Affect and psychological well-being in spouses of cancer patients: the mediating role of meaning in life and self-efficacy

The examination of the psychological functioning of cancer patients’ spouses implies that affect and personal resources play an important role in their psychological well-being. This is a consequence of the severe stress caused by the medical conditions of a spouse and of responsibilities related to caregiving. This study aimed to examine the role of affect and purpose-oriented personal resources (meaning in life and self-efficacy) in shaping psychological well-being in the spouses of cancer patients. The participants were 214 spouses of gastrointestinal patients who were either undergoing medical treatment in hospital units or attending scheduled clinic appointments at outpatient medical clinics. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-X), Psychological Well-Being Scale (PWB), Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ), and General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) were used. The results indicated that positive affect was positively correlated with meaning in life, self-efficacy, and psychological well-being. In contrast, negative affect was negatively correlated with positive affect, meaning in life, self-efficacy, and psychological well-being. The mediation analyses demonstrated that meaning in life and self-efficacy were mediators between positive and negative affect and psychological well-being. The mediating function of meaning in life and self-efficacy revealed the significant role of personal resources based on purpose and self-motivation in the relationship between affect and psychological well-being. Positive and negative affect can influence motivational processes that enable patients and their families to constructively deal with challenging and illness-related situations. Caregivers and medical staff could take into account the important role of purpose-oriented resources as they affect the functioning of both patients and their families.

The Relational Wear and Tear of Everyday Racism Among African American Couples

The wear and tear of adapting to chronic stressors such as racism and discrimination can have detrimental effects on mental and physical health. Here, we investigate the wider implications of everyday racism for relationship quality in a sample of 98 heterosexual African American couples. Participants reported on their experiences of racial discrimination and positive and negative affect for 21 consecutive evenings. Using dyadic analyses, we show that independent of age, gender, marital status, income, racial discrimination frequency, neuroticism, and mean levels of affect, participants’ relationship quality was inversely associated with their partner’s negative affective reactivity to racial discrimination. Associations did not vary by gender, suggesting that the effects of affective reactivity were similar for men and women. These findings highlight the importance of a dyadic approach and call for further research examining the role of everyday racism as a key source of stress in the lives of African American couples.

Natural User Interfaces for Meditative Health Games

The psychological health outcomes of video games are drawing increasing interest around the world. There is growing interest in video games as an accessible health intervention for depression and anxiety, both of which are rising health concerns globally. New interaction techniques for video games are becoming increasingly popular, with natural user interfaces (NUIs) becoming more commonplace in game systems. This chapter explores the design of a meditative game, a subgenre of casual games that intends for players to become calm and relaxed, and the evaluation of the NUIs for the game. The purpose of the chapter is to ascertain which NUI is most suitable for meditative games. A meditative fishpond game was designed that accepts two NUIs: touch and eye-tracking. The game was evaluated using a Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. The study found the eye-tracking interface reported a higher positive affect score from users and is therefore most suitable for meditative games.

Investigating Affective Responding to Daily Positive Events Among Adolescents Using Ecological Momentary Assessment

The experience of positive events is associated with increased positive affect, which can beneficially impact the physical and mental health outcomes of adolescents. Despite an increase in important life events during adolescence, little research has examined the influence of positive events on affect in this population. This study used Ecological Momentary Assessment to investigate individual differences in the effects of daily positive events on momentary positive and negative affect and event-specific positive affect among 136 adolescents ( M age = 13.03 years). Results indicated that interpersonal and independent events elicited greater event-specific positive affect than non-interpersonal and dependent events. Dependent interpersonal events were associated with the greatest positive affect compared to other combinations of event types. Gender did not moderate these effects. These findings may address the gap in the literature regarding the types of daily positive events that elicit the most positive affect in adolescents, and in turn, may enhance well-being.

Emotions in our lives: the evaluation of a user-centered training course »living e-Motions« in the context of recovery of people with mental health challenges

Purpose This paper aims to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of a training course »Living e-Motions« for people living with mental health challenges in the context of their recovery. The course was developed in the joint project of partners from Spain, Estonia, Slovenia and the UK. The curriculum of the course is focused on emotional education. It uses a narrative approach as a practical way for participants to explore and regulate their emotions and consequently take charge of their recovery. Design/methodology/approach Seventeen participants were included in the pilot training in Spain and Estonia. Impact of the training was assessed on measures of life satisfaction, emotion regulation, positive and negative affect and recovery at baseline and directly after training. Findings The analysis revealed that participants reported higher life satisfaction, emotion regulation skills, positive affect and recovery after the training. However, because of the small sample size, the mean differences did not reach statistical significance. Further studies on larger samples are needed to test the effectiveness of the training course. Practical implications Pilot study findings are encouraging and show that the developed training course has a potential for improving key competencies and abilities needed in daily life, concretely in emotion regulation, positive and negative affect, life satisfaction and recovery. Originality/value This paper presents a novel training course that uses a narrative approach and focuses on recovery and improvement of key competencies and abilities of individuals with mental health issues.

The Influencing Mechanism of Social Effort-Reward Imbalance on Life Satisfaction among Aging Workforces in the United States: A Longitudinal Study

Improving life satisfaction is consistent with the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals. Although there are many studies examining life satisfaction, research on the influencing mechanisms remains a hot topic and scholars hope to explore more aspects that improve life satisfaction. The purpose was to explore how the relationship between social effort-reward imbalance and life satisfaction are mediated by positive and negative affect. We collected longitudinal data from 909 respondents participating in the 2008 and 2012 wave of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We used the first-order difference method and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to evaluate the validity of the proposed hypotheses. Our results demonstrated that social effort-reward imbalance was positively related to negative affect, and negatively related to positive affect. Positive affect was positively related to life satisfaction, while negative affect was negatively related to life satisfaction. The findings also indicated that positive and negative affect completely mediated the relationship between social effort-reward imbalance and life satisfaction. This study has made a contribution to the research on the influencing mechanism of life satisfaction from the aspects of theory and practice. Longitudinal data ensured that the conclusions were more reliable so that the study could provide useful suggestions for improving life satisfaction.

Feeling Positive, Negative, or Both? Examining the Self-Regulatory Benefits of Emotional Ambivalence

According to self-regulation theories, affect plays a crucial role in driving goal-directed behaviors throughout employees’ work lives. Yet past work presents inconsistent results regarding the effects of positive and negative affect with theory heavily relying on understanding the separate, unique effects of each affective experience. In the current research, we integrate tenets of emotional ambivalence with self-regulation theories to examine how the conjoint experience of positive and negative affect yields benefits for behavioral regulation. We test these ideas within a self-regulatory context that has frequently studied the benefits of affect and has implications for all employees at one point in their careers: the job search. Adopting a person-centered (i.e., profile-based) perspective across two within-person investigations, we explore how emotional ambivalence relates to job search success (i.e., interview invitations, job offers) via job search self-regulatory processes (i.e., metacognitive strategies, effort). Results illustrate that the subsequent week (i.e., at time t + 1; Study 1) and month (Study 2) after job seekers experience emotional ambivalence (i.e., positive and negative affect experienced jointly at similar levels at time t), they receive more job offers via increased job search effort and interview invitations. Theoretical and practical implications for studying emotional ambivalence in organizational scholarship are discussed.