The relation between temperament and happiness in children aged 8-12 was examined. Participants included 311 students in Grades 4-6 and their parents, recruited from public and private schools in the Central Okanagan. Parents rated their children’s temperament using the Emotionality, Activity, and Sociability (EAS) Temperament Survey (Buss & Plomin, 1984) and rated their children’s happiness using a single-item measure. Children rated their own temperament using the EAS Temperament Survey and the Piers- Harris Self Concept Scale for Children, Second Edition (Piers-Harris 2) (Piers & Herzberg, 2002). Children also rated their own happiness using a single-item measure, the Oxford Happiness Scale, Short Form (Hills & Arygle, 2002), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). Confirmatory factor analyses established that parent and child ratings on the EAS Temperament Survey conformed to the four-factor structure proposed by Buss and Plomin (1984). Multiple regression analyses revealed that temperament accounted for between 9-29% of the variance in children’s happiness depending on the rater (i.e., parents vs. children) and the measure of happiness. Individual temperament variables that predicted a unique amount of the variance of children’s happiness over and above the combined effect of all temperament variables varied with the rater of children’s temperament (i.e., parents vs. children) and with the measure of happiness. Children who were more social, less shy, less emotional, and more free from anxiety rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. Children who scored higher on the activity temperament rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. The results of the current study parallel results of research investigating the relation between happiness and personality in adults. It establishes a strong relation between temperament and happiness, and iii supports the use of self-reports with children. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The relation between temperament and happiness in children aged 8-12 was examined. Participants included 311 students in Grades 4-6 and their parents, recruited from public and private schools in the Central Okanagan. Parents rated their children’s temperament using the Emotionality, Activity, and Sociability (EAS) Temperament Survey (Buss & Plomin, 1984) and rated their children’s happiness using a single-item measure. Children rated their own temperament using the EAS Temperament Survey and the Piers- Harris Self Concept Scale for Children, Second Edition (Piers-Harris 2) (Piers & Herzberg, 2002). Children also rated their own happiness using a single-item measure, the Oxford Happiness Scale, Short Form (Hills & Arygle, 2002), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). Confirmatory factor analyses established that parent and child ratings on the EAS Temperament Survey conformed to the four-factor structure proposed by Buss and Plomin (1984). Multiple regression analyses revealed that temperament accounted for between 9-29% of the variance in children’s happiness depending on the rater (i.e., parents vs. children) and the measure of happiness. Individual temperament variables that predicted a unique amount of the variance of children’s happiness over and above the combined effect of all temperament variables varied with the rater of children’s temperament (i.e., parents vs. children) and with the measure of happiness. Children who were more social, less shy, less emotional, and more free from anxiety rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. Children who scored higher on the activity temperament rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. The results of the current study parallel results of research investigating the relation between happiness and personality in adults. It establishes a strong relation between temperament and happiness, and iii supports the use of self-reports with children. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The relation between temperament and happiness in children aged 8-12 was examined. Participants included 311 students in Grades 4-6 and their parents, recruited from public and private schools in the Central Okanagan. Parents rated their children’s temperament using the Emotionality, Activity, and Sociability (EAS) Temperament Survey (Buss & Plomin, 1984) and rated their children’s happiness using a single-item measure. Children rated their own temperament using the EAS Temperament Survey and the Piers- Harris Self Concept Scale for Children, Second Edition (Piers-Harris 2) (Piers & Herzberg, 2002). Children also rated their own happiness using a single-item measure, the Oxford Happiness Scale, Short Form (Hills & Arygle, 2002), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). Confirmatory factor analyses established that parent and child ratings on the EAS Temperament Survey conformed to the four-factor structure proposed by Buss and Plomin (1984). Multiple regression analyses revealed that temperament accounted for between 9-29% of the variance in children’s happiness depending on the rater (i.e., parents vs. children) and the measure of happiness. Individual temperament variables that predicted a unique amount of the variance of children’s happiness over and above the combined effect of all temperament variables varied with the rater of children’s temperament (i.e., parents vs. children) and with the measure of happiness. Children who were more social, less shy, less emotional, and more free from anxiety rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. Children who scored higher on the activity temperament rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. The results of the current study parallel results of research investigating the relation between happiness and personality in adults. It establishes a strong relation between temperament and happiness, and iii supports the use of self-reports with children. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Graduate Studies, College of (Okanagan) / Graduate

The previous research on student debt indicates that the financial concerns associated with being in debt have a significant effect on the individual's academic performance. In the present study, a sample of 328 current students at the University of Canterbury was questioned to identify the effects of student debt on students' course selection, motivation, happiness and academic performance. Students' debt levels increased with the level of university study, and the largest form of student borrowing was from the Student Loan Scheme. While students with no debt performed better academically than those with debt, students' attitudes towards debt were found to influence the relationship between debt level and academic performance. Students who were tolerant towards debt performed better as they accumulated more debt while students who were intolerant performed worse. In general, there is little indication that student debt has a direct effect on students' course selection, motivation, happiness and academic performance. Implications of current findings are mentioned. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Laimė sociologijoje dar nėra labai plačiai plėtojama ar įterpiama moksliniuose tyrimuose. Tačiau laimės samprata pasireiškia daugelyje aspektų ir neturi vienareikšmio apibrėžimo. O kiekviena mokslinė sritis pateikia savas sampratas. Taip pat aktualus lieka visuomenėje ir socialinis konstravimas, kuris parodo, kad laimės samprata taip pat yra socialiai konstruojama. Todėl iškeltas probleminis klausimas: Kaip konstruojama laimės samprata Lietuvos žiniasklaidoje? Tikslas: Išanalizuoti laimės sampratos konstravimą Lietuvos žiniasklaidoje. Pasiekiant tikslą, atskleidžiama sociologinė laimės samprata ir jos komponentai, apibūdinamas lietuvių laimingumas/nelaimingumas, apibūdinama konstruktyvistinė laimės samprata, analizuojama ir atskleidžiama Lietuvos žiniasklaidoje konstruojama laimės samprata. Taikyta mokslinės literatūros ir antrinių duomenų analizė, žiniasklaidos kiekybinė ir kokybinė turinio analizė. Tyrimo rezultatai: Laimės samprata Lietuvos internetinėje žiniasklaidoje yra konstruojama pateikiant gyvenimo istorijas, aprašant patarimus kaip siekti laimės, naudojant duomenis ir jas interpretuojant, pateiktus kitų šaltinių ar mokslinių tyrimų. Pateikiami laimės komponentai, kurie yra įvairūs, jų yra daug ir jie gali būti kintami. Kadangi tai, kas tinka vieniems yra nurodoma, bet tai nėra tinkama visiems. Kiekvienas individas taip pat turi savo laimės komponentus ar tikslus kaip jos siekti. Todėl laimė nors ir yra socialiai konstruojamas procesas, bet ji priklauso nuo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Happiness in sociology hasn’t been developed or integrated in academic researches. However, a concept of happiness is reflected in several aspects and can’t be defined unambiguously. Each academic branch introduces its concepts. Moreover, social constructing stays relevant as well as it shows that a concept of happiness could be socially constructed, too. Problematic question: Happiness concept construction in Lithuanian media. Aim: to analyze happiness concept construction in Lithuanian media. In order to achieve the aim, a sociological concept of happiness is been revealed together with its components, also feeling being happy/unhappy in Lithuanians, a constructive happiness concept have been defined, a concept of happiness, constructed in Lithuanian media has been analyzed and revealed. Methods: analysis of academic and secondary data source, media quantitative and qualitative content analysis. Results: the concept of happiness in Lithuanian Internet media is constructed by introducing life stories, explaining how to gain happiness, using and interpreting data from other sources and academic researches. The presented components of happiness differ, change and their number is rather high, as ones, presented as suitable for one group, do not suit for everybody. Each person has his/her own happiness components and ways to achieve it, so despite the fact, happiness is a socially constructed process, it depends on goals and their implementation, demands and freedom of choice... [to full text]

Throughout his work, Kant regularly glosses ‘morality’ (and cognate expressions) as ‘worthiness to be happy’ (Würdigkeit glücklich zu sein). As a rule, Kant’s commentators do not find this remarkable. Correctly understood, however, Kant’s gloss on ‘morality’ is remarkable indeed. This thesis shows why. In it, I argue that whenever we encounter Kant’s gloss, we are faced with an implicit, durable cluster of unjustified commitments; that these commitments both antedate and survive his ‘critical period’; that they are fundamentally practical in nature (i.e., that they are unexamined commitments to particular practices); and that these commitments entail a number of problematic theological consequences. I argue, in particular, that Kant’s gloss is a habit that signals, obscurely and implicitly, his antecedent commitments to the practice of capital punishment, on the one hand, and to a particular set of practical attitudes towards the happiness and unhappiness of immoral agents, on the other. I show that this habit has key implications for Kant’s thinking about the agent that he calls ‘God.’ My point of departure is Kant’s claim, in his Religion, that the human being’s particular deeds are imputable to her ‘all the way down,’ only on condition that the underlying ‘disposition’ (Gesinnung) from which they arise (according to their kind, qua moral or immoral) is imputable to her as well—that is, only if her (im)moral character may be regarded as the upshot of, or in some sense identical to, an utterly unassisted, unmotivated, originary deed on her part. I argue that Kant evades the question whether we really are permitted, without further ado, to regard this disposition (and with it an agent’s deeds) as so imputable. He simply affirms his commitment to the practice of imputing particular deeds to particular agents and, with this affirmation, affirms that he takes the warrant that it requires (the imputability of ‘Gesinnung’) to be secure. I argue, then, that the theoretical significance of imputation, as expressed in this extraordinary, evasive leap, supervenes on the urgency of the commitments that are expressed in Kant’s habitual glossing of ‘morality’ as ‘worthiness to be happy.’ The practice for which we would lack a warrant if the human being’s character were not imputable to her is the imputation of her deeds under a description (of imputation) that has immediate reference to this same ‘one’s’ punishment—specifically and only, however, to the extent that Kant takes punishments to be justifiable in none but strictly retributivist terms. These stakes and the constraining role of Kant’s habitual gloss are clearest, I argue, in his thinking about the practice of putting murderers to death—a practice, I argue, that has both a political and an eschatological significance for him.

In this dissertation I consider the question, "Is it possible to think the subject qua subject or must any theoretical attempt to understand the subject necessarily reify it?" To answer this question, I appealed to Immanuel Kant's distinction between theoretical and practical reason, noting that practical reason could think the subject as a free soul rather than as a naturally-determined object. I then divided the sciences of the subject into four general types to determine which science could think the subject qua subject. Three sciences were shown to necessarily reify the subject: empirical psychology, rational psychology, and heteronomous ethics. I then paralleled Kant's insight with Michel Foucault's analyses of the human sciences, showing the concrete consequences of objectification. Using Foucault's work on ethical practice and askesis as a guide, I returned to Kant and explained how practical reason can think the subject qua subject only insofar as it considers the subject as something to be made rather than a theoretical object to know. I then posed the question, “What are the necessary conditions for someone to be a subject of possible experience?” which led into a Kantian-inspired theory of love and intersubjectivity. Finally, I concluded that contemporary psychology is mired in an impasse between happiness and freedom, insofar as therapeutic practice is no longer an ethic. I suggest the need for a practical psychology to solve this impasse. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Philosophy / PhD; / Dissertation;

This thesis is an exploration of the concepts of what the spirituality of consciousness means in several key areas of the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual self. Many students and professionals walk through their educational and professional careers filled with confusion, lack of self-understanding, a yearning for something more but never discovering it in the places we find ourselves for most of our day-to-day interactions. My hope is that this thesis will give insight to how students can overcome obstacles and fears in their lives in order to move forward, and, when necessary, to move past themselves. As a young, Black, immigrant woman who is a first-generation college student and student affairs professional, the methodology of Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) appeals to me the most in exploring the spirituality of consciousness. Therefore, I will be using SPN to highlight a portion of my journey through three lenses: mindfulness counseling, religo-spirituality, and understanding what it means to unlock our minds and its complexities through a spiritually-enriched education. I will also highlight how we can disseminate the knowledge of self-awareness and self-awakening as life teachers, educators, and learners to those who come after us--the next generation. The holistic preservation of self and mind is a vital stage in our human existence. As higher education administrators and teachers, we should be able to take the risk and accept the challenge to delve deeper within ourselves to be able to move beyond the curriculum and see the full humanity of our students, hopefully leading to more joyful, productive, loving, creative and brilliant minds. How do we do this? How do we awaken to life, to learning, to each other, in the midst of chaos? This thesis attempts to point the way.

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.

[pt] O tema desta pesquisa é o estudo da theoria, isto é, da vida contemplativa como o verdadeiro caminho para a eudaimonía, segundo a filosofia aristotélica. Em sua Ética a Nicômaco, Aristóteles aponta que toda a arte e toda escolha têm, em comum, um fim qualquer, no entanto, há um fim que é objeto único e supremo do homem, este fim é a eudaimonía. Entretanto, o Estagirita mostra que para obter a eudaimonía de forma derradeira, o homem tem que exercer aquilo que há de mais divino em seu ser, ou seja, exercer a atividade da alma que unicamente a ele compete, isto é, a atividade da razão, pois, é através desta que ele consegue, mesmo que seja por um breve momento, alcançar a realidade divina e, assim, contemplar a verdadeira eudaimonía. / [en] The theme of this research is the study of theoria, that is, the contemplative life as the true path to eudaimonia, in Aristotelian philosophy. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle points out that all art and every choice they have in common, an end, however, there is a view that is unique and supreme object of man, this end is eudaimonia. However, Stagirite shows that to get the ultimate form of eudaimonia, man has to exercise what is most divine in his being, exercise the activity of the soul that it belongs only to him, the activity of reason , it is through this that he can, even for a brief moment, reach the divine reality and thus contemplate the true eudaimonia.