International Journal of Wellbeing (IJW)
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Enhancing personal and planetary wellbeing: A comparative study of the "3 Good Things" and "3 Good Things in Nature" interventions
Get PDFIn this preregistered study, we compared the efficacy of the standard “Three Good Things” (3GT) intervention to a nature-based adaptation, “Three Good Things in Nature” (3GTiN), in enhancing well-being and nature-related outcomes. For one week, participants (N = 330) were randomly assigned to either note three good things that happened each day (3GT condition) or note three good things they noticed in everyday nature each day (3GTiN condition). Results revealed that 3GTiN was statistically equivalent to 3GT in boosting affect balance and life satisfaction, while also offering additional well-being benefits, namely greater transcendent connectedness (feeling connected to other humans, to nature, and to life in general) and elevation (a composite emotion which includes feeling deeply appreciative, profoundly touched, morally uplifted). Further, engagement in the 3GTiN intervention increased nature connectedness, which emerged as a strong predictor of intention to engage in pro-environmental behaviour. Levels of eco-anxiety did not significantly differ between the two conditions. Qualitative analyses of over 10,000 responses provided several additional insights, including nature being a prominent good thing mentioned in the standard 3GT intervention. The present research provides additional evidence of 3GTiN’s potential for helping to promote aspects of both personal and planetary well-being
Love and human flourishing
Get PDFWe present arguments that the promotion of love within society has tremendous underutilized potential to enhance human flourishing. Some indication that this may be so can be found in sweeping claims sometimes made about love within philosophical, theological, psychological, sociological, and even economic, business and management literatures. We review definitional and theoretical considerations concerning love and flourishing. We summarize various streams of empirical evidence for the role of love in the promotion of human flourishing. We then argue that social policy oriented towards promoting love within families, friendships, schools, workplaces, religious communities, medicine, politics and the media could make substantial contributions to advancing societal flourishing
Learning, connecting and holistic wellbeing: A study of how supervisors sustain wellbeing and resilience
Get PDFProfessional supervision contributes to practice safety and supervisee wellbeing, supporting both quality service delivery as well as professional and personal development. However, the supervisor’s own support and development are areas less traversed. This study explored the activities that supervisors identified as necessary to sustain their wellbeing and resilience. A nationwide, mixed methods study exploring how supervisors support and sustain their professional development, wellbeing, and resilience was conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand. Supervisors across a range of professions participated in the study and the qualitative data identified a range of activities which maintained, supported and strengthened their wellbeing. The activities were positioned within the supervisor’s person-centred and practice-centred domains: self-knowledge and self-awareness of stress; conscious attention to holistic wellbeing; social connection, support, and learning from others; professional development; satisfying supervisory relationships; and professional self-management
A mixed-methods research synthesis to impact the wellbeing of adolescents: The Wellbeing in Outdoor Adventure Education Model (WOAEM)
Get PDFPromoting adolescent wellbeing continues to challenge families, community groups, and schools, so ways to complement existing health programs should be sought. This paper aimed to synthesise four sequential, mixed-methods studies, resulting in a novel framework to impact adolescent wellbeing. Studies were conducted in Perth, Western Australia between 2020 and 2023, involving a quantitative systematic review and meta-analysis, qualitative analysis of focus groups with adolescent outdoor adventure education participants and key informant interviews with outdoor adventure education teachers, and mixed-method analysis of an electronic Delphi study with a panel of international experts in adolescence, wellbeing, and outdoor adventure education. The studies comprising this synthesis were conducted to provide an evidence base for adventure education practitioners to impact the wellbeing of their adolescent participants. The findings of these studies have resulted in the development of the Wellbeing in Outdoor Adventure Education Model (WOAEM), a new model that aims to provide outdoor adventure education practitioners with a practical application of the PERMA (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment) multidimensional framework of wellbeing. This practical application is specifically designed to guide program structure in a way that can positively impact the wellbeing of adolescents. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed
Human-nature relationships and deep connections: An exploration of how a women’s swimming group increased their relationship to nature, to themselves and to other women
Get PDFScholarly interest in has grown over time to address how vegetation (‘green space’) and water bodies (‘blue space’) contribute to health and wellbeing and to social connectedness (Bates & Moles, 2022, 2023; Finlay et al., 2015) and potentially impact health and behaviour through the provision of aesthetic spaces for relaxation, socialisation and physical activity (Geneshka M et al., 2021). During the enforced lockdowns of COVID19 green and blue space became a focus of individual and small group activity. Using a qualitative methodology, this research sought the views of thirty-nine women, located in an Australian, Victorian bayside suburb who formed in response to COVID19 restrictions and who continue to swim regularly. The research sought to understand how and if individual health and wellbeing and human connections increased or changed as a result of their belonging to the swimming group. Findings affirm that access to blue space during and beyond the COVID19 increased women’s health and wellbeing. Findings also affirm that the blue space evoked and engendered in the women new ‘entanglements’ and connection with the blue space
Towards a framework for conceptualising holistic wellbeing in schools
Get PDFHuman wellbeing is highly interconnected with the wellbeing (and survival) of the whole Earth’s ecosystem. Schools are important places in which people learn how to enhance both present and future wellbeing. To date, however, there are no school wellbeing frameworks that holistically consider the psychosocial and physical wellbeing of the entire school community and extend the concept of wellbeing beyond human boundaries. This paper focuses on the need to increase our understanding of what holistic wellbeing in schools means from a broad perspective, including not only various aspects of human wellbeing but also non-human aspects of wellbeing into a single conceptual framework. The framework was developed based on a narrative literature review consisting of 107 articles. The profound joy and happiness of both teachers and learners form the foundation of our conceptualisation of wellbeing. In addition to these core concepts, and based on the earlier conceptualisations of holistic wellbeing, our framework includes physical, psychological, social, creative and socioeconomic dimensions of wellbeing. Finally, all these wellbeing dimensions are highly dependent on planetary wellbeing. The framework is designed to serve as a basis for developing pre- and in-service teacher training programmes and to support school leaders and educational policymakers in their efforts to promote holistic wellbeing at schools
Flourishing in South Africa: Benchmarks and sociodemographic variation across 69 health, wellbeing, and related factors in the Global Flourishing Study
Get PDFUsing nationally representative data for South Africa (N = 2,651) from Wave 1 of the Global Flourishing Study, we explored the distributions of 69 health, wellbeing, and related factors and tested for potential sociodemographic differences in the means/proportions of those indicators. When comparing estimates for South Africa with pooled estimates for the combined set of 22 countries included in the Global Flourishing Study, we did not find definitive evidence of differences on most of the main health and wellbeing outcomes. On the few main outcomes where we observed differences, estimates for some were more favorable in South Africa (e.g., peace, suffering) while others were less favorable (e.g., life satisfaction, trust). South Africa was more distinguishable from the entire set of 22 countries on the outcomes within the supplementary domains of socioeconomic factors and religion/spirituality, with lower estimates found for South Africa on several socioeconomic factors and higher estimates observed for almost all religion/spirituality indicators. Our exploration of sociodemographic variation in the outcomes suggested that some subpopulations might be flourishing to a greater degree than others (e.g., those aged 80 years or older, males), but the pattern of sociodemographic differences across the outcomes was somewhat mixed and the flourishing profile of subpopulations varied quite considerably. These findings offer important insights for South African policymakers and public health practitioners on the need to support vulnerable subpopulations (e.g., females, those who are divorced), as well as lay the foundation for population-level monitoring of flourishing in South Africa using future Global Flourishing Study panel data
Lifestyle behavioural and socio-demographic predictors of distress and wellbeing among Australian adults
Get PDFLifestyle behaviours including physical activity (PA), dietary intake, and sleep are increasingly prominent targets in preventive mental health research and practice. Nevertheless, previous studies have typically adopted a model of mental health that discounts the potential for psychological distress and mental wellbeing to coexist. Reliance on linear regression modelling in extant research has also limited our understanding of how lifestyle behaviours interact with socio-demographic and other factors to predict distress and wellbeing. Among a sample of Australian adults (n = 1496) decision tree modelling was used to explore cross-sectional interactions between lifestyle behavioural and socio-demographic predictors of distress and wellbeing. In these models, sleep quality and frequency of moderate to vigorous PA - but not diet - predicted both distress and wellbeing outcomes. In contrast, higher self-reported health predicted wellbeing, but not distress. Overall, lifestyle behaviours interacted in complex ways with mental health variables and socio-demographic factors, with the predictors of distress often distinct from those of wellbeing. Our results align with a bivariate conceptualisation of mental health in which distress and wellbeing are overlapping but distinct continua. Preventive mental health research should adopt a bivariate conceptualisation to facilitate more precise and generative insights regarding the lifestyle behavioural correlates of mental health
Wellbeing profiles and their relationships to gender, homeownership, income, marriage, and education: Exploring hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing in the East
Get PDFPrior research has not yet to establish a clear understanding of the relationship between hedonic wellbeing (HWB) and eudaimonic wellbeing (EWB), particularly how they manifest within individuals. Moreover, it remains unclear whether HWB and EWB operate similarly across different cultural contexts. This study applies Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to identify distinct wellbeing profiles among 1,283 residents (51.1% male) in a major coastal and capital city in China, spanning all ten districts. Five wellbeing profiles emerged: extremely low EWB, extremely low HWB, slightly low WB, slightly high WB, and extremely high WB. Notably, unlike findings from Western studies, no divergent wellbeing profiles—such as high HWB combined with low EWB, or vice versa—were observed in the Chinese sample. Multinomial logistic regression further revealed that homeownership was one of the strongest predictors of wellbeing, even after controlling for income. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the HWB-EWB relationship and suggest that cultural, cognitive, and linguistic differences may shape how individuals conceptualize and internalize wellbeing. This study offers valuable insights for policymakers and researchers seeking to promote wellbeing in a holistic manner, emphasizing the need to consider social and cultural contexts when evaluating wellbeing frameworks
Antecedents of valence-activation measures of emotional well-being
Get PDFIn several areas of emotion-related research, antecedents, associations, and outcomes differ if affect varies in both valence and activation. Aiming to show that this would likewise be true of common valence-activation measures of emotional well-being (EWB), this study tests how EWB would be related to antecedents if valence differs in low-to-high activation, moderate activation, and high-to-low activation. A random sample of Swedish citizens aged 15 years and older (n=901) answered a self-report questionnaire. In general agreement with the hypotheses, multivariate linear regression analyses showed that low-to-high activation valence is more strongly linked to information about security than information about success or opportunity, that moderate activation valence is more strongly linked to information about success than information about security or opportunity, and that high-to-low activation valence is more strongly linked to information about opportunity than information about success or security. Age and gender influenced the three EWB measures without altering the hypothesized results