By Valerie Averia
What’s the story of our marriage? What lessons do we want to leave behind? What’s our shared legacy? This paper presents a narrative positive intervention called Collaborative Legacy Writing (CLW) as a savoring and meaning-making tool in married life. Legacy writing is the act of chronicling, preserving, and transmitting one’s life experiences, values, lessons, and reflections in written form. This typically solitary writing endeavor is explored as a joint activity in CLW, where couples co-author shared legacy pieces based on their happiest experiences together. The proposed intervention features a three-step collaborative writing process where couples learn evidence-based mechanisms for enhancing happiness in marriage. CLW provides couples with the tools to cherish what’s good about their marriage and to craft beautiful stories out of their shared life as they grow together. The literature review showcases studies on interpersonal processes that positively impact marriage and the well-being benefits of writing from the viewpoint of positive psychology. Designed to nurture positivity, closeness, meaning, and belonging in marriage, CLW aims to make the marital relationship a source of joy for the married partners through the years.
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By Dana Emanuel
Friendship contributes to a flourishing life, yet most research and writing on friendship focuses on friends who are demographically similar to one another, known as homophily in social networks. Homophily in friendship is particularly pronounced within and among age and life stage. Yet, friendship between adults with more than 20 years of age difference confers unique benefits to both the older and younger individuals within them. Through a positive psychology lens, this paper reviews the literature on intergenerational friendship and identifies and explores key advantages of intergenerational friendships through a qualitative study of ten individuals in such friendships. Among many benefits, intergenerational friendships offer the younger half of friendship dyads authentic and durable acceptance, deeply meaningful mentorship, enthusiasm for niche hobbies, personal navigation, and a sense of pride in the relationship. This paper also suggests directions for future research of intergenerational friendship, such as the factors that may predispose adults toward intergenerational friendship and methods to amplify the benefits of intergenerational friendship.
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By Carter Jernigen
Friction in the workplace keeps people static, stuck and unable to flourish. Performing intentional actions that contribute to well-being is a path to getting unstuck and becoming kinetic. In this paper, I contribute several elements to the field of positive psychology intentional actions for getting unstuck. First, a new framework for engagement in the workplace, based on stress, attention, and motivation (SAM), clarifies the types of intentional actions that could be most effective. Second, a workplace training program called Momentum codifies these intentional actions in a format that enables rapid skill acquisition. The training program is unique in its use of the SAM engagement model, moving beyond existing workplace or positive psychology training. Third, a conversational AI named Sigma assists in sustaining and adapting these intentional actions. Sigma incorporates knowledge from 950 sources, including the SAM engagement model and Momentum training program, and significantly exceeds naïve ChatGPT 3.5’s performance in responding to questions on well-being, positive psychology, and workplace challenges based on the criteria of specificity, accuracy, and fluency of advice given.
By Maria Rodriguez
Self-reported measures of subjective well-being in Latin America consistently indicate higher levels than predicted, despite various societal, economic, and political challenges. This project examines three significant elements that emerge when Latin Americans report on their well-being: the importance of interpersonal relationships, the unexpectedly elevated levels of positive affect, and a tendency to adopt an optimistic outlook on life. Warm and fulfilling relationships with family and friends play a crucial role in the experience of high levels of positive emotions, and alongside a positive view of life situations, contribute to explaining well-being in the region. Evidence shows positive relationships, positive emotions, and optimism are associated with several positive outcomes and are essential to enhance well-being. The findings discussed in this paper have practical applications for public policy, education, coaching, and therapeutic contexts. Preserving these cultural values and practices within Latin American societies is of utmost importance. Furthermore, sharing the unique aspects of Latin American culture regarding well-being can provide valuable lessons that can be applied in different cultures and contexts.
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By Eugene Tee
Ikigai is a Japanese word often used to describe “one’s reason for living.” Numerous popular press books have been written about this expression of well-being, but a consistent definition continues to elude scholars. The current work presents an extensive review of the published works on ikigai and has three aims. The first is to review the concept of ikigai and its connections with the positive psychology literature, specifically research on meaning and purpose. The second is to offer an accurate, evidence-informed definition of ikigai to direct further theoretical and measurement efforts. Third, the current work aims to offer preliminary ideas for interventions that may be useful in cultivating ikigai. The review highlights three themes: (i) ikigai complements but is distinct from conceptualizations of meaning in life (MIL), (ii) the presence of ikigai, like the presence of MIL, is associated with well-being and longevity, and (iii), ikigai revolves around having personally-valued experiences (keiken), and these experiences are facilitated by authentic relationships (ibasho) and a sense of life directionality (houkousei). This review offers an evidence-informed definition of ikigai from the psychological literature, theoretical implications for research, and preliminary suggestions for interventions to help individuals recognize experiences that make life worth living.
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By Ann Vanichkachorn
Media driven debates arguing the fate of boys and men are commonplace, but little has been done to bring consensus in finding solutions. This study aims to explore how character strengths may be leveraged to enhance the healthy embodiment of masculinity. A sample of 107 preadolescent and adolescent males participated in this exploratory study of correlations between masculinity measured by the Children’s Personal Attributes Scale and character strengths identified through the VIA Inventory. Secondarily, the subject's self-reported willingness to express emotions was assessed by questions based on the Emotion Expression Scale for Children. Fifteen character strengths were found to be significantly positively correlated with masculinity scale scores and one character strength (humility) negatively correlated with masculinity. Leadership was found to be negatively correlated with emotional expression. Collectively, top strengths were less masculine than expected for students attending an all-boy school. When broken down by grade levels, significant differences were found that support prior studies assessing the differences in character strengths in boys from late childhood to late adolescence. While these findings are specific to the population studied, it may inform continued research in positive masculinity in boys and identify specific ways that character strengths-based interventions can help address the “plight” of boys and men.
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