https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa54196/Download/54196__17493__47815979be224dde9a7b3f9b037ce7ec.pdf

Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science.

An 8-month-long experimental study examined the immediate and longer term effects of regularly practicing two assigned positive activities (expressing optimism and gratitude) on well-being. More important, this intervention allowed us to explore the impact of two metafactors that are likely to influence the success of any positive activity: whether one self-selects into the study knowing that it is about increasing happiness and whether one invests effort into the activity over time. Our results indicate that initial self-selection makes a difference, but only in the two positive activity conditions, not the control, and that continued effort also makes a difference, but, again, only in the treatment conditions. We conclude that happiness interventions are more than just placebos, but that they are most successful when participants know about, endorse, and commit to the intervention.

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Becoming happier takes both a will and a proper way: an experimental longitudinal intervention to boost well-being.

I argue that distinct conditions of justice lead to diverse wellness outcomes through a series of psychosocial processes. Optimal conditions of justice, suboptimal conditions of justice, vulnerable conditions of injustice, and persisting conditions of injustice lead to thriving, coping, confronting, and suffering, respectively. The processes that mediate between optimal conditions of justice and thriving include the promotion of responsive conditions, the prevention of threats, individual pursuit, and avoidance of comparisons. The mechanisms that mediate between suboptimal conditions of justice and coping include resilience, adaptation, compensation, and downward comparisons. Critical experiences, critical consciousness, critical action, and righteous comparisons mediate between vulnerable conditions of injustice and confrontation with the system. Oppression, internalization, helplessness, and upward comparisons mediate between persisting conditions of injustice and suffering. These psychosocial processes operate within and across personal, interpersonal, organizational and community contexts. Different types of justice are hypothesized to influence well-being within each context. Intrapersonal injustice operates at the personal level, whereas distributive, procedural, relational, and developmental justice impact interpersonal well-being. At the organizational level, distributive, procedural, relational and informational justice influence well-being. Finally, at the community level, distributive, procedural, retributive, and cultural justice support community wellness. Data from a variety of sources support the suggested connections between justice and well-being.

Wellness as Fairness

Technostress—defined as stress that individuals experience due to their use of Information Systems—represents an emerging phenomenon of scholarly investigation. It examines how and why the use of IS causes individuals to experience various demands that they find stressful. This paper develops a framework for guiding future research in technostress experienced by individuals in organizations. We first review and critically analyse the state of current research on technostress reported in journals from the IS discipline and the non-IS disciplines that study stress in organizations (eg, organizational behaviour and psychological stress). We then develop our framework in the form of the “technostress trifecta”—techno-eustress, techno-distress, and Information Systems design principles for technostress. The paper challenges 3 key ideas imbued in the existing technostress literature. First, it develops the argument that, in contrast to negative outcomes, technostress can lead to positive outcomes such as greater effectiveness and innovation at work. Second, it suggests that instead of limiting the role of IS to that of being a stress creator in the technostress phenomenon, it should be expanded to that of enhancing the positive and mitigating the negative effects of technostress through appropriate design. Third, it lays the groundwork for guiding future research in technostress through an interdisciplinary framing that enriches both the IS and the psychological stress literatures through a potential discourse of disciplinary exchange.

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The technostress trifecta - techno eustress, techno distress and design: Theoretical directions and an agenda for research

A force-field theory of motivated cognition is presented and applied to a broad variety of phenomena in social judgment and self-regulation. Purposeful cognitive activity is assumed to be propelled by a driving force and opposed by a restraining force. Potential driving force represents the maximal amount of energy an individual is prepared to invest in a cognitive activity. Effective driving force corresponds to the amount of energy he or she actually invests in attempt to match the restraining force. Magnitude of the potential driving force derives from a combination of goal importance and the pool of available mental resources, whereas magnitude of the restraining force derives from an individual's inclination to conserve resources, current task demands, and competing goals. The present analysis has implications for choice of means to achieve one's cognitive goals as well as for successful goal attainment under specific force-field constellations. Empirical evidence for these effects is considered, and the underlying theory's integrative potential is highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

The energetics of motivated cognition: a force-field analysis.

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Jacqueline Thompson

Papers

The Oxford Handbook of Stress, Health and Coping