Associations between Leisure Preferences, Mindfulness, Psychological Capital, and Life Satisfaction

The effectiveness of group counselling based on positive psychology on the psychology capital of students with premenstrual syndrome: a randomized controlled clinical trial

During menstruation, psychological capital (PsyCap) holds great potential for young women to manage and adapt to changes in their bodies and minds. This study aimed to investigate the effect of group counseling with a positive approach on the PsyCap of students with premenstrual syndrome (PMS). A randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted on 40 students with PMS in 2021. The students were allocated to either the intervention or control groups using a random sampling method of four blocks. The intervention group received six group counseling sessions based on Seligman's positive psychology protocol. Data were collected using McGee's PsyCap questionnaire before, immediately after, and two months later. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 16, and Chi-square, independent t-test, and analysis of variance of repeated measures (ANOVA) were utilized. Based on the results of the independent t-test, the mean PsyCap scores showed a significant increase immediately after the intervention and two months later in the intervention group (p-value = 0.001). Positive counseling effectively increased PsyCap scores. Future studies are warranted to further investigate the effectiveness of this method in managing PMS. Trial registration: IRCT20201113049377N1.

Psychological capital mediates the mindfulness-creativity link: the perspective of positive psychology

The positive mindfulness-creativity link has been widely documented; however, its underlying psychological mechanisms remain less understood. From the perspective of positive psychology, this study examined the mediating effect of psychological capital (PsyCap) on the effect of dispositional mindfulness on creative functioning. A total of 894 Chinese secondary school students in Hong Kong (50.8% female; M age = 15.5 years) completed the study. A cross-sectional design was used, in which context PsyCap and dispositional mindfulness were assessed by the Chinese version of the revised Compound PsyCap Scale (CPC-12R) and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), respectively. Moreover, by adopting the multiple-measurement approach to creativity, three commonly used creativity tests (i.e., the Wallach-Kogan Creativity Test/WKCT, the Test for Creative Thinking-Drawing Production/TCT-DP, and the Creative Problem-Solving Test/CPST) were applied to capture three aspects of creativity (i.e., divergent thinking, creative combination, and creative problem solving). The results suggest that (1) PsyCap partially but significantly mediated the mindfulness-creativity link for all three aspects of creative functioning, and (2) PsyCap demonstrated the strongest effect size in mediating the mindfulness-creativity link for creative problem solving, followed by creative combination and then divergent thinking. These results, on the one hand, support the positive psychology perspective by confirming a positive psychological resource mechanism regarding the relationship between mindfulness and creativity. On the other hand, the results regarding the varied sizes of the mediation effect further enrich the discourse on this perspective by showing that the mediation mechanism may function to different degrees depending on which aspect of creativity is under consideration. These findings illuminate the positive functioning of mindfulness, psychological resources/capital and creativity.

The Relationship among Internet Addiction, Moral Potency, Mindfulness, and Psychological Capital

This research aimed to contribute to the literature on internet addiction (IA) and moral development among university students. Moral potency (MP) encompasses the interconnected dimensions of moral courage, moral ownership, and moral efficacy. Studies on the relationships between students' problematic behaviors (e.g., IA) and cognitive processes like MP, mindfulness (MI), and psychological capital (PsyCap) are scarce in educational research. Therefore, this study investigated the relationships among IA, MP, MI, and PsyCap in university students. This study included 868 undergraduate students from a state university in Ethiopia, with 526 male students (60.6%) and 342 female students (39.4%). Participants' ages ranged from 21 to 29 years, with a mean age of 22.31 and a standard deviation of 4.03. The findings indicated that IA was negatively correlated with MI, PsyCap, and MP. Both MI and PsyCap showed positive correlations with MP. Importantly, this study revealed that IA had a direct and negative impact on MI, PsyCap, and MP. Further, MI and PsyCap partially mediated and fully mediated the relationship between IA and MP. These findings suggest that cultivating MI and positive PsyCap among university students could be an important strategy to reduce the risks of IA and enhance their moral development. This study contributes to the limited research on the complex relationships between technology use, psychological resources, and moral functioning in emerging adulthood.

[Effectiveness of Four-Week Mindfulness-Based Training on Life Satisfaction]

The training of the present work was designed based on the study by Demarzo and colleagues (2017), in which a four-week mindfulness-based intervention showed a similar effectiveness as the eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction training. A sample of 120 participants was divided into an experimental group (n=80) and a control group (n=40) which filled out questionnaires about their mindfulness (Mindful Attention and Awareness Scale (MAAS)) and life satisfaction (Fragebogen zur allgemeinen Lebenszufriedenheit (FLZ), Kurzskala Lebenszufriedenheit-1 (L-1)) at two measurement times. It was shown that the mindfulness ability of the experimental group increased after the training and differed significantly (p=0,05) both from the first measurement point and from the control group at both measurement points. The same was true for life satisfaction, which was measured using a multi-item scale.

Online experimental research on the psychological capital development of new venture entrepreneur under the COVID-19 pneumonia epidemic

The global economy has been severely traumatized by the COVID-19 pandemic, and new ventures are under tremendous pressure to survive. This paper explores whether structured reading materials and mindfulness intervention can develop entrepreneurs' psychological capital and whether there are different effects on different development methods. We recruited 112 new venture entrepreneurs and carried out an online experiment using the experimental group, the control group, and the pre-test and post-test design; at last, 83 of whom participated in the process can be assessed for psychological capital development effect. The research findings indicated that structured reading materials could effectively improve the overall psychological capital of the subjects (t = -5.574，p < 0.01) and impact in every dimension, including self-efficacy (Z = -2.858, p < 0.01), hope (t = -3.560, p < 0.01), resilience (t = -4.368, p < 0.01) and optimism (Z = -3.300, p < 0.01). In comparison, mindfulness intervention can improve the subjects' overall psychological capital (Z = -3.293, p < 0.01) and improve levels of self-efficacy (Z = -2.285, p < 0.01), hope (t = -4.244, p < 0.01), resilience (t = -3.167, p < 0.01), but limited effect on the optimism (t = -1.955, p > 0.05); In addition, there is no significant difference between structured reading materials and mindfulness intervention according to the statistical analysis.