Relations of admiration and adoration with other emotions and well-being

Canine Support Program: Student perceptions and preferences at a regional university and implications for health, well-being, and student support enhancements

ISSUE ADDRESSED

Canine Support Programs (CSPs) are a potential solution to growing university student support demands. While current studies focus on the impacts of CSPs, there is limited understanding of the views and expectations of tertiary students about CSPs. This study explored the perceptions and preferences of students in an Australian regional university about CSPs.

METHODS

A questionnaire with multiple choice and open-ended questions surveyed residential students' perspectives about CSP. Data were analysed using descriptive statistical tests and thematic analysis for open responses.

RESULTS

Majority (98%) of participants (sample n = 48) would support a CSP on campus. Frequent, small-group interactions of ≥15 min involving physical contact were preferred. Dog disposition, welfare-trained handlers, and veterinary certification were important aspects of program safety. Participants strongly agreed a CSP would improve mental health and well-being, relieve stress, reduce feelings of homesickness, provide support, comfort, and enable social interactions.

CONCLUSION

There is strong support among the study population for CSP to be established on campus. This study supports earlier research that CSP has benefit potential for new, stressed, and/or students who love dogs. The preferences of students should inform program design to enhance utility and impact. This aligns with Health Promoting Universities and College's Okanagan Charter principle of 'engaging student voices'. More institutional awareness and support for CSPs will be necessary for integration. SO WHAT?: This study reveals the need for tailored and creative student support beyond traditional offerings including those that focus on student well-being and social initiatives. CSPs can be utilised as an advocate, enabler, and medium for mental health promotion action and well-being support for tertiary students; thereby, contributing to the 'Health Promoting University' agenda in Australia. It also reinforces the need for a Health in All Policies approach to be incorporated into our tertiary education sector. Future actions should focus on improving institutional awareness, support, and sector implementation.

The dynamics of prayer in daily life and implications for well-being

Prayer is an important aspect of many people's daily lives, yet little is known about the relationships between prayer and daily experiences and well-being in ecologically valid settings. In three studies, participants (N = 350) completed questionnaires once a day for 2 weeks (4,437 daily reports) regarding the events they experienced each day, their emotions, well-being, and the prominence of the four types of prayer constituting the ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication) taxonomy. Thanksgiving and adoration were more prominent in prayers on days when positive events were reported and well-being was high (relative to individuals' own average reports of positive events and well-being). In contrast, supplication was more prominent on days when negative events were reported and well-being was low. Relationships between daily events, states of well-being, and prayers of confession were mixed. Lagged analyses indicated that present-day supplication, thanksgiving, and adoration negatively predicted well-being the following day. These lagged effects were weaker among people who prayed more frequently. Finally, each prayer type was predicted by distinct, nonreligious emotional states-supplication by envy, thanksgiving by gratitude, confession by guilt, and adoration by awe. By moving beyond cross-sectional and experimental paradigms, we have provided insights about the dynamic nature of prayer through repeated measurement in naturalistic contexts. The content of individuals' prayers reflects their daily experiences and has consequences for their well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Are Celebrities Really Admired for Their Morality?

This study examines whether the admiration of celebrities is the same or different from admiration of other persons. The Multidimensional Admiration Scale, Rubin's Liking Scale, and the Celebrity Attitude Scale were administered to 190 participants from four American universities. Participants were randomly assigned to fill out either the "most admired person" version or the "favorite celebrity" version (n = 96) of the three scales. We hypothesized that the Multidimensional Admiration Scale is a valid measure of admiration for individuals who are familiar with the morality of the target person, but is invalid for measuring admiration for celebrities. Arguably, this is partly because celebrities are admired mostly for their ability to entertain, and not their morality, which is often unknown or little is known to their fans. The results generally confirmed our hypotheses. The Multidimensional Admiration Scale was not intended as a measure of admiration for celebrities and is not recommended to be used for that purpose.

Pride, Shame, and Group Identification

Self-conscious emotions such as shame and pride are emotions that typically focus on the self of the person who feels them. In other words, the intentional object of these emotions is assumed to be the subject that experiences them. Many reasons speak in its favor and yet this account seems to leave a question open: how to cash out those cases in which one genuinely feels ashamed or proud of what someone else does? This paper contends that such cases do not necessarily challenge the idea that shame and pride are about the emoting subject. Rather, we claim that some of the most paradigmatic scenarios of shame and pride induced by others can be accommodated by taking seriously the consideration that, in such cases, the subject “group-identifies” with the other. This is the idea that, in feeling these forms of shame or pride, the subject is conceiving of herself as a member of the same group as the subject acting shamefully or in an admirable way. In other words, these peculiar emotive responses are elicited in the subject insofar as, and to the extent that, she is (or sees herself as being) a member of a group – the group to which those who act shamefully or admirably also belong. By looking into the way in which the notion of group identification can allow for an account of hetero-induced shame and pride, this paper attempts to achieve a sort of mutual enlightenment that brings to light not only an important and generally neglected form of self-conscious emotions, but also relevant features of group identification. In particular, it generates evidence for the idea that group identification is a psychological process that the subject does not have to carry out intentionally in the sense that it is not necessarily triggered by the subject’s conative states like desires or intentions.

Mastery matters most: How mastery and positive relations link attachment avoidance and anxiety to negative emotions

Attachment avoidance and anxiety are associated with negative emotions. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations are not fully understood. We investigated environmental mastery and positive relations with others as two mechanisms behind the attachment-emotion link in a sample of 343 adults. As predicted, attachment avoidance and anxiety were related to greater fear, hostility, envy and depression through lower mastery. Contrary to our hypothesis, positive relations mediated only the attachment-depression link. In addition, by adopting a moderated mediation approach, we were able to show that mastery mattered most for individuals high on avoidance: The indirect effect of avoidance through lack of mastery on fear, hostility and depression (but not on envy) increased with higher avoidance scores. Contrary to our predictions, poor relationships did not matter more as sources of negative emotions as anxiety increased. These findings underscore that the emotional life of avoidantly attached individuals is especially jeopardised by poor mastery.