This study examines factors influencing stress and depression among Korean and Japanese university students and the role that parental social support, resiliency of efficacy and stress management behavior play. Four hypotheses are presented. First, parental social support will have a direct influence on resiliency of efficacy. Second, resiliency of efficacy will have a direct influence on stress management behavior and stress and depression symptoms. Third, resiliency of efficacy will have a mediating influence between parental social support and stress and depression symptoms. Fourth, stress management behavior will have a direct influence on stress and depression symptoms. A total 469 participants, consisting of 289 Korean university students (male=156, female=133) and 180 Japanese university students (male=112, female=68) completed a questionnaire that included Rhode Island Stress Inventory-Short Version (Horiuchi, Tsuda, Tanaka, Yajima & Tsuda, in press), Stress Management Behavior (Evers et al., 2006), CES-D (Radloff, 1977), BDI-II (Beck, Steer & Brown, 1996), Resiliency of Efficacy (Bandura, 1995) and Parental Social Support (Kim & Park, 1999). The results supported the first three hypotheses for both samples. Hypothesis 4 was not supported for the Japanese sample and it was partially supported for the Korean sample. The results indicate that parental social support had a direct and positive influence on resiliency of efficacy. Second, resiliency of efficacy had a direct and positive influence on stress management behavior and stress and depression symptoms. Third, resiliency of efficacy had a mediating influence between parental social support and stress and depression symptoms. Fourth, stress management behavior did not have a direct influence on stress symptoms. Overall, parental social support had a direct positive influence on resiliency of self-efficacy, which in turn had a direct negative influence on stress and depression symptoms.
This study aimed to investigate the social consequences of happiness. For this purpose, we examined the effect of happiness on the formation of adolescents' peer relationship. A total of 241 Korean junior high school students completed a happiness questionnaire consisting of subjective well-being, psychological well-being, self-esteem, and optimism at the beginning of the school year. Four months later, their popularity and social behaviors were measured using self-reports and peer-nomination measures. Happy male students were more likely to become nominated as a preferred friend by their peers at the end of the semester; happy females were evaluated by their peers as being more creative than others. Happy adolescents also viewed themselves as being more sociable, popular, and having more leadership than others. Overall, the findings imply that happiness also have positive social consequences in highly collectivist cultural settings, such as Korea.
This study examined how the explicit and implicit race attitudes differ according to age and gender from the developmental perspective in Korean elementary students. The study also investigated the efficacy of a multi-cultural education program on explicit and implicit attitude change in elementary school students. This thesis consists of two parts. In Study 1, elementary school students(first grade:117, fourth grade:117) completed Explicit Attitudes Rating Scales, Explicit Preference Test, and Child Implicit Association Tests (Korean-White/Korean-Black/ Korean-Southeast Asian IATs). The effects of age and gender on explicit and implicit attitudes toward Korean/White/Black/Southeast Asian were examined with two-way MANOVA. The results demonstrated that as age increases, in-group preference/out-group bias decrease on the explicit level. In contrast, on the implicit level, as age increases, in-group preference/out-group bias do not decrease. Rather, prejudiced attitudes toward blacks increase. Study 2 was performed to investigate the effect of a multi-cultural education program on explicit and implicit attitude change toward races in elementary school students. The program conveying an anti-bias message consists of three sessions, and the procedures are as follows; watching video clips, confirming contents and short discussion. Two classes in the program and two classes in comparative groups on the first and fourth grade of elementary school were assessed. The results showed that black preference significantly increased both in the first and the fourth grade elementary students on the explicit attitude level, but not on the implicit level. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings were discussed.
Present research is conducted for understanding the happiness of Korean people. In psychology, the happiness has been studied as subjective state which an individual perceives such as wellbeing(SWB) and satisfaction of life(SOL). However, the perceptions of people would be effected by their own culture, so the happiness has to be considered as a cultural concept. “Haengbok(幸福)”, the Korean traditional concept of happiness has to be considered in various viewpoints. Many conditions will be needed to experience the feeling in Korea. However, in many cases, the “Haengbok” is formal expression. The practical term to express the feeling of happiness might be “Shinmyeong”. Shinmyeong is one of the Korean unique positive feeling. The term Shinmyeong has been used widely in the context of celebrating happy life in Korean culture. According to former studies, Shinmyeong has influence not only on people's self esteem and self resiliency but on their SWB and SOL. The features and meanings of Shinmyeong is introduced and discussed to extend the discussion about happiness and culture.
Can money buy happiness? If not, what are the factors that influence happiness? What makes people happy? What are the factors that influence happiness among Korean adults? How can we better explain factors that influence happiness? These are the research questions that led to the analyses of psychological, relational, financial resources that influence happiness. To examine differences in socio-economic status, adults and elderly from three different districts that vary wealth and income were interviewed in their own home. A total of 313 respondents (male=133, female=180) between the ages of 20 through 80 completed a questionnaire that contained background information, emotional support scale and happiness scale developed by the present researcher and resiliency of efficacy developed by Bandura(1995). The results are as follows. First, monthly income influence happiness to some extent, but when the variable was excluded from the path analysis, the goodness-of-fit did not change significantly. Although those who have more money can be happier, those without much money can also be happy. These results indicate that financial resource has limited influence on happiness. In addition, monthly income did influence self-efficacy of respondents indicating that those with more money were not necessarily more confident about themselves. Second, an important factor influencing happiness is the relational resource. Emotional support was the most powerful predictor of happiness, four to five times more important than monthly income. Third, self-efficacy influenced happiness. Those respondents with higher resiliency of efficacy had higher happiness scores and the influence was two times greater than monthly income. Moreover, self-efficacy played a mediating role between emotional support and happiness. Fourth, those respondents with higher occupational achievement reported higher happiness score and the influence was two times greater than monthly income. Fifth, success of children influenced happiness score and the influence was 1.5 times greater than monthly income. Sixth, education did not directly influence happiness, but had an indirect influence through self-efficacy and occupational achievement. Seventh, age was not related to self-efficacy and happiness.
Two empirical studies were conducted to examine what determines the happiness of Korean adolescents. In Study 1, 155 high school students were asked to describe situations where they felt happy. Content analysis was conducted for their responses, which led to three categories, physical (economy, health and appearance), psychological (self-related responses, rest and leasure, and religion), and social one (haman relationship including family, friendship, etc, and social achievement). In Study 2, 450 high school students rated themselves on each of 88 happiness items developed through the responses obtained in Study 1. Factor analysis created 10 happiness factors labeled familial relationship, individuality, academic performance, religion, dating friends, appearance, self-discovery, economy, friendships, and psychological composure. These findings were compared with those findings about the middle-aged and the old-aged, and discussed on the developmental and cultural perspective.
The purpose of the present manuscript is to introduce positive clinical psychology. We reviewed the two main areas of positive clinical psychology: mental fitness and positive psychotherapy. The historical background of the concept of mental fitness as well as the relationship between mental fitness and mental health literacy was examined. In addition, positive psychotherapy and conventional psychotherapies were compared and contrasted in order to enhance the understanding of positive psychotherapy. Lastly we introduced the Korea University Mental Fitness Positive Psychotherapy Program. Based on this review, the limitations and future prospects of positive clinical psychology were discussed.
This study aims to investigate the relationship between personality, especially temperament and subjective well-being. The participants were 681 college students (211 males and 470 females), whose ages ranged from 17 to 37 (M=20.91, SD=2.36). The instruments utilized in the present study were Korean Version of BAS/BIS Scale, The Big Five Locator, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Life Satisfaction Motivation Scale, Life Satisfaction Expectancy Scale, Emotion Frequency Test, and Subjective Happiness Scale. Result indicated that women expected more positive future than men did, while no gender differences were found in any other well-being variables. Correlational analyses revealed that emotional stability and extroversion were closely associated with life satisfaction, happiness, positive and negative emotion, whereas behavioral activation system (BAS) and behavioral inhibition system (BIS) were more closely associated with motivation to live and expectancy of satisfactory life. There was close relationship between conscientiousness and subjective well-being, because they were college students. As a internal factor, personality was better predictor for subjective well-being of female students. For instance, it accounted for around 35% variance of female's subjective happiness. The present findings reiterate the role of personality in quality of life, and it was discussed with characteristics of subjects, situational factors, and previous studies.
Based on the Motivational States Theory(MOST), the present research expanded and complemented Kim(2007)'s proposal to add the Life Satisfaction Expectancy Scale(LSES) to Diener et al's Satisfaction With Life Scale(SWLS) to measure subjective well-being(SWB). In the present study, the Life Satisfaction Motivation Scale(LSMS) was introduced to measure the strength of motivation for life satisfaction in general. Two hundred and eighty six college students participated in this study. Factor analyses revealed a two-factor structure, with the factors corresponding to life satisfaction and life satisfaction expectancy. Measures of internal and temporal reliability show the LSMS to be a good complement for the measure of SWB(The LSMS showed high internal and test-retest reliability). It was found that the addition of the LSES provided a significant increment in predictive power over the SWLS in the prediction of various factors related with well-being prediction. Exceptionally, in the prediction of anger the LSMS had the most predictive power. There were some differences between male and female students in the correlations among life satisfaction, life satisfaction expectancy and life satisfaction motivation and well-being-related factors. The merits of including LSES in the measurement of subjective well-being and the limitations of this study are discussed.
Based on the Motivational States Theory(MOST), the present research expanded and complemented Kim(2007)'s proposal to add the Life Satisfaction Expectancy Scale(LSES) to Diener et al's Satisfaction With Life Scale(SWLS) to measure subjective well-being(SWB). In the present study, the Life Satisfaction Motivation Scale(LSMS) was introduced to measure the strength of motivation for life satisfaction in general. Two hundred and eighty six college students participated in this study. Factor analyses revealed a two-factor structure, with the factors corresponding to life satisfaction and life satisfaction expectancy. Measures of internal and temporal reliability show the LSMS to be a good complement for the measure of SWB(The LSMS showed high internal and test-retest reliability). It was found that the addition of the LSES provided a significant increment in predictive power over the SWLS in the prediction of various factors related with well-being prediction. Exceptionally, in the prediction of anger the LSMS had the most predictive power. There were some differences between male and female students in the correlations among life satisfaction, life satisfaction expectancy and life satisfaction motivation and well-being-related factors. The merits of including LSES in the measurement of subjective well-being and the limitations of this study are discussed.
Lately in the medical world, they realized that the spirit is important for health best of all, and in the WHO, the meaning of health was “The condition of being sound in body, mind”, now as they added the spirit to there, it became “The condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit”. Even though we know well about the importance of spirit, but it is difficult to make sure what that mean is. Even in the Psychology, they didn't distinguish clearly the spirit from the mind. In this report, we have revealed the traits of spirit from the classic theory of spirit to the today's, as studying at side of biology and psychology. Especially the spirit have been developed remarkably for a long time at every religion. Recently in the medical world, they connected ‘the spirit of Buddhism’ to ‘MBSR’, and ‘the spirit of Christianity’ to ‘Breakout Principle’ with medical method. So, we have studied how the spirit give the positive contribution to the Psycho-therapy.
The purpose of this study was to show that yoga psychology aims to actualize the positive potentials in the depth of human mind with the perspective of body-emotion-mind-spirit integration. This approach is described in the context of modern positive psychology. For this purpose, the Self-realization of yoga psychology is discussed, which is to develop one's higher self as a center of psyche apart from one's psychological growth or maturation. An individual can experience positive emotions such as pleasure, joy, happiness and ecstasy through the typical yoga technique of concentration. Happiness is one of the main issues of positive psychology, but yoga psychology called it “ānanda” and divided it further into seven types. The positive emotions of positive psychology seem to be equivalent to positive states of mind in yoga psychology. But yoga regards calmness, tranquility, nonattachment and transcendence as the most valuable virtues for the full actualization of human potentials. From the perspective of yoga psychology, the tranquil state of mind is the wonderful fruit of long and arduous yoga practices. It is the calm and neutral state of mind which is free from all the turmoils of everyday life. Tranquility is beyond the scope of modern positive psychology's issues, but it offers some precious insights to them.
This study examines that how can we pursuit the happiness through sport activities. For achieves this purpose, focusing specifically on what is happiness, physical happiness process and psychological happiness process. Therefore, this study was started that sport have an influence of individual's physical and psychological health. The conclusions of this study are like that: Individual's participation in sport is very important. Sport experience requires understanding of inherent meaning attached to sport and ongoing efforts to acquire wisdom to capitalize on sport in an appropriate manner. Sport experience should be deemed as a means of serious activities and pursuit of happiness. In sport participants, someone's age is not meaningful. As getting old, a sport participate rates and happiness are increasing. Especially, In aging society, This facts are very meaningful. Therefore Sport participation is closely related to the perceived quality of life and happiness. It can be further suggested that physically active sport-leisure participation rather than passive or sedentary leisure involvement increases perceived quality of life and happiness. Happiness is life itself.