Eudaimonia as a Way of Living: Connecting Aristotle with Self-Determination Theory

Self-Determination Theory as a Framework for Research and Design of Digital Applications for Nurses' Well-Being

AIM

To establish the suitability of self-determination theory as a theoretical framework to inform research and design of digital applications for nurses' well-being.

DESIGN AND METHOD

This discursive paper describes the background and core premises of self-determination theory and explains its relevance as a theoretical framework to support research and the design of digital applications to promote nurses' well-being.

FINDINGS

Increasing numbers of digital applications are being used by nurses, but few are supported by clearly explicated theoretical frameworks. Self-determination theory focuses on how people's innate psychological needs interact and are influenced by the social environments where they live and work. Given the influence the social environment can have on well-being, self-determination theory is well suited as a theoretical framework to inform research and design of digital applications promoting nurses' well-being.

CONCLUSIONS

Stress and burnout impact nurses worldwide, to the detriment of staff well-being, their retention in health services, and provision of patient care. The rapid development and ubiquitous use of digital applications by nurses make researching their effectiveness vitally important if nurses' well being is to be supported. Self-determination theory provides a theoretical framework useful for these applications.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSION

Through the lens of self-determination theory, researchers, digital application designers, and organisations can garner further insights to support digital application development and implementation for the well-being of nurses.

IMPACT

This paper has international relevance and can assist researchers, application designers, and organisations interested in promoting nurses' well-being through understanding the applicability and usefulness of self-determination theory as a theoretical framework for the design of digital applications for nurses' well-being.

PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION

No Patient or Public Contribution.

Self-focused autonomy, other-focused pro-sociality, and well-being: a cross-national cluster analysis

Through cluster analysis, this study seeks to identify various clusters that differ in the level of self-focused and other-focused caring (e.g., autonomy and pro-sociality) and to contrast the happiness and life satisfaction among them. This approach is based on the notion that unifying autonomy and pro-sociality is more advantageous than separating them for well-being, which follows the theories and empirical studies. The World Value Survey dataset (N = 76897; Mage = 43.02, SD = 16.37) is used, which uses random probability representative adult samples from 51 countries or territories. Results suggest that autonomy and pro-sociality both have distinct implications for happiness and life satisfaction. Four distinct clusters are identified: autonomous (high self-focused and low other-focused), prosocial (low self-focused and high other-focused), flourished (high self-focused and high other-focused), and indifferent (low self-focused and low other-focused). In terms of indicators of well-being, the flourished group has the highest levels of happiness and life satisfaction, followed by the autonomous group, the prosocial group, and the indifferent group. It appears that individuals who exhibit both high self-focused and high other-focused caring attain the greatest well-being. The implications, limitations, and potential directions for future research are discussed.

Enjoyment in Sport and Alcohol Use among Adolescents: Examining the Mediating Role of Engagement

BACKGROUND

Alcohol consumption among young people is a significant public health concern. Previous studies have indicated that participation in sports, through the positive experiences it offers, may function as a protective factor against alcohol intake. This study aimed to examine the influence of enjoyment and personal fulfillment on adolescent alcohol use, exploring the role of engagement with sports as a mediating variable.

METHODS

A total of 370 adolescents (mean age = 15.08; SD = 1.48) participated in the study and completed the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, the Enjoyment in Sports Scale, and the Athlete Engagement Questionnaire.

RESULTS

The results demonstrated that enjoyment is related to lower alcohol consumption through personal fulfillment and engagement in sporting activity.

CONCLUSIONS

It is crucial to facilitate positive experiences in sport that promote engagement and generate a sense of personal fulfillment, as these factors may reduce the likelihood of risky alcohol consumption.

Clarifying Eudaimonia and Psychological Functioning to Complement Evaluative and Experiential Well-Being: Why Basic Psychological Needs Should Be Measured in National Accounts of Well-Being

Measuring subjective well-being as a key indicator of national wellness has increasingly become part of the international agenda. Current recommendations for measuring well-being at a national level propose three separate dimensions: evaluative well-being, experiential well-being, and eudaimonia. Whereas the measurement of the first two dimensions is relatively standardized, the third category has remained undertheorized, lacking consensus on how to define and operationalize it. To remedy the situation, we propose that the third dimension should focus on psychological functioning and the identification of key psychological factors humans generally need to live well. A key part of psychological functioning is the satisfaction of basic psychological needs-specific types of satisfying experiences that are essential for psychological health and well-being. Psychological needs as a category provides a parsimonious set of elements with clear inclusion criteria that are strongly anchored in theory and our current understanding of human nature-and could thus form a core part of the third, "eudaimonic" dimension of well-being. The needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness have especially received broad empirical support. Accordingly, national accounts of well-being should include measures for key psychological needs to gain an enriched and practically useful understanding of the well-being of the citizens.

What makes a student feel vital? Links between teacher-student relatedness and teachers’ engaging messages

Recent studies suggest that teacher messages can affect students’ well-being. Using a multilevel, variable, and person-centred approach, this study aimed to identify profiles of students according to their teachers’ use of engaging messages and analyse the relation among these profiles and teacher-student relatedness and students’ subjective vitality. A total of 1209 students participated in the study. At the student-level, profile analysis indicated the existence of four different profiles: the few messages profile, the autonomous motivational appeals profile, the loss-framed messages profile, and the gain-framed messages profile. At the teacher level, profile analysis indicated the existence of two profiles: the variant and the invariant profiles. Results showed that overall, at both levels of analysis, teachers’ engaging messages related with teacher-student relatedness (either positively or negatively) with clear differences among profiles. Moreover, also at both levels of analysis, teacher-student relatedness related with students’ subjective vitality. Main findings and implications for practice are discussed.

Eudaimonia in Crisis: How Ethical Purpose Finding Transforms Crisis

In a fast-paced and interconnected global economy, a crisis is an eventuality for most organizations. Leading during a crisis can be particularly challenging because a crisis can disrupt a firm’s purpose, undermine the motivation of employees, and can encourage unethical behavior. In this article, I focus on managing a crisis of purpose. I articulate a framework that elaborates ways in which leaders find and pursue ethical purposes during times of crisis and why these specific purposes motivate employees and encourage organizational resilience. Drawing on modern scholars’ theory of eudaimonia, I propose that leaders can find ethical purposes by framing crisis as opportunities for growth, authenticity, meaning and excellence. When leaders establish and pursue ethical purposes, they can motivate individuals and promote organizational resilience.

Are Tourism Practitioners Happy? The Role of Explanatory Style Played on Tourism Practitioners’ Psychological Well-Being

Research on tourism has gradually focused on the study of well-being, but relatively little attention has been paid to the psychological well-being of tourism practitioners. This study adopted the theoretical lens of explanatory style and the PERMA model (P = positive emotion, E = engagement, R = relationships, M = meaning, A = accomplishment) to investigate the influence of tourism practitioners’ explanatory style on their psychological well-being (PWB). The survey study demonstrated that explanatory style was significantly related to PWB; whilst an optimistic explanatory style was positively related to PWB, a pessimistic explanatory style was negatively related to it. Additionally, in the context of Chinese culture, tourism practitioners were inclined to attribute PWB to internal, stable, and specific causes. This study falls within the extensive field of occupational health psychology and theoretically contributes to the literature by connecting positive psychology and its effects on practitioners in the tourism context. Meanwhile, there are similarities and differences between the PWB and explanatory style in the Chinese cultural context and in the Western context. This finding has practical implications for generalizing the PWB of tourism practitioners in different cultural backgrounds, especially in countries with Eastern cultural backgrounds, further improving the sustainable development of tourism destinations.

Clarifying the Concept of Well-Being: Psychological Need Satisfaction as the Common Core Connecting Eudaimonic and Subjective Well-Being

Interest in the experience of well-being, as both a research topic and as a policy goal, has significantly increased in recent decades. Although subjective well-being (SWB)—composed of positive affect, low negative affect, and life satisfaction—is the most commonly used measure of well-being, many experts have argued that another important dimension of well-being, often referred to as eudaimonic well-being (EWB), should be measured alongside SWB. EWB, however, has been operationalized in at least 45 different ways, using measures of at least 63 different constructs. These diverse measurement strategies often have little overlap, leading to discrepant results and making the findings of different studies difficult to compare. Building on the Eudaimonic Activity Model, we propose a tripartite conception of well-being, distinguishing between eudaimonic motives/activities, psychological need satisfaction, and SWB, arguing that the needs category provides a parsimonious set of elements at the core of the well-being construct. Based on the self-determination theory claim that all human beings share evolved psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, we show that satisfaction of all three needs directly affect SWB and other health and wellness outcomes, can efficiently explain the effects of various behaviors and conditions upon well-being outcomes, and are universally impactful across cultures. We conclude that routinely measuring psychological needs alongside SWB within national and international surveys would give policymakers a parsimonious way to assess eudaimonic dimensions of wellness and provide powerful mediator variables for explaining how various cultural, economic, and social factors concretely affect citizens’ well-being and health.

Distinguishing between basic psychological needs and basic wellness enhancers: the case of beneficence as a candidate psychological need

In order to be considered a basic psychological need, a candidate need should fulfill several criteria, including need satisfaction having a unique positive effect on well-being, and need frustration having a unique effect on ill-being, properties demonstrated by autonomy, competence and relatedness. Previous research has demonstrated that beneficence satisfaction—the sense of having a positive impact on other people—can have a unique positive effect on well-being. In the present study, we examined whether beneficence frustration—the sense of having a negative impact on other people—would be uniquely connected to ill-being. In the first study (N = 332; Mage = 38) we developed a scale to assess beneficence frustration. Then, in two subsequent cross-sectional studies (N = 444 and N = 426; Mage = 38/36) beneficence frustration is correlated with indicators of ill-being (negative affect, depression, anxiety, physical symptoms), but this connection disappears when controlling for the effects of autonomy, competence and relatedness need frustrations. The three needs fully mediate relations between beneficence frustration and all assessed well-being and ill-being indicators in both studies. This leads us to suggest a distinction between basic psychological needs and basic wellness enhancers, the satisfaction of which may improve well-being, but the neglect or frustration of which might not uniquely impact ill-being.

Positive balance: a hierarchical perspective of positive mental health

An attempt is made in this paper to provide the community of health-related quality-of-life scholars with a hierarchical perspective of positive mental health guided by the concept of positive balance. Specifically, individuals with positive mental health are characterized to experience: (1) a preponderance of neurochemicals related to positive emotions (dopamine, serotonin, etc.) relative to neurochemicals related to negative emotions (cortisol), at a physiological level; (2) a preponderance of positive affect (happiness, joy, etc.) relative to negative affect (anger, sadness, etc.), at an emotional level; (3) a preponderance of domain satisfaction (satisfaction in salient and multiple life domains such as family life and work life) relative to dissatisfaction in other life domains, at a cognitive level; (4) a preponderance of positive evaluations about one's life using certain standards of comparison (satisfaction with one's life compared to one's past life, the life of family members, etc.) relative to negative evaluations about one's life using similar or other standards of comparison, at a meta-cognitive level; (5) a preponderance of positive psychological traits (self-acceptance, personal growth, etc.) relative to negative psychological traits (pessimism, hopelessness, etc.), at a development level; and (6) a preponderance of perceived social resources (social acceptance, social actualization, etc.) relative to perceived social constraints (social exclusion, ostracism, etc.), at a social-ecological level.

Reflections on self-determination theory as an organizing framework for personality psychology: Interfaces, integrations, issues, and unfinished business

OBJECTIVE

This special issue focuses on self-determination theory (SDT) as an integrative framework for the wider field of personality research. In this commentary our aims include: reflecting on the utility and strengths of SDT as such a general framework and responding to the various contributions in this issue regarding their use of SDT as a guiding, complementary, or contrasting framework.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We describe how SDT has developed organically and conservatively from "within" based on the emerging patterns of evidence, as well through the ongoing challenges from other models and frameworks. We then discuss each of the various contributions to this special issue, addressing themes that include SDT's breadth of methods, and its relevance to topics such as narcissism, wisdom, individual differences, Big-Five traits, and the neuropsychology of motivation, among others. Across these discussions, we highlight fruitful avenues for research and cross-fertilization across the fields of personality, development, motivation, and neuroscience. At the same time, we counter some claims made about SDT, and forward certain cautions regarding the integration of SDT and other personality frameworks and models.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude by revisiting the value of broad theory, and SDT in particular, for coordinating complex research findings concerning motivation, personality development and wellness across multiple levels of analysis and, perhaps more importantly, for pointing researchers to the right questions within today's prolific empiricism.