The Neuroscience of Happiness and Well-Being: What Brain Findings from Optimism and Compassion Reveal

Psychosocial factors that predict happiness: A multigroup path analysis

BACKGROUND

Happiness has been of importance in different cultures because of its importance for biopsychosocial development in humans. Therefore, it is relevant to identify factors that can promote happiness, such as optimism, gratitude, mental health and psychological well-being. This study's aim was to test predictors of happiness in a Mexican sample.

METHOD

A nonexperimental and cross-sectional design was used, as well as a non-probabilistic sampling method. Four scales were applied to measure optimism, gratitude, psychological well-being, and happiness in 250 Mexican participants, as well as mental and physical health self-assessments. Descriptive analysis, hierarchical regression models, path analysis and multigroup analysis were used.

RESULTS

The hierarchical regression model obtained an explained variance of 57.4 %, while the structural model was 31.53 %. It was observed that a higher degree of gratitude predicted psychological well-being and happiness, while a higher optimism predicted a higher psychological well-being (β = 0.231, p = .001), mental health (β = 0.255, p = .001) and happiness (β = 0.518, p = .001). Multigroup analysis identified differences in these effects, where participant sex, marital status and religion were moderating variables.

CONCLUSIONS

The identification of the mediating and moderating variables of the direct and indirect effects of happiness will allow the development of intervention strategies to promote happiness in the population.

A nurse-led positive psychological intervention among elderly community-dwelling adults with mild cognitive impairment and depression: A non-randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND

Older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and depression have a higher dementia conversion rate, which requires timely intervention.

OBJECTIVES

A non-randomized controlled trial was conducted to explore the effect of a nurse-led positive psychological intervention (PPI) in relieving depression and promoting cognition in this population.

METHODS

A total of 70 older adults were enrolled, with 35 each in the intervention and control groups. The control group received one-to-one health education, and the intervention group received a 40- to 60-minute PPI for eight successive weeks.

RESULTS

During the intervention, most participants reached the standard of active participation, and 2.86% continued to complete homework every day during follow-up. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) score in the intervention group was significantly lower than that in the control group at the end of intervention (t = -3.64, p < 0.05) and at 3-month follow-up (t = -4.48, p < 0.05). Interaction effects of time and group on PHQ-9 scores (F = 8.11, p < 0.001), with significant differences between the groups in scores (F = 9.11, p < 0.05) and times (F = 23.58, p < 0.05) was observed. In the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) scale, the intervention group had significantly higher scores than controls at the end of intervention (t = 7.28, p < 0.05) and 3-month follow-up (t = 8.01, p < 0.05). Cognition in the two groups was significantly affected by intergroup effects (F = 42.80, p < 0.001), interaction effects (F = 30.38, p < 0.001), and time effects (F = 33.67, p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Although the effects tended to decrease in follow-up, the nurse-led PPI was feasible and valid in relieving depression and promoting cognition among older participants with MCI and depression. The present findings warrant further exploration.

TWEETABLE ABSTRACT

A nurse-led positive psychological intervention was applicable among elderly MCI adults with depression and effective in relieving depression and promoting cognition.

Childhood Adversity, Emotional Well-Being, Loneliness, and Optimism: a National Study

Optimism and loneliness, which reflect the expected inverse associations with excess morbidity and mortality, are theoretically and empirically associated with early adversities and offer potential avenues for clinical support. The current study first estimates latent classes of adverse childhood experiences and, second, assesses the role of these experiences on later reports of optimism and loneliness in late adolescence and emerging adulthood, and the role of emotional regulation and common mental disorders. Surveys were conducted in a longitudinal household sample of adolescents recruited in 2013 (average age of 20 at wave 6 follow-ups). The analytic sample included 1177 female and male respondents representative of their age group in the USA at baseline. Latent classes were estimated based on 10 indicators of childhood adversity. Respondents were assigned to classes using posterior probabilities of latent class membership, and class membership was used to predict psychological outcomes in multivariable models. Three latent classes of childhood adversity were identified in the current sample, representing low childhood adversity (81.5%), higher probability of family dysfunction with lower levels of interpersonal abuse (13.4%), and high adversity including higher probabilities of parental discord and violence as well as child abuse (5.1%). Both classes of respondents who faced greater childhood adversity were more likely to report greater loneliness and lower optimism in emerging adulthood. Results were attenuated by measures of emotional well-being. Addressing adolescent loneliness and supporting optimistic outlooks in emerging adulthood are two pathways with potential benefits to reduce mental and physical morbidities.

Consciousness Beyond Neural Fields: Expanding the Possibilities of What Has Not Yet Happened

In the field theories in physics, any particular region of the presumed space-time continuum and all interactions between elementary objects therein can be objectively measured and/or accounted for mathematically. Since this does not apply to any of the field theories, or any other neural theory, of consciousness, their explanatory power is limited. As discussed in detail herein, the matter is complicated further by the facts than any scientifically operational definition of consciousness is inevitably partial, and that the phenomenon has no spatial dimensionality. Under the light of insights from research on meditation and expanded consciousness, chronic pain syndrome, healthy aging, and eudaimonic well-being, we may conceive consciousness as a source of potential energy that has no clearly defined spatial dimensionality, but can produce significant changes in others and in the world, observable in terms of changes in time. It is argued that consciousness may have evolved to enable the human species to generate such changes in order to cope with unprecedented and/or unpredictable adversity. Such coping could, ultimately, include the conscious planning of our own extinction when survival on the planet is no longer an acceptable option.