Cultures of Wellbeing


Book Description

The authors challenge psychological perspectives on happiness and subjective wellbeing. Highlighting the politics of quantitative and qualitative methodologies, case studies across continents explore wellbeing in relation to health, children and youth, migration, economics, religion, family, land mines, national surveys, and indigenous identities.




Assessing Well-Being


Book Description

The Sandvik, Diener, and Seidlitz (1993) paper is another that has received widespread attention because it documented the fact that self-report well-being scales correlate with a number of other methods of measuring the same concepts, such as with reports by knowledgeable “informants” (family and friends), expe- ence sampling measurement, and the memory for good versus bad life events. A single factor was found to underlie measures using different methods, and a n- ber of different well-being self-report measures were found to correlate with the non-self-report measures. Thus, although the self-report measures of well-being are imperfect, and can be in uenced by response artifacts, they have substantial validity as shown by their correlations with measurements based on alternative methods. Whereas the Pavot and Diener article reviewed the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Lucas, Diener, and Larsen (2003) paper reviews various approaches to assessing positive emotions. As we wrote in the chapter in this volume in which we present new measures, we do not consider any of the existing measures of positive affect to be entirely acceptable for measuring subjective well-being in the affect area, and that is why we have created and validated a new measure.




Well-Being and Cultures


Book Description

This anthology focuses on empirical studies comparing cultures in relation to central positive psychological topics. The book starts out with an introductory chapter that brings together the main ideas and findings within an integrative perspective, based on a broad theoretical framework encompassing interdisciplinary and methodological issues. It gives special emphasis to some open issues in the theory and assessment of culture-related dimensions, and to the potential of positive psychology in addressing them. The introductory chapter is followed by two chapters that examine theoretical approaches and instruments developed to assess happiness and well-being across cultures. Following that examination, five chapters are devoted to the relationship between well-being, cultures and values. The second half of the book prominently investigates well-being across cultures in the light of socio-economic factors. This book shows that positive psychology, now officially well into its second decade, is providing still finer-grained perspectives on the diversity of cultures along with insights about our shared human nature, uniting us for better or worse.​




Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing


Book Description

Cultures of Sustainability and Wellbeing: Theories, Histories and Policies examines and assesses the interdependence between sustainability and wellbeing by drawing attention to humans as producers and consumers in a post-human age. Why wellbeing ought to be regarded as essential to sustainable development is explored first from multifocal theoretical perspectives encompassing sociology, literary criticism and socioeconomics, second in relation to institutions and policies, and third with a focus on specific case studies across the world. Wellbeing and its sustainability are defined in terms of biological and cultural diversity; stages of advancement in science and technology; notions of citizenship and agency; geopolitical scenarios and environmental conditions. Wellbeing and sustainability call for enquiries into human capacities in ontological, epistemological and practical terms. A view of sustainability that revolves around material and immaterial wellbeing is based on the assumption that life quality, comfort, happiness, security, safety always posit humans as both recipients and agents. Risk and resilience in contemporary societies define the intrinsically human ability to make and consume, to act and adapt, driving the search for and fruition of wellbeing. How to sustain the dual process of exploitation and regeneration is a task that requires integrated approaches from the sciences and the humanities, jointly tracing a worldwide cartography with clear localisations. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers interested in sustainability through conceptual and empirical approaches including social theory, literary and cultural studies, environmental economics and human ecology, urbanism and cultural geography.




Well-Being as a Multidimensional Concept


Book Description

Well-Being as a Multidimensional Concept highlights the ways that culture and community influence concepts of wellness, the experience of well-being, and health outcomes. This book includes both theoretical conceptualizations and practice-based explorations from a multidisciplinary group of contributors, including distinguished, widely celebrated senior experts as well as emerging voices in the fields of health promotion, health research, clinical practice, community engagement, and health system policy. Using a social science approach, the contributors explore the interface among culture, community, and well-being in terms of theory and research frameworks; culture, community, and relationships; food; health systems; and collaboration, policy, messaging, and data. The chapters in this collection provide a broader understanding of well-being and its role as a culturally embedded and multidimensional concept. This collection furthers our ability to apprehend social and cultural constructs and dynamics that influence health and well-being and to better understand factors that contribute to or prevent health disparities.




Culture and Subjective Well-Being


Book Description

The question of what constitutes the good life has been pondered for millennia. Yet only in the last decades has the study of well-being become a scientific endeavor. This book is based on the idea that we can empirically study quality of life and make cross-society comparisons of subjective well-being (SWB). A potential problem in studying SWB across societies is that of cultural relativism: if societies have different values, the members of those societies will use different criteria in evaluating the success of their society. By examining, however, such aspects of SWB as whether people believe they are living correctly, whether they enjoy their lives, and whether others important to them believe they are living well, SWB can represent the degree to which people in a society are achieving the values they hold dear. The contributors analyze SWB in relation to money, age, gender, democracy, and other factors. Among the interesting findings is that although wealthy nations are on average happier than poor ones, people do not get happier as a wealthy nation grows wealthier.




Well-Being: Expanding the Definition of Progress


Book Description

Cities and countries around the globe are starting to incorporate a well-being approach by reorienting policies and budgets to benefit people and long-term sustainability. With insights from an international group of scientists, practitioners, and innovators, Well-Being considers the measurement focus of conversations surrounding well-being, then moves beyond to action: shifts in policy, narratives, and power, and alignment with other movements acrosssectors.




A Design Thinking, Systems Approach to Well-Being Within Education and Practice


Book Description

The mental health and well-being of health professionals is a topic that is broad, exceptionally relevant, and urgent to address. It is both a local and a global issue, and affects professionals in all stages of their careers. To explore this topic, the Global Forum on Innovation in Health Professional Education held a 1.5 day workshop. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.




Wellbeing at Work


Book Description

What if the next global crisis is a mental health pandemic? It is here now. One-third of Americans have shown signs of clinical anxiety or depression, and the current state of suffering globally has risen significantly. The mental health pandemic manifests everywhere, not least in your workplace. As organizations around the world face health and social crises, as well as economic uncertainty, acknowledging and improving wellbeing in your workplace is more critical than ever. Increasingly, leaders and managers must support mental health and cultivate resilience in employees — not just increase engagement and performance. Based on more than 100 million Gallup global interviews, Wellbeing at Work shows you how to do just that. Coauthored by Gallup’s CEO and its Chief Workplace Scientist, Wellbeing at Work explores the five key elements of wellbeing — career, social, financial, physical and community — and how organizations can help employees and teams thrive in those elements. The book also gives leaders ideas and action items to help employees use their innate talents and strengths to thrive in each of the wellbeing elements. And Wellbeing at Work introduces a metric to report a person’s best possible life: Gallup Net Thriving, which will become the “other stock price” for organizations. In a world where work and life are more blended than ever, maximizing employee wellbeing takes on greater urgency. Wellbeing at Work shows leaders how to create a thriving and resilient culture. If you and your leaders don’t change the world, who will? Wellbeing at Work includes a unique code to take the CliftonStrengths assessment, which reveals your top five strengths.




Spirituality and Mental Health Across Cultures


Book Description

Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) represent a very important factor of daily life for many individuals across different cultures and contexts. It is associated with lower rates of depression, suicide, mortality, and substance abuse, and is positively correlated with well-being and quality of life. Despite growing academic recognition and scientific literature on these connections this knowledge has not been translated into clinical practice. Part of the expanding Oxford Cultural Psychiatry series, Spirituality and Mental Health Across Cultures is a timely exploration of the implications of R/S on mental health. Written and edited by 38 experts in the fields of spirituality and mental health from 11 countries, covering a wide range of cultural and geographical perspectives, this unique resource assesses how mental health relates to world religions, agnosticism, atheism, and spiritualism unaffiliated with organised religion, with a practical touch. Across 25 chapters, this resource provides readers with a succinct and trustworthy review of the latest research and how this can be applied to clinical care. The first section covers the principles and fundamental questions that relate science, history, philosophy, neuroscience, religion, and spirituality with mental health. The second section discusses the main beliefs and practices related to world religions and their implications to mental health. The third reviews the impact of R/S on specific clinical situations and offers practical guidance on how to handle these appropriately, such as practical suggestions for assessing and integrating R/S in personal history anamnesis or psychotherapy.