Having a purpose in life is one of the most fundamental human needs. However, for most people finding their purpose in life is not obvious. Modern life has a way of distracting people from their true goals and many people find it hard to define their purpose in life. Especially at younger ages, people are searching for meaning in life, but this has found to be unrelated to actually finding meaning. Oftentimes, people experience pressure to have a “perfect” life and show the world how well they are doing, instead of following up on their deep-felt values and passions. Consequently, people may need a more structured way of finding meaning, e.g., via an intervention. In this paper, we discuss evidence-based ways of finding purpose, via a process that we call “life crafting”. This process fits within positive psychology and the salutogenesis framework – an approach focusing on factors that support human health and well-being, instead of factors that cause disease. This process ideally starts with an intervention that entails a combination of reflecting on one’s values, passions and goals, best possible self, goal attainment plans, and other positive psychology intervention techniques. Important elements of such an intervention are:(1) Discovering values and passion, (2) reflecting on current and desired competencies and habits, (3) reflecting on present and future social life, (4) reflecting on a possible future career, (5) writing about the ideal future, (6) writing down specific goal attainment and “if-then” plans, and (7) making public commitments to the goals set. Prior research has shown that personal goal setting and goal attainment plans help people gain a direction or a sense of purpose in life. As discussed, research from the positive psychology, such as salutogenesis, implementation intentions, value congruence, broaden-and-build, and goal-setting literature that can help in building a comprehensive evidence-based life-crafting intervention. This intervention can aid individuals to find a purpose in life, while at the same time ensuring that they make concrete plans to work towards this purpose. The idea is that life crafting enables individuals to take control of their life in order to optimize performance and happiness.

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Life Crafting as a Way to Find Purpose and Meaning in Life

Body Image Disturbance: Assessment and Treatment.

Career adaptability and employee turnover intentions: The role of perceived career opportunities and orientation to happiness in the hospitality industry

ANY OF US HAVEasked ourselves: What is a good life? What makes a life worth living? This is one of the great existential questions. The answers we develop shape our priorities, choices, and goals, and the very way we decide what is desirable. In conceptions of a good life, the two perspectives that have figured most prominently are the hedonic view and the eudaimonic view (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Briefly, a hedonic orientation involves seeking happiness, positive affect, life satisfaction, and reduced negative affect; a eudaimonic orientation includes seeking authenticity, meaning, excellence, and personal growth (Huta & Waterman, 2013). These two perspectives have been discussed for over 2,000 years by philosophers, including Aristotle and Aristippus in ancient Greece, and more recently by early psychologists and psychiatrists, such as Maslow, Jung, and Freud. Much of the current psychology research on well-being similarly addresses hedonia and/or eudaimonia, making the hedonic–eudaimonic distinction a central concept in positive psychology, as evidenced by its frequent appearance in the first edition of this volume. It is time for us to consider more systematically how these concepts might be applied in practice. First, I discuss existing definitions and research. I then venture into more uncharted territory. I pull together a characterization of the complementary natures of hedonia and eudaimonia, to clarify why the two concepts are so central to discussions of well-being, and then propose specific strategies for pursuing hedonia and eudaimonia in practice.

The Complementary Roles of Eudaimonia and Hedonia and How They Can Be Pursued in Practice

Incidence of glioma is approximately 50% higher in males. Previous analyses have examined exposures related to sex hormones in women as potential protective factors for these tumors, with inconsistent results. Previous glioma genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have not stratified by sex. Potential sex-specific genetic effects were assessed in autosomal SNPs and sex chromosome variants for all glioma, GBM and non-GBM patients using data from four previous glioma GWAS. Datasets were analyzed using sex-stratified logistic regression models and combined using meta-analysis. There were 4,831 male cases, 5,216 male controls, 3,206 female cases and 5,470 female controls. A significant association was detected at rs11979158 (7p11.2) in males only. Association at rs55705857 (8q24.21) was stronger in females than in males. A large region on 3p21.31 was identified with significant association in females only. The identified differences in effect of risk variants do not fully explain the observed incidence difference in glioma by sex.

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Sex-specific glioma genome-wide association study identifies new risk locus at 3p21.31 in females, and finds sex-differences in risk at 8q24.21

People pursue happiness through different paths: pleasure, engagement and meaning, which are differently related to well-being. The aim of this research was to compare subjective well-being, life goals and self-control of people with different profiles of orientations to happiness. Students (484 females, 278 males; mean age 20.60) rated their life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, orientations to happiness, and self-control. Based on the K-means cluster analysis participants were grouped into four groups: students who highly endorse hedonic and eudaimonic orientation (the "Full life" group), those who do not endorse either of them (the "Empty life" group), those who live eudaimonic and those who live hedonic life. People who live a full life are the happiest, they value intrinsic life goals and have good self-control. Contrary, people who live empty lives have the lowest well-being, they value extrinsic and intrinsic life goals less than other people and have low self-control.

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Orientations to happiness, subjective well-being and life goals

For protected area managers, understanding visitors' desired benefits are a key priority. However, because of financial restrictions and insufficient capacity, Park managers often are not capable of developing appropriate and reliable measurement instruments for tracking visitor's needs. The main purpose of this study was to develop a simple and cost-effective measurement instrument to monitor visitors' desired benefits in Paklenica National Park in Croatia. We used a literature-driven approach to test the relevancy of five hypothesized benefit dimensions, composed of 18 recreational experiences items on a general visitor sample (n=342). These dimensions were: Enjoy nature, Novelty and learning, Socializing, Escape and solitude, and Personal achievement. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) process proceeded through two distinct phases. In the first phase, we tested the data fit for two competing models: orthogonal and correlated. In the second phase, we assessed the reliability and convergent validity of the measurement instrument. The results revealed that the model with correlated benefit dimensions reproduced the data better than the orthogonal model. Inter-correlations between latent benefit dimensions were statistically significant and positive. Reliability and convergent validity indicated a reasonable consistency of the measurement instrument. Further research should focus on continuous improvement of the measurement instrument and its application, according to different management demands. Management implications The measurement instrument developed represents a reliable and cost-effective tool that may aid Park managers in empirically evaluating at least a basic level of performance in visitor management. Moreover, this instrument may assist managers in economizing management strategies by focusing their efforts on the improvement of specific setting characteristics to facilitate the realization of visitor's desired benefits.

Exploring visitors' desired benefits in Paklenica National Park, Croatia: Development, validation and management implications of measurement instrument

Emotional tears are uniquely human and play an essential role in the communication of distress in adults. Several studies have shown that individuals are more willing to offer emotional support and help a person in tears. Preliminary evidence suggests that this greater willingness to provide support is mediated via perceived warmth and helplessness. Moreover, tearful individuals are regarded as more reliable and honest. In the current study, we examined whether people can reliably distinguish genuine and fake crying, and what the consequences for the further evaluation of the crier are. A total of 202 participants (73 men, 129 women) were exposed to brief movie clips of genuine and fake crying adults and were asked to assess the criers. Results show that women were slightly better at identifying fake and genuine crying. How the crying was perceived subsequently seemed to have a strong influence on the further evaluation of the "crier." Criers qualified as pretenders were perceived as significantly more manipulative, less reliable, less warm, and less competent. Further, the respondents felt less connected with the perceived pretenders, who also were less welcomed as friends, colleagues, neighbors, and babysitter. They were additionally qualified as significantly less fit for "reliable" professions (judge, teacher, police officer, scientist, and physician). In contrast, the ratings of their fitness for "unreliable" professions (banker, CEO, journalist, real estate salesman, and politician) yielded a significant difference in only one video clip (and contrary to expectations). Our findings thus indicate that the subjective labeling of crying as fake is associated with a significantly less positive perception of the "crying" person, regardless of whether the crying is actually fake or genuine. The qualification of tears as crocodile tears thus seems to affect the crier's image strongly negatively.

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The Damaging Effects of Perceived Crocodile Tears for a Crier's Image.

The study focuses on the impact of time and motives for everyday activities on mood and daily satisfaction. One hundred twenty-one undergraduate students participated in study using experience sampling method. The short PANAS scale, one item momentary satisfaction measure and state orientation to happiness scale were used. The measures were administered five times a day for 7 days via hand-held devices. The data were modeled using a linear mixed-effects approach. The models fitted the data reasonably well, especially for satisfaction and positive affect (PA) sharing similar parameter estimates. Both showed a nonlinear increase through the week while PA showed a similarly shaped circa-diurnal rhythm too. Negative affect (NA) showed almost no rhythm at all. Both hedonic and eudaimonic motives increased satisfaction and PA. Hedonic motives had a negative impact on NA. Generally, on momentary level, hedonic motives have a greater impact while longer intervals seem to emphasize the importance of eudaimonic motives.

Everyday Activities: Beneficial Effects of Eudaimonic and Hedonic Motivation on Subjective Well-Being

The study objectives are to investigate the psychometric properties of the Body Uneasiness Test (BUT-A) in a general sample of overweight and obese persons in Croatia, to evaluate structure differences between men and women and to examine the relationship with other measures of body dissatisfaction as well as with objective body mass measure. This study included 320 adults (156 women and 164 men; aged between 20 and 71) with BMIs ranging from 24 to 48.83 kg/m2. The analysis confirmed a structural one-factor model for BUT-A. The one-factor model fits the data equally as well as the more complex five-factor model did and should be considered a more robust, parsimonious and adequate model. Female participants showed higher results (higher body uneasiness), but the importance of items is roughly comparable between genders. The BUT-A score significantly contributes to the prediction of general body dissatisfaction, even after gender and BMI are controlled. The multifaceted nature of the BUT-A might explain the relatively low measure of general body dissatisfaction in this sample. Congruent with previous studies, obese subjects expressed dissatisfaction with their body on the figure rating scale by selecting the ideal figure two units thinner than their current body figure. In overweight and obese men, body dissatisfaction is lower than in women. The BUT-A can be a reliable one-dimensional tool for the assessment of body uneasiness in a wide range of samples, including obese individuals.

Marko Tončić

Papers

Orientations to happiness, subjective well-being and life goals

Exploring visitors' desired benefits in Paklenica National Park, Croatia: Development, validation and management implications of measurement instrument

The Damaging Effects of Perceived Crocodile Tears for a Crier's Image.

Everyday Activities: Beneficial Effects of Eudaimonic and Hedonic Motivation on Subjective Well-Being

Assessing the factor structure of the Body Uneasiness Test (BUT) in an overweight and obese Croatian non-clinical sample