Gratitude is a ubiquitous emotional experience. A simple “thank you” could just be a casual gesture of politeness; yet, religions, philosophers, and psychologists have long proposed that heart-felt experiences of gratefulness is the key to well-being. This dissertation examined the mediating mechanisms of the effects of gratitude on subjective well-being. I proposed a resources-coping model, which postulates that gratitude fosters subjective well-being through first enhancing perceptions of coping resources, which in turn facilitating the adoption of adaptive coping strategies. I tested this model in three studies. Study 1 found that, compared to the control condition, participants experienced more favorable perceptions of social and personal coping resources, higher efficacy to positive reframe stressful events, and greater subjective well-being upon recalling grateful events. The effect of condition on subjective well-being was mediated by enhanced feelings of coping resources and positive reframing efficacy. Building on this finding, Studies 2 and 3 applied the structural equation modeling approach to examine the inter-relationships among gratitude, social and personal coping resources, adaptive coping strategies, and subjective well-being among individuals facing specific stressors. Study 2 revealed that gratitude was associated with the receipt and satisfaction with social support, as well as adaptive coping strategies, including positive reframing, humor, acceptance, religious coping, and social support seeking, among a group of familial dementia caregivers. Study 3, which was conducted among a group of adults who had recently experienced a work-related stressor, largely replicated the findings of Study 2 and found that gratitude was associated with both favorable perceptions of coping resources as well as enhanced deployment of adaptive coping strategies. The results of the structural equation models demonstrate that coping resources mediated the effect of gratitude on life and work satisfaction, perceived life and work stress, and depressive symptoms. Findings of these three studies generally support the resources-coping model. Implications on future studies on gratitude and the coping process, as well as the application of gratitude-related findings to psychotherapy are discussed. / published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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Abstract artikkel 1 Subjective well-being (SWB) is an upcoming concept that has caught the attention of the scientific community and society in general. Although much has been learned about the nature of “happiness” both the definition and measurements are still a work in progress. The current paper aimed to examine how global subjective well-being best can be measured based in the current theoretical understanding of the definition and assessment methods. SWB is by Diener (2009) considered to have three main components: positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction. The concept is complex with many interconnecting dimensions and correlates. The choice of SWB measurement method or instrument should be based on an understanding of the nature of SWB in addition to the study’s design and purpose. Self-report measures are the most utilized and generally shows good psychometric properties. This paper primarily recommends using the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen & Griffin 1985) combined with Scale of Positive And Negative Experience (SPANE; Diener et al. 2009) to measure SWB. Abstract artikkel 2 The interest and knowledge of subjective well-being (SWB) and its applicability has the latest decades grown both socially and scientifically. Assessment instruments validated for different languages and cultures can assist in the further development of the SWB concept as well as provide a base for monitoring communities’ fluctuations in SWB levels and operate as a social indicator index. Objective: The following study aimed at translating and validating four acknowledged SWB instruments on a Norwegian sample. Participants: Self-completion questionnaires were administered to convenience samples of senior citizens and university students in Trondheim, Norway. n = 254, 154 females, age 19-96. Design: Psychometric properties such as internal consistency, normative data, factorial structure and convergence validity were examined using independent sample t-tests and principal component factor analyses.  Results and conclusions: The findings were overall consistent with previous findings. Overall no major divergences from the scales established psychometric standards were found which suggests that the questionnaires are fit for use on Norwegian samples. Furthermore, the study supports the scales as having good psychometric properties.

Linguistic mood is a grammatical term as well as a morphological category of the verb. Due to its often philosophical implications it is challenging to find a definition or a common understanding of the notion; it has been proven historically and linguistically difficult to analyze. In this essay I aim to cast new light upon and interpret the concept of mood in extended, philosophical manners. The argument of the essay is that the traditional approach to the notion is done in ways that omit fundamental aspects of it, as well as puts it into a framework that tries to explain it in ways through which it cannot fully be explained. Thus the thesis is that there is more to the notion than what meets the eye. The idea is to find this through the work of phenomenologists. Alongside a linguistic use, the word mood [Modus/mode] is also being used in philosophy, most notably within a phenomenological discourse. Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty all use the word. By going through a close-reading of the concept, I argue for the proximity between the linguistic and the phenomenological adaption of mood and show how they are ontologically related; the objective is to suggest that there is more common ground between them than the mere (English) name. By concentrating on this term I want to further examine in what way a phenomenological understanding of language can challenge an overly narrow, one-dimensional understanding, which I see as a fault shared by the linguists.

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archives@tulane.edu / 1 / Veronica Coriano

This thesis explores a notion of “queer being” in relation to a difficult yet creative articulation of queer self-consciousness. The difficulty of attempting to “particularise” self-consciousness is challenged and dismantled by proposing ways in which putatively exclusive esoteric knowledges of being can be exposed and expanded. This is achieved by justifying singular (queer) experience as it coincides with the disparities between subjectivity and objectivity, experience and existence. I argue that two key perspectives (those of interstitiality and self-transformativity) provide a basis whereby we can “force” a radical articulation of queer being-ness into general and contemporary philosophical discourses of being. In doing so, a particularised theory of intersubjective being emerges as a way to identify the complicity of ethics and ontology. “Queerness” in this thesis is especially articulated as an eccentricity or poetics of being, experienced at the juncture of diverse knowledge spaces. These include not only the threshold and radical spaces of sexuality and gender, but also the perceived limits of theories of being which allow us to formulate understandings of self-consciousness. This is evidenced through a critical analysis of feminist, queer, transgender, phenomenological and existential texts and/or practices, paying special regard to “everyday, real-life” experience. By using a combination of the “logic of the interstice”, genealogical methods, hermeneutical analysis and a deconstructionist theoretical approach, the thesis seeks out, and insists upon, ways to articulate and determine the possibility of a queer sensibility as both a practice of self-transformativity and a more broadly applicable knowledge heuristic. The thesis demonstrates that by increasing an awareness of a particular kind of self-transformative queer being-ness – one that embraces a critical ethics of being – the rich insights of queer experiences and knowledges can act as a valuable resource for reviewing the horizons of the ontology of the subject. It also suggests that particularising the term “queer” in relation to a complex theory of “sensibility” provides new depths for understanding, and practical ways to make use of, a queer theory of being.

Ethnic identity, or one's feelings of belongingness and affirmation with one's ethnic group, has been postulated to be related to one's psychological health. Specifically, it is thought that stronger ethnic identity is related to better psychological health. In order to fully investigate this relationship, a meta-analytic review and analysis was conducted utilizing all previous research on the relationship between ethnic identity and psychological health. This study sought to examine this relationship in more detail by dividing psychological health into two areas: 1) psychological functioning, and 2) psychological dysfunction. Both of these categories were examined and analyzed separately utilizing a random effects model. Results indicated a significant relationship between ethnic identity and psychological health. Additionally, ethnic identity was shown to be significantly and inversely related to psychological dysfunction. Several moderators (age, gender, publication status, type of ethnic identity measure, ethnic group membership) were tested for their respective effects on these relationships. For ethnic identity and psychological health, several variables moderated this relationship, including publication status, ethnic identity measure, and ethnic group membership. For ethnic identity and psychological dysfunction, the following variables moderated the relationship: age, gender, ethnic identity measure, and ethnic group membership. Limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed.

The famous article, Son of Human Being, authored by Lu Chiou shows the history of the author¡¦s life, and explores the deep meaning of life and its significance. This thesis is to investigate the writing style and meaning of Son of Human Being, rather then the author himself. The focus of this thesis is on the meaning of the article, which is accompanied with the writing style. The research approach adopted in this thesis is based on the theory of reader-response, as Wolfgang Iser¡¦s theory, how to explain the meaning of an article to reader. According to such theory, the interaction between an article and its readers is the critical issue to judge the affirmation of the article¡¦s meaning. Therefore, the inconclusive and blank parts of the article need to be reified by reader himself/herself in order to make the consistence throughout the whole story in the article. Regarding the writing style, this thesis analyzed the structure of Son of Human Being. The purpose is to investigate the meaning embedded within this article, which is also the motivation to performance this thesis. The embedded meaning consists of surface meaning and significant meaning, where the former is explicit in the content of the article, and the later is implicit. The significant meaning can be obtained by the moral-philosophical, psychological, mythological, archetypal, folklore, or archetypal pattern approaches to analyzing the detailed content of the article. In this thesis, the structure of Son of Human Being is organized as one chapter. The four phases of life described in the article are Life Regret, Wiseness Initialization, Mind Growth, and Eternity, each of which is presented by an individual chapter. Finally, the last chapter draws the conclusion of this thesis.