Existing evidence has linked individual differences in emotion reaction intensity to both enhanced and decreased psychological well-being. We propose that this contradiction is related to methodological shortcomings in some existing research. We present a novel emotion reactivity task capable of addressing these methodological shortcomings by continuously measuring the subjective intensity of individual emotion episodes with high temporal resolution. Four studies were conducted (total n = 499). In Studies 1, 2, and 4, participants continuously reported their emotions while viewing objectively pleasant or unpleasant images. Thousands of reaction intensities were coded using algorithms developed for this purpose. We expected that people showing more intense emotion reactions, regardless of valence, would report greater subjective well-being in the lab and in daily life. One reason that such situationally-congruent reactions might be beneficial is that that they enable more flexible situationally-appropriate behavior. In Study 3, participants were asked to rate their emotional responses to pleasant and unpleasant images. Following this, people choose a location for their Self avatar within a computerized environment that included one image of each valence. We expected that the tendency to report intense emotion responses to these images would predict both adaptive location choice and subjective well-being. Results confirmed most major hypotheses: more intense reactions to both positive and negative stimuli were predictive of greater subjective well-being in the lab and in daily life, and analogous reactivity patterns were associated with more flexible, adaptive avatar placement. The results suggest that a key feature of maladaptive emotion generation systems (and lower well-being) may not be overly intense reactions as has been suggested, but a failure to flexibly adapt emotion output to match changing circumstances.

Gay men living with HIV (MLWH) are often adversely affected by stigma related to both their serostatus and their sexual orientation, and the experience of living with HIV appears to increase feelings of internalized homophobia (IH). Little research attention has focused, however, on factors that may buffer the impact of HIV-stigma and IH on well-being among men living with HIV. Self-compassion, which consists of self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness, has been associated with resilience against the negative effects of stigma on well-being. We hypothesized that HIV-stigma would be indirectly related to poorer psychological well-being through increased levels of IH. Moreover, we expected that self-compassion would attenuate the negative effects of HIV-stigma on well-being through IH. Our sample consisted of 90 ethnically diverse gay MLWH. Participants completed an online questionnaire that assessed levels of HIV-stigma, IH, self-compassion, depression, anxiety, and positive and negative affect. After controlling for a variety of sociodemographic, health, and social characteristics, results revealed that more HIV-stigma was indirectly related to more depressive symptoms and anxiety through higher IH. Moreover, self-compassion emerged as a moderator of the indirect association of HIV-stigma on higher negative affect through higher IH, such that this indirect effect was significant for those with low self-compassion, but not for those with high self-compassion. Compassion-focused practices should be explored as a means of increasing resilience among gay MLWH.

Studien är gjord för att skapa en förståelse av barns och pedagogers uppfattningar om vad som är lek. I genomförandet av studien har vi tagit foto på barnen i olika aktiviteter som vi sedan använde oss utav i intervjuer med barn och pedagoger. Det empiriska materialet har analyserats utifrån olika teoretiska utgångspunkter samt begreppen så som sociokulturellt perspektiv, karnevalisk lek, barnperspektiv, barns perspektiv, being och becoming.I resultatet framhålls olika typer av lekaktiviteter samt tankarna kring dem från pedagoger och barn. I resultatet lyfter vi fram de delade meningarna barn och pedagoger har kring lek samt vart de lägger fokus på inom leken. Vårt resultat pekar på att barn anser att lek är roligt och spänningsfyllt och lägger fokus på glädjen den bringar medan pedagoger anser lek vara något som är självbestämt och spontant. Pedagogers tankar kring lek handlar om att poängtera lärandet i leken.Nyckelord: barnperspektiv, barns perspektiv, becoming, being, karnevalisk lek, sociokulturellt perspektiv. / The study is designed to create an understanding of children's and teachers' perceptions of what play is. The implementation of the study, we have taken photos of the children in different activities that we then used in interviews with children and teachers. The empirical data have been analyzed from various theoretical assumptions and concepts such as socio-cultural perspective, carnivalesque play, children's perspective, the child's perspective, wellbeing and Becoming.This result highlights the different types of play activities and thoughts surrounding them from educators and children. In the result, we highlight the shared sentences children and educators around the game as well as where they put the focus on the game. Our results indicate that children believe that play is fun and suspenseful and focus on the joy it brings, while educators consider play to be something that is self-determined and spontaneously. Teachers thoughts about the game is about to emphasize learning in the game.Keywords: child's perspective, the perspective of children, Becoming, being, carnivalesque play, socio-cultural perspective.

Casual sexual relationships and experiences (CSREs) are a common phenomenon experienced by the majority of emerging adults attending college and university. Despite researchers' increased interest towards the topic of casual sex in recent years, there is a lack of validated psychometric measures that operationalize different types of CSREs and an absence of uniformity in the definitions of casual sex. Few studies distinguish clearly between different types of CSREs and few studies include a balanced approach when considering well-being outcomes (i.e., negative and positive markers). The first study of this dissertation aimed to bridge the research gap through the development and validation of the Casual Sex Experiences Scale (CASEX), which measures frequency of four types of CSREs (one-night stands, booty calls, fuck buddies, and friends with benefits). The CASEX's validity (factorial, convergent, divergent) and reliability (internal consistency) were tested in two independent samples. The results indicated that the CASEX can indeed measure the four aforementioned types of CSREs. In the second study, we examined how those four types of CSREs were related to well-being in consensual sexual interactions in a cross-sectional study. We included positive and negative markers of wellbeing. Moreover, we tested whether the relation between CSREs and well-being was moderated by sociosexual attitudes. We derived hypotheses from the theory of cognitive dissonance related to the potential moderating effect of sociosexual attitudes. Participants reported a coexistence of negative and positive well-being outcomes related to CSREs (e.g., positive and negative emotions during and following casual sex). In most cases, sociosexual attitudes did not moderate the relationships between CSREs and well-being outcomes. However, a notable exception was that sociosexual attitudes moderated relationships between CSREs and emotions experienced during and following casual sex, which was expected from the theory of cognitive dissonance. As hypothesized, the relationship between casual sex and negative emotions during and following casual sex was stronger in those participants with less sociosexual attitudes. Nonetheless, some results refuted our hypotheses, for instance, some relationships between casual sex and positive emotions during and following casual sex were stronger in those participants with less sociosexual attitudes. In other words, casual sex seemed to have been less of an emotional experience (positive or negative) in those with more sociosexual attitudes. Overall, this dissertation provides initial evidence in favour of the validity and reliability of the CASEX, which can enable to understand more nuanced relationships between experiences of casual sex and well-being among emerging adults. Findings deepened the understanding of the role of sociosexual attitudes in the relations between different types of CSREs and well-being markers.

Well-being and human development are two concepts within the development debate that are often used as different but defined and operationalised in very similar ways. This has led to a diffuse differentiation between them, where it is unclear what we include in either concept, which can cause validity problems in e.g. research, as it is not clear what we are really studying. This is the motivation for my thesis, to examine how similar these concepts are in practice to determine if they can be conceptualised as they have been previously, or if more effort must be made to differentiate between them. I do this by examining three dimensions which are central to both concepts (Health, Education, and Material standard of living) to see how the concepts correlate within each dimension. These correlations I then control for both GDP per capita and level of democracy. My results show that there is no significant correlation between well-being and human development when controlling for GDP per capita and level of democracy, showing that the concepts are in fact not as similar as they are treated in the literature thus far. In conclusion, this means that the concepts cannot be conceptualised as similarly as they have been before, but instead, more effort must be made to sufficiently differentiate between them.

More college students are experiencing stress that negatively affects their psychological wellbeing. Many universities are reporting that more students are seeking mental health services related to stress (Miller, Elder, Scavone, 2017). The intent of this thesis is to extend the previous research findings by specifically investigating the role of mindfulness on psychological well-being of college students. Participants were asked to complete a self-administered online survey that consists of the mindful attention awareness scale (MAAS) that measures the frequency of mindfulness state, the Psychological well-being scale (PWB) that measures six aspects of wellbeing and happiness, and the generalized self-efficacy scale (GSES). The survey included a section on demographic information such as gender, age, race/ethnicity, and family income. All data was analyzed through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and consisted of a series of correlational analyses and multiple regression analyses. We found that mindfulness positively correlated with psychological well-being. Furthermore, we found the mindfulness and self-efficacy significantly predicted the level of psychological well-being. The findings of this study can inform college administrators in the development of more targeted intervention programs that may be utilized for the stability of students psychological wellbeing.

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