthy and 3% languished. The different year groups negotiated the demands and resources in their study environment differently in their path to flourishing. The possible pathways to flourishing in this context were identified as the use of lecturer support (a resource), especially when the workload (a demand) is high and the successful negotiation of workload over their four years of study. Manuscript two dealt with the impact of antecedent factors of basic psychological need satisfaction of pharmacy students on their basic psychological need satisfaction and therefore ultimately the influence of these contextual factors on their flourishing. The researcher wanted to determine whether there is a difference in the role(s) that family, peers, lecturers and workload play in the satisfaction of the students‟ basic psychological needs (relatedness, competence and autonomy). Year group as a moderator in these respective relationships was also investigated. Family and peers played the most important role in need satisfaction of students. However, lecturers can actively engage in supporting the need satisfaction of students, which would increase their levels of autonomous motivation and thereby their levels of flourishing. In manuscript three the use of internal strategies as pathways to flourishing were explored. Positive emotion regulation strategies have a positive relationship with well-being. However, a person can dampen or savour his or her positive emotions. The students were clustered into distinctive groups by means of a latent class analysis. Three distinctive groups were posterior identified based on the characteristics of group members, namely flourishers, languishers and moderately healthy students. Regression analyses of the three groups revealed that flourishers are the only group that most likely will utilise savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and refrain from utilising dampening positive emotion regulation strategies. Pathways to flourishing that flourishing pharmacy students utilise are therefore the use of savouring positive emotion regulation strategies and the non-use of dampening positive emotion regulation strategies.

Both flow and flourishing are highly favourable human states and have been described as optimal experience phenomena in the well-being literature. This being said, more research is required to gauge how these states can be more readily achieved – in general, but specifically in sport – and athletic contexts; where it has remained largely unexplored. The objective of this research was to ascertain whether specific contexts can influence the experience of flow and flourishing amongst athletes. It further investigated the state-like properties of these experiences, by evaluating whether certain resources in the environment of the athlete can promote flow and flourishing and assessing whether athlete flow is dynamic over time, i.e. whether it fluctuates over the course of a particular athletic cycle. The research comprised three separate studies, reported in article format. Manuscript 1 evaluated a structural model of athlete flow by investigating the role of both job (sport) – and personal resources in the experience of athlete flow among student athletes. The resources under investigation were teammate relationships and communication (job resources) as well as self-efficacy (a personal resource). Using structural equation modelling direct paths were revealed between teammate relationships, self-efficacy and athlete flow. The findings provide some evidence that athlete flow are associated with contextual factors that relate to the team environment as well as the personal resources of the athlete. Manuscript 2 focused on the flourishing of athletes. An exploratory study was conducted to evaluate relationships between athlete flourishing, team and individual strength use, team embeddedness and withdrawal behaviour. Results suggested that flourishing is related to team strength use. It also revealed positive paths from both the strength use dimensions to team embeddedness. Flourishing related positively to team embeddedness. Withdrawal behaviour was negatively associated with team embeddedness. The results revealed important information from the perspective of antecedents and outcomes of athlete flourishing. Manuscript 3 explored the state-like properties of athlete flow by conducting ecological momentary assessment of the experience amongst under-21 Currie Cup rugby players during a competitive stage of their athletic cycle. The objective of this study was twofold. Firstly, it sought to ascertain whether athlete flow will vary over time and during/ after specific key events during an athletic cycle. Secondly, it investigated whether the introduction of specific interventions during such cycle could influence athlete flow experience. The study, which adopted a longitudinal design, revealed that athlete flow was dynamic over time. Positive relationships were also established between challenging athletic activities, as well as strength-based team and individual interventions; and flow. This provides sport coaches and management teams with information that may assist them in assisting athletes to achieve more readily the favourable and optimum human state that is flow.

Both flow and flourishing are highly favourable human states and have been described as optimal experience phenomena in the well-being literature. This being said, more research is required to gauge how these states can be more readily achieved – in general, but specifically in sport – and athletic contexts; where it has remained largely unexplored. The objective of this research was to ascertain whether specific contexts can influence the experience of flow and flourishing amongst athletes. It further investigated the state-like properties of these experiences, by evaluating whether certain resources in the environment of the athlete can promote flow and flourishing and assessing whether athlete flow is dynamic over time, i.e. whether it fluctuates over the course of a particular athletic cycle. The research comprised three separate studies, reported in article format. Manuscript 1 evaluated a structural model of athlete flow by investigating the role of both job (sport) – and personal resources in the experience of athlete flow among student athletes. The resources under investigation were teammate relationships and communication (job resources) as well as self-efficacy (a personal resource). Using structural equation modelling direct paths were revealed between teammate relationships, self-efficacy and athlete flow. The findings provide some evidence that athlete flow are associated with contextual factors that relate to the team environment as well as the personal resources of the athlete. Manuscript 2 focused on the flourishing of athletes. An exploratory study was conducted to evaluate relationships between athlete flourishing, team and individual strength use, team embeddedness and withdrawal behaviour. Results suggested that flourishing is related to team strength use. It also revealed positive paths from both the strength use dimensions to team embeddedness. Flourishing related positively to team embeddedness. Withdrawal behaviour was negatively associated with team embeddedness. The results revealed important information from the perspective of antecedents and outcomes of athlete flourishing. Manuscript 3 explored the state-like properties of athlete flow by conducting ecological momentary assessment of the experience amongst under-21 Currie Cup rugby players during a competitive stage of their athletic cycle. The objective of this study was twofold. Firstly, it sought to ascertain whether athlete flow will vary over time and during/ after specific key events during an athletic cycle. Secondly, it investigated whether the introduction of specific interventions during such cycle could influence athlete flow experience. The study, which adopted a longitudinal design, revealed that athlete flow was dynamic over time. Positive relationships were also established between challenging athletic activities, as well as strength-based team and individual interventions; and flow. This provides sport coaches and management teams with information that may assist them in assisting athletes to achieve more readily the favourable and optimum human state that is flow.

According to Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, positive emotions -- such as joy, contentment, and love -- help individuals cope with stress, maintain well-being, and flourish in life. Guided by this theory, this dissertation project conducted three studies which explored the multidimensional influences of positive emotions on stress, coping strategies, resilience, trait anxiety, depressive symptoms, and work engagement. Study 1 examined the mediating role of coping strategies on the link between positive emotions and resilience; in addition, the moderating effect of resilience on the influence of stress toward trait anxiety and depressive symptoms was tested. Study 2 investigated if one's positivity would distinguish differences in their levels of stress, trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Finally, Study 3 examined whether stress and positive emotions would account for the variance in work engagement, over and above what has been explained by known predictors -- specifically, work meaningfulness and supervisor support. Path analysis, interaction analysis, multivariate analysis of variance, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were used to test the different models within these studies. A sample of 200 postdoctoral fellows completed the survey (38% response rate). Results showed that a) coping strategies partially mediated the link between positive emotions and resilience; b) resilience moderated the effect of stress on trait anxiety and depressive symptoms; c) the different categories of positivity distinguished differences in experienced stress, trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms; d) stress and positive emotions accounted for additional variance in work engagement, above what is already explained by work meaningfulness and supervisor support; and e) positive emotions completely mediated the relationship between supervisor support and work engagement. Findings support the broaden-and-build theory's hypotheses that positive emotions enhance adaptive coping strategies and fuel resilience. The data also demonstrated that resilience protected postdocs from experiencing heightened levels of trait anxiety and depressive symptoms by diminishing their relationships with stress. One strategy to optimize health would be to increase opportunities for postdocs to experience positive emotions, which would subsequently spark the upward spiral toward improved coping, greater resilience, and reduced stress, anxiety, and depression. To promote work engagement, it is important for supervisors to not only be mindful of assigning meaningful work to their employees (or help employees find meaning in their work), but supervisors should also be a supportive leader within a positive workplace environment. / text