Journal of Happiness and Health

Embracing life's challenges: Developing a tool for assessing resilient mindset in second wave positive psychology

Gökmen Arslan — 2023-07-11

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the Resilient Mindset Scale (RMS), a brief tool designed to measure resilient mindset among Turkish individuals. Additionally, the study aims to explore the relationship between resilient mindset and mental well-being among adolescents and young adults, providing further evidence in this domain. The exploratory factor analysis, conducted with a sample of 327 participants, revealed that the RMS has a unidimensional structure consisting of six items that effectively measure core indicators of a resilient mindset. Subsequent confirmatory factor analysis, conducted with a sample of 338 participants, confirmed the one-factor structure, demonstrating a good-data model fit with strong factor loadings and internal reliability estimates. Further analyses demonstrated moderate to strong correlations between resilient mindset and mental well-being indicators. Moreover, the latent variables path model revealed that the measurement model had a moderate to strong predictive effect on positive academic functioning, psychological well-being, and psychological distress. These findings establish the psychometric reliability and validity of the RMS as a measurement tool for assessing a resilient mindset among adolescents and young adults. Mental health providers can integrate the concept of a resilient mindset into therapeutic approaches and interventions to foster resilience and enhance mental well-being.

Resilience, mindfulness, anxiety, and depression within a dual-continua model of mental health approach

Bridget Kennedy — 2023-07-26

Mental health research is often focused on alleviating psychological distress rather than increasing well-being. This study approached mental health from a dual-continua model (DCM) framework, which allows for distress and well-being to co-occur. The aims of the present study were to expand upon DCM literature by examining differences in psychological well-being indicators among a broad adult sample with varying levels of depression and/or anxiety symptoms. Our sample was comprised of adults in the United States (n = 1,170) who reported different levels of anxiety, depression, mindfulness, resilience, and satisfaction with life. Participants who reported high anxiety symptoms, high depression symptoms, both anxiety and depression symptoms, or neither were grouped by their level of reported life satisfaction (high or low). We predicted that groups with higher life satisfaction would report higher levels of resilience and trait mindfulness than groups with lower life satisfaction, irrespective of higher levels of anxiety and/or depression, consistent with a DCM of mental health. Our results indicated that higher life satisfaction was associated with higher levels of resilience in all groups except for the high depression with low anxiety group. Higher levels of life satisfaction were also associated with higher trait mindfulness in all but the high anxiety with low depression group. Implications for mental health treatment and prevention are discussed.

School counseling internship and the role of grit: Perceptions Among newly graduated school counselor trainees who successfully navigated internship during the COVID-19 pandemic

Kimberly McGough — 2023-11-15

School counseling interns rose to the task of teaching full-time while earning hours for their internship course during COVID-19. For this qualitative study, the researchers conducted a focus group with eight graduates who successfully completed their internship in Fall 2021 or Spring 2022 amid the pandemic. The purpose of this exploratory, inductive, qualitative research study was to examine the role of grit in successful completion of Internship requirements among school counselor trainees who were enrolled in Internship during some of the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Criterion and convenience sampling were utilized for participant recruitment. After the interviews were transcribed, the authors utilized thematic content analysis and identified six overarching themes. Following themes were identified: a) personal characteristics of grit, b) observations about gritty individuals, c) internal internship challenges, d) external internship challenges, e) internal contributors to internship success, f) external contributors to internship success. The authors present results on the participants’ perceptions of their experiences during internship to offer an enhanced description of the phenomenon of grit. Implications were provided for students, educators, and programs to foster grit as a contributing factor for student success and overall well-being

Exploring ostracism as a risk factor for smartphone addiction in young people: Resilience and nomophobia perspectives

Muhammet Coşkun — 2024-02-05

In today's world, the improper use of smartphones has become a growing problem. Such usage might be problematic as people see it as an escape from threats to their basic psychological needs caused by ostracism. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between ostracism and the risk of smartphone addiction. In addition, a moderated mediation model was explored to see whether nomophobia moderated the mediating role of resilience in the association between ostracism and the risk of smartphone addiction. The sample consisted of 320 young adults, ranging from 18 to 31 years. Data was gathered by using the Ostracism Experience Scale, the Brief Resilience Scale, Nomophobia Scale and Smartphone Addiction Scale. Results indicated a positive association between ostracism and the risk of smartphone addiction, and this association was mediated by resilience. While ostracism increases the risk of smartphone addiction, resilience emerges as a key ability in mitigating this undesired association. Furthermore, nomophobia moderated the mediating impact of resilience in the relationship between ostracism and the risk of smartphone addiction. Increased nomophobia put this mitigating influence of resilience in the shade. Resilience buffers the undesired relationship between social kiss of death (ostracism) and the risk of smartphone addiction in young individuals, but nomophobia frustrates this functional role of resilience. These findings were discussed in light of the relevant literature.

The impact of social-emotional skills on mental well-being among Chinese underprivileged-background students: Empirical evidence from SSES 2019

Jinpeng Niu — 2024-04-01

The present study investigated the impact of social-emotional skills on the mental well-being of Chinese underprivileged-background students (N = 1,811) based on the 2019 Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES 2019) data, separately using the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and the quantile regression (QR) methods. The OLS regression model indicated that the mental well-being of Chinese underprivileged-background students is significantly and positively affected by self-control, optimism, stress resilience, trust, curiosity, energy, and sociability, but significantly and negatively influenced by tolerance. Whereas, persistence, responsibility, emotional control, cooperation, empathy, creativity, and assertiveness had no significant impact on the students’ mental well-being. Further, the QR model revealed that the impact of social-emotional skills on the mental well-being of Chinese underprivileged-background students can be significant when the mental well-being is at a relatively moderate level, whereas being insignificantly related to the lowest and the highest level of the mental well-being. The results were discussed generally based on the characters of underprivileged-background students in Chinese educational context. Overall, the findings may provide several practical implications for policy application in social-emotional education and the improvement of mental well-being for Chinese underprivileged-background students.