Irrational happiness beliefs and subjective well-being of undergraduate students: A longitudinal study
Main Article Content
Keywords
Irrational happiness beliefs, positive affect, negative affect, subjective well-being, rational emotive behaviour therapy
Abstract
Identifying factors that influence well-being are fruitful for improving the knowledge held about the correlates and predictors of well-being in both practice and theory. This research for the first time aimed to investigate whether irrational happiness beliefs, a newly presented construct, contribute to the affective components of subjective well-being over time. The sample included 103 undergraduate students (88 females and 15 males) whose ages varied from 18 to 29 years (M = 19.39 ±1.62). Participants completed measures of irrational happiness beliefs, positive affect, and negative affect both at Time 1 and Time 2 over three months apart. The findings showed that irrational happiness beliefs were significantly negatively related to positive affect only at Time 1. However, the research failed to provide evidence regarding the value of irrational happiness beliefs in predicting positive and negative affect over time. The results suggest that the impact of irrational happiness beliefs upon well-being may occur momentarily not over time. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed and directions for future studies are provided.
Downloads
References
Arslan, G., Y?ld?r?m, M., & Albertova, S. M. (2021). Development and initial validation of the Subjective Academic Wellbeing Measure: A new tool of youth wellbeing in school. Journal of Positive School Psychology. Retrieved from https://journalppw.com/index.php/JPPW/article/view/251
Genç, E., & Arslan, G. (2021). Optimism and dispositional hope to promote college students’ subjective well-being in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Positive School Psychology. Retrieved from https://journalppw.com/index.php/JPPW/article/view/255
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Hedonia, eudaimonia, and well-being: An introduction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9(1), 1–11.
Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575.
Diener, E., Napa Scollon, C., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). The evolving concept of subjective well-being: The multifaceted nature of happiness. Advances in Cell Aging and Gerontology, 15, 187–219.
Diener, E., Suh, E.M., Lucas, R.E., & Smith, H.L. (1999). Subjective well-being three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 276–302.
Ellis, A. (1955). New approaches to psychotherapy techniques. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 11(3), 207-260.
Ellis A. (1957). Rational psychotherapy and individual psychology. Journal of Individual Psychology. 13(1), 38–44.
Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. New York: Lyle Stuart.
Ellis, A. (1973). Humanistic psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ellis, A. (1985). Expanding the ABC’s of rational-emotive therapy. In M. J. Mahoney & A. Freeman (Eds.), Cognition and Psychotherapy. New York: Plenum.
Ellis, A. (1994). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy: Revised and expanded edition. New York: Birch Lane Press.
Field, A. (2013). Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics. Sage.
George, D., & Mallery, P. (2010). SPSS for windows step by step: A simple guide and reference 17.0 update (10th Ed.). Baston: Pearson.
Joshanloo, M. (2013). The influence of fear of happiness beliefs on responses to the satisfaction with life scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(5), 647-651.
Kutner M. J., Nachtsheim C. J., Neter J., & Li W. (2004). Applied Linear Statistical Models (5th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 803-855.
Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L., & Savino, N. S. (2011). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion, 11(4), 807—815.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudemonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 141-166.
Ryff, C. D., & Keyes, C. L. M. (1995). The structure of psychological well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 719-727.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55, 5–14.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2013). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.
Tovar-Murray, D. (2010). Social health and environmental quality of life: Their relationship to positive physical health and subjective well-being in a population of urban African Americans. The Western Journal of Black Studies, 34, 358-366.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063-1070.
Yang, C., & Srinivasan, P. (2016). Life satisfaction and the pursuit of happiness on Twitter. PloS One, 11(3), e0150881.
Y?ld?r?m, M. (2020). Optimism as a Predictor of Flourishing Over and Above the Big Five Among Youth [paper presentation]. 4th International Academic Studies Conference (4. Uluslararas? Bilimsel Çal??malar Kongresi), Online, 160-166.
Yildirim, M., & Aziz, I. A. (2017). Psychometric properties of the Turkish form of the Fear of Happiness Scale. The Journal of Happiness & Well-Being, 5(2), 187-195.
Yildirim, M., & Belen, H. (2019). The role of resilience in the relationships between externality of happiness and subjective well-being and flourishing: A structural equation model approach. Journal of Positive School Psychology, 3(1), 62-76.
Yildirim, M., & Belen, H. (2018). Fear of happiness predicts subjective and psychological well-being above the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and Behavioral Activation System (BAS) model of personality. Journal of Positive School Psychology, 2(1), 92-111.
Y?ld?r?m, M., Davison, E., Flowe, H. D., & Maltby, J. (2021). Reconsidering Valuing Happiness: The Application of Goal Type Theory. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1-11. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-020-00478-8
Y?ld?r?m, M., & Maltby, J. (2021). Irrational Happiness Beliefs Scale: Development and Initial Validation. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 1-14. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-021-00513-2
Zhou, Y., Zhou, L., Fu, C., Wang, Y., Liu, Q., Wu, H.... Zheng, L. (2015). Socio-economic factors related with the subjective well-being of the rural elderly people living independently in China. International Journal for Equity in Health, 14(5), 1-9. Doi: 10.1186/s12939-015-0136-
Article Sidebar
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Journal of Positive School Psychology is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0, which allows free sharing, copying, and adaptation of the material for any purpose, even commercially, but with providing an appropriate reference to the source.