Healthy Minds Index: A brief measure of the core dimensions of well-being.

We developed a self-report measure of psychological well-being for teens and adults, the Healthy Minds Index, based on a novel theory that four trainable pillars underlie well-being: awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. Ninety-seven items were developed and revised by experts and guided by qualitative testing with teens (n = 32; average age = 16.0 years). After assessing the internal validity and factor structure in teens (n = 1607; average age = 16.7 years) and adults (n = 420; average age = 45.6 years), we reduced the survey to 17 items. We then validated the factor structure, internal and convergent and divergent validity, and retest reliability of the 17-item Healthy Minds Index in two new teen samples (study 1: n = 1492, average age = 15.7 years; study 2: n = 295, average age = 16.1 years), and one adult sample (n = 285; average age = 45.3 years). The Healthy Minds Index demonstrated adequate validity and provided a comprehensive measure of a novel theory of psychological well-being that includes two domains not found in other conceptualizations of this construct-awareness and insight. This measure will be invaluable for primary research on well-being and as a translational tool to assess the impact and efficacy of widely used behavioral training programs on these core dimensions of wellbeing.

COVID-19 and worker mental distress.

BACKGROUND: This analysis posits that COVID-19-related worker mental distress may be different for those continuously employed and for those who faced temporary job loss. METHODS: Mental distress during COVID-19 is characterized using two nationally representative surveys, the American Trend Panel (ATP) and the Household Pulse Survey (HPS). Using a probit model, we examine workplace perceptions for the mentally distressed in the ATP sample. We use graphical analysis to identify barriers to seeking mental healthcare using the 2021-22 HPS sample. RESULTS: In October 2020, the probability of mental distress increased between 7.1 and 9.1 percentage points in response to worsening work-life balance, lowered job security, lowered work productivity and lowered work satisfaction. Workers' perception of advancement denial and poor connectivity with coworkers increased the probability of mental distress by 3.0-5.8 percentage points. In October 2021, over 40% of workers who had experienced job loss reported mental distress as compared to 20% of those with jobs. Only 25% of those with mental distress sought counseling. These high levels of mental distress continued into October 2022. CONCLUSIONS: Mitigation strategies for worker mental health should include prosocial nudges, attention to employment history, managerial sensitivity and worker resilience training.

Cultivating well-being in engineering graduate students through mindfulness training.

The mental health crisis in graduate education combined with low treatment rates among engineering graduate students underscores the need for engineering graduate programs to provide effective methods to promote well-being. There is an extensive body of neuroscience research showing that contemplative practices, such as mindfulness, produce measurable effects on brain function and overall well-being. We hypothesized that a mindfulness-based training program designed for engineering graduate students would improve emotional well-being and, secondarily, enhance research capacity. An initial pilot study was conducted at a single institution (Phase 1), followed by a larger study conducted at both the original and a second institution (Phase 2) to gather additional data and show the program's transferability. The program comprised eight weekly mindfulness training sessions. Individuals in the study were randomly assigned to either an intervention group or wait-list control group. We administered pre- and post-test surveys with quantitative measures designed to assess emotional and physical well-being, as well as creativity, research satisfaction, and desire to contribute to the betterment of society. Participants also completed a summative survey to evaluate the impact of the program on their well-being and research. Analysis revealed statistically significant findings: improved emotional health, decreased neuroticism, increased positive affect, decreased negative affect, and increased mindfulness in the intervention groups compared to the control groups. Intervention groups in Phase 2 also reported statistically significant improvement in satisfaction with their research. Our findings suggest that mindfulness training has the potential to play a vital professional and personal development role in graduate engineering education.

Psychometric validation of the Italian version of the Emotional Style Questionnaire.

Emotional styles concern the ways in which individuals adapt and respond to the world and can be defined using six dimensions: outlook, resilience, social intuition, self-awareness, sensitivity to context and attention. The Emotional Style Questionnaire (ESQ) assesses how people vary across the dimensions and gauges an individual's overall level of emotional health. An Italian version of the ESQ (ESQ-ITA) could favour the understanding of cultural characteristics concerning emotions and personality within the Italian population, with both clinical and social implications. The aim of the present study is to validate the ESQ in the Italian language and to assess its psychometric properties. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 examined construct validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability, through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), Cronbach's alpha estimates, and by estimating the Spearman's rank correlation Study 2 examined construct validity and internal consistency through the CFA and Cronbach's alpha estimates and investigated criterion validity by correlating the ESQ-ITA dimensions with the corresponding scales or subscales used for the validation estimating, again, the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient Study 2 also examined the criterion validity of the validated scales and the ESQ-ITA overall score to assess its suitability as an indicator of emotional health. ESQ-ITA was confirmed to be reliable and stable. The correlation between the ESQ-ITA overall score and the other scales and questionnaires supports the use of ESQ-ITA to measure emotional health. The Italian version of the ESQ opens up the possibility to enrich the research landscape with new knowledge that will be useful for advancing the pathogenetic and therapeutic aspects of psychological distress and emotional dysregulation.

Psychometric validation of the polish version of the emotional style questionnaire.

In three studies, we document the validity of the Polish version of the Emotional Style Questionnaire (ESQ)-a 24-item self-report measure that captures how people vary across six dimensions that make up a healthy emotional life. Study 1 provides support for the proposed factorial structure of the Polish version of the scale and gender measurement invariance, demonstrates the similarity of the Polish and English versions of the scale, and reveals the excellent test-retest reliability of the scale across an interval of two months. Study 2 confirms the adequacy of the factorial structure in another sample, shows that the construct validity for each of the six subscales is similar to that of the original scale, and documents the age measurement invariance of the scale. Finally, in Study 3, we investigate measurement invariance across Polish and American samples and demonstrate that Poles are characterized by lower scores on healthy emotionality and its dimensions compared to Americans. We conclude that the Polish version of the ESQ is a psychometrically valid and easily implementable measurement tool that can be applied in research settings to measure healthy emotionality and its components. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03323-4.

Emotional Style Questionnaire: A multidimensional measure of healthy emotionality.

In four studies, we document the development and validation of the Emotional Style Questionnaire (ESQ)-a 24-item self-report measure that captures how people vary across 6 dimensions that make up a healthy emotional life. These 6 dimensions (Outlook, Resilience, Social Intuition, Self-Awareness, Sensitivity to Context, and Attention) are based on a theoretical framework drawn from neuroscientific studies of emotion. Study 1 reports the development of the ESQ and provides initial support for the proposed factorial structure of the scale. Study 2 confirms the adequacy of the factorial structure in a second sample and establishes the construct validity of each of the 6 subscales. In Study 3, we test the relationship between the ESQ as a measure of healthy emotionality and various indicators of psychological and physical well-being. Finally, Study 4 investigates the test-retest reliability of the scale and reveals very good reliability across an interval of 4 weeks. We conclude that the ESQ is a psychometrically solid and easily implementable instrument that can be used to gauge healthy emotionality and its components in both clinical and research settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Getting a Grip on the Handgrip Task: Handgrip Duration Correlates with Neuroticism But Not Conscientiousness.

Questions regarding the replicability of key findings in the self-regulation literature (e.g., ego-depletion effect) have led some to call for a more thorough evaluation of commonly used measures of self-control. The isometric handgrip task is one such measure. The current study examined correlates of handgrip persistence using data drawn from a larger randomized controlled trial. Handgrip persistence was measured both at baseline and following a physical stressor (cold pressor test). Correlations were examined between handgrip performance and personality traits theoretically closely linked with self-regulation: conscientiousness and neuroticism. Baseline handgrip performance was correlated with several measures drawn from the nomological network of self-regulation including measures of trait neuroticism, mindfulness, anxiety sensitivity, perceived stress, and positive affect, although not with trait conscientiousness. Baseline handgrip predicted aversiveness experienced during the physical stressor, while changes in handgrip performance tracked changes in implicit and explicit negative affect (i.e., affective reactivity). These associations were largely maintained when controlling for variables highly correlated with overall grip strength (i.e., gender, height, and weight), although correlations separated by gender suggest associations were primarily driven by female participants. Results support future research using the handgrip task.

A Growing Disconnection From Nature Is Evident in Cultural Products.

Human connection with nature is widely believed to be in decline even though empirical evidence is scarce on the magnitude and historical pattern of the change. Studying works of popular culture in English throughout the 20th century and later, we have documented a cultural shift away from nature that begins in the 1950s. Since then, references to nature have been decreasing steadily in fiction books, song lyrics, and film storylines, whereas references to the human-made environment have not. The observed temporal pattern is consistent with the explanatory role of increased virtual and indoors recreation options (e.g., television, video games) in the disconnect from nature, and it is inconsistent with a pure urbanization account. These findings are cause for concern, not only because they imply foregone physical and psychological benefits from engagement with nature, but also because cultural products are agents of socialization that can evoke curiosity, respect, and concern for the natural world.

Beyond the 'east-west' dichotomy: Global variation in cultural models of selfhood.

Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory of independent and interdependent self-construals had a major influence on social, personality, and developmental psychology by highlighting the role of culture in psychological processes. However, research has relied excessively on contrasts between North American and East Asian samples, and commonly used self-report measures of independence and interdependence frequently fail to show predicted cultural differences. We revisited the conceptualization and measurement of independent and interdependent self-construals in 2 large-scale multinational surveys, using improved methods for cross-cultural research. We developed (Study 1: N = 2924 students in 16 nations) and validated across cultures (Study 2: N = 7279 adults from 55 cultural groups in 33 nations) a new 7-dimensional model of self-reported ways of being independent or interdependent. Patterns of global variation support some of Markus and Kitayama's predictions, but a simple contrast between independence and interdependence does not adequately capture the diverse models of selfhood that prevail in different world regions. Cultural groups emphasize different ways of being both independent and interdependent, depending on individualism-collectivism, national socioeconomic development, and religious heritage. Our 7-dimensional model will allow future researchers to test more accurately the implications of cultural models of selfhood for psychological processes in diverse ecocultural contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record

A quiet ego quiets death anxiety: humility as an existential anxiety buffer.

Five studies tested the hypothesis that a quiet ego, as exemplified by humility, would buffer death anxiety. Humility is characterized by a willingness to accept the self and life without comforting illusions, and by low levels of self-focus. As a consequence, it was expected to render mortality thoughts less threatening and less likely to evoke potentially destructive behavior patterns. In line with this reasoning, Study 1 found that people high in humility do not engage in self-serving moral disengagement following mortality reminders, whereas people low in humility do. Study 2 showed that only people low in humility respond to death reminders with increased fear of death, and established that this effect was driven uniquely by humility and not by some other related personality trait. In Study 3, a low sense of psychological entitlement decreased cultural worldview defense in response to death thoughts, whereas a high sense of entitlement tended to increase it. Study 4 demonstrated that priming humility reduces self-reported death anxiety relative to both a baseline and a pride priming condition. Finally, in Study 5, experimentally induced feelings of humility prevented mortality reminders from leading to depleted self-control. As a whole, these findings obtained from relatively diverse Internet samples illustrate that the dark side of death anxiety is brought about by a noisy ego only and not by a quiet ego, revealing self-transcendence as a sturdier, healthier anxiety buffer than self-enhancement.

Saving can save from death anxiety: mortality salience and financial decision-making.

Four studies tested the idea that saving money can buffer death anxiety and constitute a more effective buffer than spending money. Saving can relieve future-related anxiety and provide people with a sense of control over their fate, thereby rendering death thoughts less threatening. Study 1 found that participants primed with both saving and spending reported lower death fear than controls. Saving primes, however, were associated with significantly lower death fear than spending primes. Study 2 demonstrated that mortality primes increase the attractiveness of more frugal behaviors in save-or-spend dilemmas. Studies 3 and 4 found, in two different cultures (Polish and American), that the activation of death thoughts prompts people to allocate money to saving as opposed to spending. Overall, these studies provided evidence that saving protects from existential anxiety, and probably more so than spending.

Anxiety buffer disruption theory: a terror management account of posttraumatic stress disorder.

We present anxiety buffer disruption theory (ABDT) and provide a review of current evidence regarding the theory. ABDT is an application of terror management theory to explain diverse reactions to traumatic events and the onset and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It posits that PTSD results from a disruption in one's anxiety-buffering mechanisms, which normally provide protection against anxiety in general and death anxiety in particular. The disruption of these mechanisms leaves the individual defenseless in the face of overwhelming anxiety, which leads to the major symptom clusters of PTSD: re-experiencing, hyper-arousal, and avoidance. According to ABDT, because of the disruption in their anxiety-buffering mechanisms, individuals with PTSD symptoms do not respond to mortality reminders in the defensive ways that psychologically healthier individuals do. We review four sets of studies conducted in four different cultures and with people who have experienced different types of trauma, which reveal this atypical response pattern and lend support to ABDT.

In Pursuit of Happiness: Empirical Answers to Philosophical Questions.

In this article, we provide an overview of what various philosophers throughout the ages have claimed about the nature of happiness, and we discuss to what extent psychological science has been able to substantiate or refute their claims. We first address concerns raised by philosophers regarding the possibility, desirability, and justifiability of happiness and then turn to the perennial question of how to be happy. Integrating insights from great thinkers of the past with empirical findings from modern behavioral sciences, we review the conditions and causes of happiness. We conclude our discussion with some thoughts about the future of happiness studies.