Journal of Happiness and Health

Responsibility was regarded as essential for wellbeing, and measuring this construct is warranted to develop strategies that promote people’s mental health and well-being. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the initial development and validation of the Responsibility Scale (RS) to measure the sense of responsibility of individuals. Participants included two independent samples, comprising of 284 adults, ranging in age between 18 and 84 years. Sample 1 was used to conducted the exploratory factor analysis and comprised of 152 adults (65% female), ranging in age from 18 to 82 years (M = 43.18, SD = 14.68). Sample 2 was used to conduct the confirmatory factor analysis. The sample consisted of 132 adults (56% female), ranging in age from 18 to 84 years (M = 29.08, SD = 12.45). Findings from exploratory factor analysis revealed the RS provided a two–factor solution comprising of 8 items that accounted for 46% of the variance, with equal items targeting characteristics of both personal and social responsibility. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the two–factor latent structure, providing good data-model fit statistics. Further results also showed that the internal reliability of the scale and its subscales were strong.  Finally, the latent path model revealed that the first– and high–order measurement model had positive and significant predictive effects on life satisfaction and negative predictive effects on psychological distress, accounting for the approximately large variance in the variables. Overall, the results suggest that the RS could be used to assess personal and social responsibility among adults.

This study aimed to investigate the mental health and wellbeing literacy of Australian adults by examining their ability to correctly discriminate mental health and wellbeing indicators. Mental health indicators were symptoms of Major Depression Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Wellbeing indicators were derived from the European Social Survey (ESS) personal wellbeing module and reflect hedonic, eudaimonic and social wellbeing domains.  A sample of 705 Australian adults aged > 18 years (M = 50; SD = 15.9) were recruited to an online survey and assigned into one of two conditions in which indicators were either negatively (N_condition1 = 359) or positively (N_condition2 = 346) framed. In an initial discrimination task, participants were generally able to correctly identify indicators as reflecting mental health or wellbeing. While those in the positive condition reported slightly higher literacy, this was attributed to differences on only a couple of items. In a second discrimination task, participants were provided the additional option of classifying indicators as reflecting “both mental health and wellbeing” which, in both conditions, was how most participants generally classified both wellbeing and mental health indicators. Although many wellbeing and mental health researchers carefully discriminate between wellbeing and mental health, for lay community members, this distinction may be less important. These findings have implications for theoretical frameworks of mental health and wellbeing, may inform clinical practice, and can be used to improve the quality of educational campaigns targeting community mental health and wellbeing literacy.

Achieving happiness is essential to boost social emotional development among children and youth with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, there has been limited reviews on a wide range of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that facilitate well-being outcomes among individuals with ASD. This review article provides a summary on dispositional, social, and contextual factors that promote well-being among children and adolescents with autism. Personal factors that have been found to influence happiness among individuals with autism include personality, self-esteem, and emotion regulation. Social factors such as parents, peers or friends, and teachers also contribute to well-being among youth with ASD. Importantly, the role of contextual and broader ecological factors such as inclusive educational policies has been elaborated.

The harmful consequences of domestic violence on children’s lives have been widely reported in the literature. However, the influences of exposure to domestic violence or witnessing violence in the family on the children’s experiences of being a bully or victimized of bullying have not been paid sufficient attention in child mental health field. A critical literature review was the method of this article. Electronic databases about the relationship between bullying behavior and mental health by recognizing the consequences of domestic violence on children’s lives were searched. Exposure to domestic violence might be associated with children’s problematic behavior. Also, children might be bullied by peers at schools and behave aggressively. This article aims to explore the relationships between experiencing domestic violence and bullying behavior and being peer victimization by focusing on child mental health and intervention efforts. Understanding how children witness violence and how school bullying might be linked with witnessing violence is a goal of the study. Bullying can be recognized as a result of domestic violence incidence and this can improve effective interventions for children’s mental health and overall well-being. Thus, a deeper understanding of how child mental health conditions might be interconnected with bullying behavior within complex and dynamic domestic violence cases was explored.