Positive psychology emphasizes growth, adaptive functioning, and human potential. The present study contributes to this literature by examining the impact of exposure to a positive psychology curriculum among nontraditional students taking foundational courses in a career college. Mixed methods were utilized to assess changes in student well-being and goal setting quantitatively through pre- and post-tests of the Authentic Happiness Survey and the Satisfaction with Life Scale as well as identifying emergent themes from qualitative analysis of student reflections and written assignments over a 9-week term. Twenty-five students participated in foundational courses, which placed an emphasis on positive psychology. Paired samples t tests, Cohen's d, thematic analysis, and a researcher-designed Likert-scale assessed changes from the beginning of the course to the end among the quantitative and qualitative measures of overall well-being and goal attainment. Some of the notable findings included significantly positive changes in students' reports of authentic happiness, and 76% of students reporting that they had attained an academic, social, and personal goal over the course of the 9-week curriculum. Change in self-reported satisfaction with life approached, but it was not statistically significant. Thus, the implementation of a positive psychology curriculum in a nontraditional student population created positive social change in this particular sector of academia and was associated with increased overall well-being and attainment of goals.

The role strain caused by the multiple roles of some women can impact their stress levels and health outcomes, which negatively affects reported subjective well-being (SWB). The culture and race of African American women has a complex effect on how they experience stress and manage their health. Some research shows the harmful rippling effect of stress for African American women is distinct from other racial groups and men. The purpose of this quantitative archival study was to understand how the SWB of African American women can be predicted by their age, years of education, household income, number of children, and marital, parental, and employment statuses. The theoretical foundation was role strain theory. The archival data set of The National Survey of American Life: Coping with Stress in the 21st Century provided data from African American female respondents ages 18 to 44, (n = 1,877). Multiple linear regression analyses showed that when combined in 2 models; marital, parental, and employment statuses (Model 1) and the remaining four variables (Model 2) were statistically significant predictors of SWB. Separately, parental status, age, years of education, and number of children were not statistically significant predictors of SWB. This study showed that married parents who were employed had higher SWB which suggests increased access to resources. Research shows higher socioeconomic status is correlated to higher SWB. Increased resources may help to reduce the additive impact of juggling multiple roles. This study will contribute to social change by educating women on the connections between balancing roles and happiness and encourage them to negotiate roles and duties to reduce stress and improve their health outcomes.

Researchers have suggested an increased focus on positive psychological interventions to enhance college students' happiness levels; however, few studies have addressed positive interventions on at-risk college students. Based on the theoretical framework of positive psychology and impact of positive exercises on happiness, this study addressed whether a positive intervention would increase happiness as evidenced by scores on the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS). The experimental design included random group assignment and pre- and posttest surveys to collect data from 135 at-risk community college students in Southeast Texas. The experimental group participated in a 1-week intervention consisting of 2 gratitude exercises, and the control group completed early memory journaling. Results indicated significant differences in SWLS and PANAS scores between the two groups with an increase in life satisfaction and positive affect and a decrease in negative affect in the experimental group. Results may be used by institutions seeking positive interventions to increase at-risk college student success and retention.

I Läroplanen för förskolan -98 yttras det att förskollärarna ska hjälpa barn att skapa och kommunicera med hjälp av sång och musik. Med detta i åtanke är syftet med studien att undersöka förskollärarnas skilda uppfattningar av sångsamlingen som en pedagogisk situation. Tidigare forskning har visat att barnen sjunger språket innan de talar det. För det lilla barnet är språket i början endast klang och rytm, det vill säga ett musikaliskt fenomen. Studien utgår från en fenomenografisk ansats med en kvalitativ inriktning. En videoinspelad sångsamling har legat till grund för det insamlade intervjumaterialet. Följande kategorier har framkommit ur materialet: Sångsamlingen som en situation för lärande och Sångsamlingen som en situation för lust och glädje. Utifrån dessa huvudkategorier har forskarna funnit att sångsamlingen ger barnen möjlighet till att utveckla sitt språk, matematiska tänkande, sociala samspel, kulturella lärande samt att stärka motoriken. Sångsamlingen i förskolan har en betydande roll för barnens utveckling både språkligt och emotionellt. Barnens språkliga utveckling tränas med hjälp av rim och ramsor som också kan leda till ett matematiskt lärande. För att väcka lust hos barnen är det viktigt att sångsamlingen varieras. Med hjälp av instrument, sångpåsar och sångkort utvecklas sångsamlingen och ger barnen lust att lära. / In the curriculum ”Läroplan för förskolan -98” is prescribed that the preschool- teachers shall support the ability of the child to create and communicate with song and music. Based upon this, the purpose of this study is to study the preschool-teachers different views of the organised “singing-together” (Swedish:”sångsamling”) as a pedagogic situation. Former research shows that children sing the language before they know how to speak it. To the small child the language is just tune and rhythm – a kind of musical phenomena. This study is phenomenografic with a qualitative design. A videotaped “sångsamling” is the base of the gathered data. The data is categorized into two main categories: “Sångsamlingen” as a situation of learning and “Sångsamlingen” as a situation of joy and happiness. Emanating from these categories the researchers have found that “sångsamlingen” stimulates language, mathematical thinking, ability of social relations, cultural learning and the motion of the child. “Sångsamlingen” is important to the development of language and emotional capacity of the preschool- child. The language is trained by rhymes and tunes which also may affect learning in maths. To evoke the lust to learn it’s important to vary and develop “sångsamlingen” by using instruments, song bags and song cards.

<p>At the heart of "American Realities, Diasporic Dreams" lies the following question: How and why do people generate longings for diasporic experience, and what might this have to do with nationally-specific affective and political economies of race, gender, and age? This dissertation focuses on the women of Girlfriend Tours International (GFT), a regionally and socio-economically diverse group of Americans, who are also members of the virtual community at www.Jamaicans.com. By completing online research in their web-community, and multi-sited ethnographic research in multiple cities throughout the U.S. and Jamaica, I investigate how this group of African-American women makes sense of the paradoxical nature of their hyphenated-identities, as they explore the contentious relationship between "Blackness" and "Americanness." </p><p>This dissertation examines how these African-American women use travel and the Internet to cope with their experiences of racism and sexism in the United States, while pursuing "happiness" and social belonging within (virtual and territorial) diasporic relationships. Ironically, the "success" of their diasporic dreams and travels is predicated on how well they leverage their national privilege as (African) American citizens in Jamaica. Therefore, I argue that these African-American women establish a complex concept of happiness, one that can only be fulfilled by moving--both virtually and actually--across national borders. In other words, these women require American economic, national, and social capital in order to travel to Jamaica, but simultaneously need the spiritual connection to Jamaica and its people in order to remain hopeful and happy within the national borders of the U.S. Their pursuit of happiness, therefore, raises critical questions that encourage scholars to rethink how we ethnographically document diasporic longings, and how we imagine their relationships to early 21st century notions of the "American Dream."</p> / Dissertation

In the recent years, companies began emphasize the employees¡¦ cognition on happiness and well-being to recruit and retain the talents and human resources. This study is to explore the factors influencing the employee¡¦s well-being cognition and the impacts of attitudes and behaviors from the employees¡¦ well-being. This study adopted the high-performance human resource practice (HPHRP) in organization level as the independent variable and the organizational identification, job involvement and job searching behavior in individual level as dependent variables. The employee¡¦s well-being was a mediator between the independent and dependent variables to examine the mediating effects. This research employed the questionnaire suvey to collect the data. To avoid the common method variance, the questionnaire is divided into two parts, one for the HR professionals, and another on for the general employees. The data was collected from fifty companies. Valid questionnaires from fifty HR professionals and 461 employees are included. The Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used in the main hypotheses tests to examine the relationships among the variables. The results showed that the HPHRP of company has significant positive influences on employee¡¦s well-being, organizational identification, and job involvement, and has significant negative influence on job search behavior. Employee¡¦s well-being has positive influences on organizational identification and job involvement. Employee¡¦s well-being is also a mediator between the relationships HPHRP and organizational identification and job involvement of employee. Based on the results, this study proposed some empirical and practical suggestions.

<p>I Läroplanen för förskolan -98 yttras det att förskollärarna ska hjälpa barn att skapa och kommunicera med hjälp av sång och musik. Med detta i åtanke är syftet med studien att undersöka förskollärarnas skilda uppfattningar av sångsamlingen som en pedagogisk situation. Tidigare forskning har visat att barnen sjunger språket innan de talar det. För det lilla barnet är språket i början endast klang och rytm, det vill säga ett musikaliskt fenomen.</p><p>Studien utgår från en fenomenografisk ansats med en kvalitativ inriktning. En videoinspelad sångsamling har legat till grund för det insamlade intervjumaterialet.</p><p>Följande kategorier har framkommit ur materialet: Sångsamlingen som en situation för lärande och Sångsamlingen som en situation för lust och glädje. Utifrån dessa huvudkategorier har forskarna funnit att sångsamlingen ger barnen möjlighet till att utveckla sitt språk, matematiska tänkande, sociala samspel, kulturella lärande samt att stärka motoriken. Sångsamlingen i förskolan har en betydande roll för barnens utveckling både språkligt och emotionellt. Barnens språkliga utveckling tränas med hjälp av rim och ramsor som också kan leda till ett matematiskt lärande. För att väcka lust hos barnen är det viktigt att sångsamlingen varieras. Med hjälp av instrument, sångpåsar och sångkort utvecklas sångsamlingen och ger barnen lust att lära.</p> / <p>In the curriculum ”Läroplan för förskolan -98” is prescribed that the preschool- teachers shall support the ability of the child to create and communicate with song and music. Based upon this, the purpose of this study is to study the preschool-teachers different views of the organised “singing-together” (Swedish:”sångsamling”) as a pedagogic situation. Former research shows that children sing the language before they know how to speak it. To the small child the language is just tune and rhythm – a kind of musical phenomena.</p><p>This study is phenomenografic with a qualitative design. A videotaped “sångsamling” is the base of the gathered data.</p><p>The data is categorized into two main categories: “Sångsamlingen” as a situation of learning and “Sångsamlingen” as a situation of joy and happiness. Emanating from these categories the researchers have found that “sångsamlingen” stimulates language, mathematical thinking, ability of social relations, cultural learning and the motion of the child. “Sångsamlingen” is important to the development of language and emotional capacity of the preschool- child. The language is trained by rhymes and tunes which also may affect learning in maths. To evoke the lust to learn it’s important to vary and develop “sångsamlingen” by using instruments, song bags and song cards.</p>

Previous theories have suggested that consumers will be happier if they spend their money on experiences such as travel as opposed to material possessions such as automobiles. I test this experience recommendation and show that it may be misleading in its general form. Valence of the outcome significantly moderates differences in respondents' reported retrospective happiness with material versus experiential purchases. For purchases that turned out positively, experiential purchases lead to more happiness than do material purchases, as the experience recommendation suggests. However, for purchases that turned out negatively, experiences have no benefit over (and, for some types of consumers, induce significantly less happiness than) material possessions. I provide evidence that this purchase type by valence interaction is driven by the fact that consumers adapt more slowly to experiential purchases than to material purchases, leading to both greater happiness and greater unhappiness for experiential purchases. Moreover, I show that this difference in hedonic adaptation rates for material and experiential purchases is being, at least partially, driven by a difference in memory for those types of purchases. I also show that individuals mispredict hedonic adaptation rates for material and experiential purchases. Finally, I discuss implications for consumer choice. / text

This doctoral thesis analyzes the systematic role of Kant's conception of happiness in his moral, legal and political theory. Although many of his conclusions and arguments are directly or indirectly influenced by his conception of human happiness, Kant's underlying assumptions are rarely overtly discussed or given much detail in his works. Kant also provides different and apparently incompatible definitions of happiness. This research explores the domains of Kant's practical philosophy in which his conception of happiness plays a systematic role: the relation between the natural need of human beings to pursue happiness and the ends-oriented structure of the human will; Kant's anti-eudaimonism in ethical theory; Kant's claim that we have an indirect duty to promote our own happiness and the problem that under certain circumstances, the indeterminacy of happiness makes it not irrational to choose short term satisfaction at the costs of one's overall, long term happiness, given Kant's conception of non-moral choice as expectation of pleasure; Kant's justification of the duty to adopt the happiness of others as our ends (the duty of beneficence) and the latitude and eventual demandingness of this duty; finally, since Kant also subsumes subsistence needs and welfare under the concept of happiness of individuals, I also engage with the question of state provision for the poor in the Kantian Rechtsstaat and explore Kant's conception of equity or fairness (Billigkeit) as an alternative to the traditional minimalist and the welfare interpretations of the Kantian state.

Studiens övergripande syfte är att undersöka sambanden mellan grundläggande värderingar, arbetssituation och arbetstillfredsställelse. De konkreta frågeställningarna är 1. Finns det något direkt samband mellan fem grundläggande värderingar och arbetstillfredsställelse? 2. Finns det ett samspel mellan grundläggande värderingar, arbetssituation och arbetstillfredsställelse? Undersökningens primära fokus är frågeställnigen 2. Det är en kvantitativ undersökning där multipel regressionsanalys används. Datamaterialet är hämtat från ESS (2010). Den beroende variabeln är arbetstillfredsställelse, de oberoende variablerna är fem grundläggande värderingar såsom självstyrning, stimulans, prestation, makt, trygghet och arbetssituation såsom autonomi i arbetet, varierande/utvecklande arbete, karriärmöjligheter, möjlighet att påverka beslut och anställningstrygghet. När det gäller frågeställning 1värderingarnas direkta betydelse för arbetstillfredsställelsenså visar de viktigaste resultaten på att det finns ett positivt samband mellan både självstyrning, stimulans och arbetstillfredsställelse. Men att värderingarna prestation, makt och trygghet däremot har en negativ effekt på arbetstillfredsställelse, d.v.s. dessa värderingar leder till en mindre tillfredställelse med arbetet. När det gäller frågeställning 2, värderingarnas samspel med arbetssituation och indirekta samband med arbetstillfredställelse, visar resultaten på att arbetstillfredsställelsen överlag ökar när man matchar personliga värderingar med en liknande arbetssituation. Framförallt gäller detta värderingar prestation, makt och trygghet.En tolkning av detta kan vara att dessa värderingar, enligt Schwartz, bygger på ängslan och är socialt orienterade, vilket då skulle kunna innebära att när man matchar dessa värderingar med en liknande arbetssituation så reduceras ängslan och det sociala samspelet individ (värdering) och miljö (arbetssituation) får därmed en extra tydlig positiv betydelse för arbetstillfredsställelsen. Personliga värderingar i sig själv har inte något entydigt samband med arbetstillfredsställelse, utan det är framförallt när en person ha rett arbete som överensstämmer med de egna värderingarna som arbetstillfredsställelsen ökar.