On the Social Aspects of Unemployment: The Case of Life Satisfaction

Unemployment is related to economic, political and social aspects. One of the least analysed social aspects is the relationship between unemployment and the (individual) perceived levels of well-being, such as life satisfaction or happiness. This chapter complements previous work on the subject, using a panel-data econometrics methodology to analyze the relationship between unemployment and life satisfaction in a wide range of countries worldwide. The results confirm that unemployment has a negative effect, statistically significant, on life satisfaction, either for men or for women.

Efeitos secundários da quimioterapia antineoplásica e seu impacto na qualidade de vida em cães e gatos com doença oncológica

Mestrado Integrado em Medicina Veterinária

Traditional games are recovered from generation to generation

Communities, neighborhoods, and other environments are currently immersed in a series of situations and problems that have favored the deterioration of social, cultural and spiritual values, which are essential for harmony with oneself, others, and the environment. Stereotypes have captured minds and settings have been reduced to indoor spaces, hemmed in by security bars and protective devices.  Peace, fraternity and happiness are diminishing.  It is at this point that the social, spiritual and professional work of specialists in the recreational field contributes to rescue and restructure society. Traditional games and singing games are then the tools used to facilitate relationships, contribute to the learning process, and exhibit skills.  They are fundamental in a person’s life since they are a social and cultural expression of how humans have adapted to their environment (Maestro, 2005).  They do not take ethnicity, age, sex or social conditions into consideration.  Traditional games are also a way of promoting health, improving motor, cognitive and emotional skills and a means of encouraging creativity and imagination and developing a sense of rhythm.  Their goal is to attain a state of personal well-being.  They are a way to release tension and accumulated energy and to get away from the daily routine.  They represent a bridge to learn about oneself, the environment, values, habits, and traditions. In this document, readers will learn how traditional games are transmitted, what their characteristics are, why they are an important tool in today’s society, how they are prepared, and how they can be revived and preserved.

Êthos y Eudaimonía en la Ethika de Aristóteles

The focus of Aristotelian ethics is not to understand the essence of virtue, but rather the formation of underlying principles which define each individual’s ethics (êthos) that promotes happiness (eudaimonía) as their ultimate end. In this article I will emphasize the relationship between eudaimonía and ethos. This is relevant because êthos may be interpreted as source (pegé) from decisions as character or imprint, (charaktér) thanks to actions performed in order to reach eudaimonía.

“You’re a whole group of people singing”: sharing and learning together in The Choir of the Hawthorn U3A

For older people group music making can assist them remain independent and active in the community. Across Melbourne there are many non-competitive leisure based choirs made of older, active volunteer participants. This paper presents the findings of a phenomenological qualitative case study that was undertaken with members of The Choir of the U3A Hawthorn. This group is auspiced by the international University of the Third Age (U3A) that promotes life-long learning and personal fulfilment amongst older people. In 2008 we began a large joint ongoing research project between Deakin University and Monash University, Well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts in Victoria. In 2013 members of the U3A Hawthorn Choir were interviewed about their perceived benefits concerning active music engagement in choir membership. Participants recounted joining the group for different reasons including a positive attitude to singing, convenience, and a desire for social connectedness. Those interviewed considered ongoing choir membership an effective use of leisure time that also provided opportunities for shared learning and personal validation. The data were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and are reported under two themes: Music engagement and Social connections. Membership of the Hawthorn U3A choir provided participants opportunities for friendship, companionship, happiness, a sense of belonging, and acceptance. This resilient community music group (first formed in 1996) has maintained a busy schedule of rehearsals and performances. This music making offers significant ways for older people to maintain well-being and contribute to the wider community.

The lived experience of volunteering in a palliative care biography service

OBJECTIVE: Many patients approaching death experience hopelessness, helplessness, and a depressed mood, and these factors can contribute to a difficult end-of-life (EoL) period. Biography services may assist patients in finding meaning and purpose at this time. The aim of our study was to investigate the lived experience of volunteers involved in a biography service in Melbourne, Australia, using a qualitative methodology. METHOD: The participants were 10 volunteers who had participated in a biography service within a private palliative care service. Each volunteer was interviewed separately using a study-specific semistructured interview guide. The transcripts of these interviews were then subjected to thematic analysis. RESULTS: Analysis yielded the following themes: motivations for volunteering; dealing with death, dying, and existential issues; psychosocial benefits of volunteering; and benefits and challenges of working with patients and their families. Our results indicated that volunteering gave the volunteers a deeper appreciation of existential issues, and helped them to be more appreciative of their own lives and gain a deeper awareness of the struggles other people experience. They also suggested that volunteers felt that their involvement contributed to their own personal development, and was personally rewarding. Furthermore, the results highlighted that volunteers found that encounters with family members were sometimes challenging. While some were appreciative, others imposed time limits, became overly reliant on the volunteers, and were sometimes offended, hurt, and angered by what was included in the final biography. SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS: It is hoped that the findings of the current study will provide direction for improvements in the biography services that will benefit patients, family members, and volunteers. In particular, our findings highlight the need to provide ongoing support for volunteers to assist them in handling the challenges of volunteering in a palliative care setting.

Change in well-being amongst participants in a four-month pedometer-based workplace health program

BACKGROUND: There is increasing uptake of workplace physical activity programs to prevent chronic disease. While they are frequently evaluated for improvement in biomedical risk factors there has been little evaluation of additional benefits for psychosocial health. We aimed to evaluate whether participation in a four-month, team-based, pedometer-based workplace health program known to improve biomedical risk factors is associated with an improvement in well-being, immediately after the program and eight-months after program completion.

METHODS: At baseline (2008), 762 adults (aged 40 ± 10 SD years, 42% male) employed in primarily sedentary occupations and voluntarily enrolled in a physical activity program were recruited from ten Australian worksites. Data was collected at baseline, at the completion of the four-month program and eight-months after program completion. The outcome was the WHO-Five Well-being Index (WHO-5), a self-administered five-item scale that can be dichotomised as 'poor' (less than 52%) or 'positive' (more than or equal to 52%) well-being.

RESULTS: At baseline, 75% of participants had positive well-being (mean: 60 ± 19 SD WHO-5 units). On average, well-being improved immediately after the health program (+3.5 units, p < 0.001) and was sustained eight-months later (+3.4 units from baseline, p < 0.001). In the 25% with poor well-being at baseline, 49.5% moved into the positive well-being category immediately after program completion, sustained eight-months later (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS: Clinically relevant immediate and sustained improvements in well-being were observed after participation in the health program. These results suggest that participation in workplace programs, such as the one evaluated here, also has the potential to improve well-being.

Height, weight and well-being for rural, urban and migrant workers in China

In general, the happiness literature has paid little attention to the relationship between physical appearance and well-being. In this paper, we examine the link between weight, height and well-being for three distinct samples in China given that attractiveness effects likely vary greatly across sociocultural contexts. As China has recently undergone rapid economic transformation in the urban areas, this empirical exercise is particularly interesting because it can highlight how changing social norms have affected the relationship between physical appearance and subjective well-being. For the rural and migrant samples, we find that for both men and women, big and tall individuals have higher levels of well-being. This is consistent with the notion that the strong are better off when more labor intensive work is the norm. For the urban sample and for urban males in particular, no well-being penalty is found for being obese, unlike previous results based on Western samples. It is very likely that the unique Chinese cultural practice of network building banquets and feasting is behind this finding.

Creating symbolic cultures of consumption: an analysis of the content of sports wagering advertisements in Australia

BACKGROUND: Since 2008, Australia has seen the rapid emergence of marketing for online and mobile sports wagering. Previous research from other areas of public health, such as tobacco and alcohol, has identified the range of appeal strategies these industries used to align their products with culturally valued symbols. However, there is very limited research that has investigated the tactics the sports wagering industry uses within marketing to influence the consumption of its products and services.

METHOD: This study consisted of a mixed method interpretive content analysis of 85 sports wagering advertisements from 11 Australian and multinational wagering companies. Advertisements were identified via internet searches and industry websites. A coding framework was applied to investigate the extent and nature of symbolic appeal strategies within advertisements.

RESULTS: Ten major appeal strategies emerged from this analysis. These included sports fan rituals and behaviours; mateship; gender stereotypes; winning; social status; adventure, thrill and risk; happiness; sexualised imagery; power and control; and patriotism. Symbols relating to sports fan rituals and behaviours, and mateship, were the most common strategies used within the advertisements.

DISCUSSION/CONCLUSIONS: This research suggests that the appeal strategies used by the sports wagering industry are similar to those strategies adopted by other unhealthy commodity industries. With respect to gambling, analysis revealed that strategies are clearly targeted to young male sports fans. Researchers and public health practitioners should seek to better understand the impact of marketing on the normalisation of sports wagering for this audience segment, and implement strategies to prevent gambling harm.

If you’re happy and you know it: Music engagement and subjective wellbeing

Experiencing and engaging with music have been fundamental to all societies across the ages. This study explores the connection between habitual music engagement and subjective wellbeing. Subjective wellbeing (SWB) comprises individual evaluations of life satisfaction, and is internationally regarded at policy and government levels. The present study uses data gathered in 2014 as part of the 31st survey of the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index to provide insight into the relationship between music engagement and SWB. A stratified random sample of 1,000 participants was interviewed via telephone. The findings revealed that engaging with music by dancing or attending musical events was associated with higher SWB than for those who did not engage with music in these forms. The findings also emphasised the important role of engaging with music in the company of others with regard to SWB, highlighting an interpersonal feature of music. The study provides an overview of the general relationship between music and SWB at a population level, by contrast to most research in the area that has focused on evaluating clinical interventions involving music. The insight gained from these findings can be used to inform future interventions and to better understand how music is involved in emotional regulation.

When the private becomes public: commodity activism, endorsement, and making meaning in a privatised world

The divide between the public realm and the private realm is a both a moveable and permeable boundary. One of the reasons for this fluidity as to what constitutes these two realms is driven by different political postures. From a neoliberal position, the private—be that private industry, the individual self, the engines of the economy—is better able to produce the Benthamite characterisation of happiness for the greatest number. In contrast, from a socialist to social democratic position, an expanded public disbursement of commonwealth is seen to produce a more equitable, just, and ultimately happy society. Somewhere between these two extremes is a regulated marketplace which more or less describes the organisation of most Western polities.This paper investigates a relatively new form of public activism that, in a sense, emerges from a cultural condition of the ascendancy of the privatisation of politics and culture. Commodity activism, as it is now called by researchers, begins with a politics of the marketplace and turns it into a normative position or posture related to the public sphere. This kind of politics has emerged from consumer movements that have a long history of turning the private into the domain of the public through boycotts, forms of usually negative publicity, and an active engagement of appropriating the key identity of “privatisation,” which is that of the consumer, and re-politicising it into something akin to a form of active citizen. The paper is a study of this changing of the private into the public and how this process relies on the concept of endorsement—particularly high-profile celebrity figures who have gained their power as individuals in this privatised space and now use that form of power for other purposes—in order to gain attention and circulation in this now privatised public sphere.

Twelve Certain Men: The Impact of Emotional Appraisals on Juror Decision-Making

Our jury system is predicated upon the expectation that jurors engage in systematic processing when considering evidence and making decisions. They are instructed to interpret facts and apply the appropriate law in a fair, dispassionate manner, free of all bias, including that of emotion. However, emotions containing an element of certainty (e.g., anger and happiness, which require little cognitive effort in determining their source) can often lead people to engage in superficial, heuristic-based processing. Compare this to uncertain emotions (e.g., hope and fear, which require people to seek out explanations for their emotional arousal), which instead has the potential to lead them to engage in deeper, more systematic processing. The purpose of the current research is in part to confirm past research (Tiedens & Linton, 2001; Semmler & Brewer, 2002) that uncertain emotions (like fear) can influence decision-making towards a more systematic style of processing, whereas more certain emotional states (like anger) will lead to a more heuristic style of processing. Studies One, Two, and Three build upon this prior research with the goal of improving methodological rigor through the use of film clips to reliably induce emotions, with awareness of testimonial details serving as measures of processing style. The ultimate objective of the current research was to explore this effect in Study Four by inducing either fear, anger, or neutral emotion in mock jurors, half of whom then followed along with a trial transcript featuring eight testimonial inconsistencies, while the other participants followed along with an error-free version of the same transcript. Overall rates of detection for these inconsistencies was expected to be higher for the uncertain/fearful participants due to their more effortful processing compared to certain/angry participants. These expectations were not fulfilled, with significant main effects only for the transcript version (with or without inconsistencies) on overall inconsistency detection rates. There are a number of plausible explanations for these results, so further investigation is needed.

Uso de literatura infantil para o desenvolvimento de capacidades emocionais

Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada no ISPA – Instituto Universitário para obtenção de grau de Mestre na especialidade de Psicologia Educacional

The plague and the Panopticon

Albert Camus's 1947 novel La Peste and 1948 drama L'État de Siège, allegories of totalitarian power using the figure of the plague (Part I), remarkably anticipate Foucault's celebrated genealogical analyses of modern power (Part II). Indeed, reading Foucault after Camus highlights a fact little-remarked in Discipline and Punish: namely, that the famous chapter on the 'Panopticon' begins by analysing the measures taken in early modern Vincennes following the advent of plague. Part III argues that, although Camus was cited as an inspiration by the nouveaux philosophes, he does not accept the reactionary motif of the total bankruptcy of the modern cultural and political worlds as hopelessly implicated in the totalitarian crimes. Indeed, Part IV highlights how Camus defends modern, descriptive scientific rationality against its totalitarian appropriations, alongside 'the power of passion, doubt, happiness, and imaginative invention' - positions which Part V suggests as Camus's continuing poignancy and relevance in the period after post-structuralism (Camus, 1952: 301).

MIECHV CQI Newsletter: Self Sufficiency, February 2016

MIECHV families in Iowa face many barriers to employment, such as: inter-generational poverty, health (including mental health and substance abuse) issues and lack of access to education and job training. Not everyone is able to work, but many people (with the right support!) are able to eventually work. As the following data shows, participation in MIECHV programs in Iowa is positively correlated with employment and income gains. These gains contribute to lifelong benefits for the families’ health, happiness, and their children’s futures.