What is Positive Psychology

The positive predictive effect of altruism on physical and psychological well-being has been extensively demonstrated in previous studies, but few studies have examined the effect of altruism on negative mental health outcomes when altruists cannot perform altruistic behaviours. This study explored the influence of altruism on negative affect and mental health (anxiety and depressive symptoms) during the COVID-19 pandemic while people self-isolated at home in China. University students were recruited to participate in a cross-sectional online survey during the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Self-reported perceived risk, altruism, negative affect, anxiety and depressive symptoms were measured using the Self-Report Altruism Scale (SRA scale), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire depression scale (PHQ-9). A structural equation model was used to analyse the mediating and moderating effects on mental health. The final sample comprised 1346 Chinese participants (Mage = 19.76 ± 2.23 years, 73% female). Overall, the higher the risk the participants perceived, the more negative affect they exhibited (β = 0.16, p < .001), and thus, the more anxious and depressed they felt (β = 0.134, p < .001); however, this relationship between risk perception and negative affect was moderated by altruism. In contrast to previous studies, the increase in negative affect associated with the increased perceived risk was pronounced among individuals with high altruism (t = 7.68, p < .001). Individuals with high altruism exhibited more negative affect than those with low altruism, which indirectly increased their anxiety and depressive symptoms. These findings enrich theories of altruism and provide valuable insight into the influence of altruism on mental health during the COVID-19 outbreak.

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When altruists cannot help: the influence of altruism on the mental health of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ABSTRACT This article introduces the Lifespan Self-Esteem Scale (LSE), a short measure of global self-esteem suitable for populations drawn from across the lifespan. Many existing measures of global self-esteem cannot be used across multiple developmental periods due to changes in item content, response formats, and other scale characteristics. This creates a need for a new lifespan scale so that changes in global self-esteem over time can be studied without confounding maturational changes with alterations in the measure. The LSE is a 4-item measure with a 5-point response format using items inspired by established self-esteem scales. The scale is essentially unidimensional and internally consistent, and it converges with existing self-esteem measures across ages 5 to 93 (N = 2,714). Thus, the LSE appears to be a useful measure of global self-esteem suitable for use across the lifespan as well as contexts where a short measure is desirable, such as populations with short attention spans or large projects assessing multiple constructs. Moreover, the LSE is one of the first global self-esteem scales to be validated for children younger than age 8, which provides the opportunity to broaden the field to include research on early formation and development of global self-esteem, an area that has previously been limited.

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The Lifespan Self-Esteem scale: Initial validation of a new measure of global self-esteem suitable for use with children and adults

Stigma is an important topic in public health and has significant impact on psychological and physical well-being of stigmatized individuals. Emerging evidence has suggested that self-compassion, a self-caring and compassionate attitude in the face of hardship, may buffer the negative effects of stigma. However, little research has been conducted to investigate the underlying mechanisms through which self-compassion may buffer the effects of public stigma on self-stigma and the associated negative outcomes. The goal of this paper is to present a theoretical framework that integrates the existing body of literature in self-compassion and stigma. This framework postulates that (1) self-compassion may be related to adaptive cognitive, emotional, and social processes, and (2) these processes may, in turn, prevent individuals with stigmatized identity from developing self-stigma and other health outcomes. Theoretical and empirical support for this mediated-moderation model is reviewed. Future directions to empirically evaluate this model, as well the potential applications of this model for stigma reduction interventions are presented.

Hacking Stigma by Loving Yourself: a Mediated-Moderation Model of Self-Compassion and Stigma

Religion plays an important role in the lives of many Americans, but there is relatively little study by economists of the implications of religiosity for economic outcomes. This likely reflects the enormous difficulty inherent in separating the causal effects of religiosity from other factors that are correlated with outcomes. In this paper, I propose a potential solution to this long standing problem, by noting that a major determinant of religious participation is religious market density, or the share of the population in an area which is of an individual's religion. I make use of the fact that exogenous predictions of market density can be formed based on area ancestral mix. That is, I relate religious participation and economic outcomes to the correlation of the religious preference of one's own heritage with the religious preference of other heritages that share one's area. I use the General Social Survey (GSS) to model the impact of market density on church attendance, and micro-data from the 1990 Census to model the impact on economic outcomes. I find that a higher market density leads to a significantly increased level of religious participation, and as well to better outcomes according to several key economic indicators: higher levels of education and income, lower levels of welfare receipt and disability, higher levels of marriage, and lower levels of divorce.

Religious Market Structure, Religious Participation, and Outcomes: Is Religion Good for You?

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the relationship between Optimism, Religiosity and Self-esteem with Marital Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction in married university students. The research method was a descriptive study kind of correlation. The sample group included 200 married students that were selected using a simple random sampling method. For collecting data, Attribution Style Questionnaire, Religious Attitude, Cooper Smith Self-Esteem Questionnaire, Enrich Marital Satisfaction Questionnaire and Satisfaction with Life Scale were used. The findings indicated that marital satisfaction not life satisfaction was predicted by Optimism, Religiosity and Self-esteem. Religiosity showed the greatest relationship with marital satisfaction. Base on this study, family therapists should consider the role of religious or spiritual couple’s attitude as a vital factor in reveal and solving the marital conflict. Consistency and inconsistency of the results were discussed.

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Relationship between Optimism, Religiosity and Self-Esteem with Marital Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction

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Effectiveness of Group Therapy Based on Acceptance and Commitment on Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Alexithymia of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

Objective:The present research aimed to study the relationship of altruistic behavior, empathetic sense, and social responsibility with happiness Methods: This research was a survey, cross sectional and correlational study. Hence, a total of 300 university students were selected through random-stratified sampling from the students of Islamic Azad University. The students filled out the research tools including altruism, empathy, social responsibility questionnaires and Oxford happiness questionnaire. The obtained data were analyzed using the Pearson correlation and enter multiple regressions by SPSS version 20. Results: Results showed a significant relationship between happiness, altruistic behavior, empathetic sense, and social responsibility (P<0.05). Moreover, happy individuals demonstrate more cooperative behaviors and are more satisfied with their residence. Conclusion: Happiness as one of the most fundamental positive feelings has a crucial role in creating altruism and empathy in both the individual and the society. A B S T R A C T Article info:

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The Relationship of Altruistic Behavior, Empathetic Sense, and Social Responsibility with Happiness among University Students

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the religious attitude, self-efficacy, and life satisfaction in high school teachers of Mahshahr City. To this end, 253 people of all high school teachers in Mahshahr City, in Iran were selected as the sample using the multistage cluster sampling method. For data collection, Glock and Stark’s (1965) religious attitude questionnaires, Schwartz and Jerusalem’s general self-efficacy questionnaire and Diener et al.’s (1985) life satisfaction questionnaire were used. For data analysis, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used. Results showed that there is a positive and meaningful relationship between the religious attitude and life satisfaction. In addition, there is a meaningful relationship between the religious attitude and self-efficacy. Results also showed that religious attitude and self-efficacy can predict the life satisfaction.

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Relationship between the Religious Attitude, Self-Efficacy, and Life Satisfaction in High school Teachers of Mahshahr City

This study aims to determine the relationship between resilience, psychological hardiness, spiritual intelligence, and development of the moral judgment of the female students in 2014. The research sample included 200 female high school students of District 2, Ahvaz-Iran in educational year of 2014-15 that were selected using the available sampling method. In this paper, for measuring the resilience, psychological hardiness, and spiritual intelligence, resilience scale, Ahvaz Hardiness questionnaire, and moral judgment questionnaire were used, respectively. For data analysis, in addition to the descriptive statistics, inferential statistical such as Pearson's correlation coefficient and multivariate regression analysis using the simultaneous method was used. Data analysis showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between the psychological hardiness, spiritual intelligence, and growth of the moral judgment. Moreover, results of the regression analysis showed that predictor variables are effective in clarifying the 0.41 of the variance of the spiritual intelligence development of the students.

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Zahra Dasht Bozorgi

Papers

Relationship between Optimism, Religiosity and Self-Esteem with Marital Satisfaction and Life Satisfaction

Effectiveness of Group Therapy Based on Acceptance and Commitment on Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Alexithymia of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

The Relationship of Altruistic Behavior, Empathetic Sense, and Social Responsibility with Happiness among University Students

Relationship between the Religious Attitude, Self-Efficacy, and Life Satisfaction in High school Teachers of Mahshahr City

The Relationship between Resilience, Psychological Hardiness, Spiritual Intelligence, and Development of the Moral Judgement of the Female Students