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This book is a compilation of the best papers presented at the 2023 edition of the Singapore Conference of Applied Psychology (SCAP), led by East Asia Research in Singapore in collaboration with the Singapore University of Technology and Design and Charles Sturt University in Australia. Chapters include research conducted by experts in the field of applied psychology from the Asia-Pacific region, and cover areas such as the latest innovations, trends, concerns, practical challenges encountered and the solutions adopted in the field of applied psychology such as community and environmental psychology, psychotherapy and counseling, health, child and school psychology, and gender studies. The volume will be of interest to educators, psychology researchers and practicing counselors.

This book focuses on how to provide social work services for elderly people living in poverty. Divided into eight chapters, the book first outlines the scale, characteristics, and causes of poverty among elderly people and discusses the significance of social work in poverty alleviation for the elderly. The book then concentrates on different types of elderly people, such as those in economic and ecological poverty, and those suffering from poverty caused by illness, disability, and lack of ability, analyzing the content and service modes and providing case studies. Finally, the book discusses ways and strategies for social work participation in poverty alleviation for the elderly in the post-poverty alleviation era. This book combines theory with practice and is a useful reference for government departments, universities, as well as social organizations related to social work.

This book explores how career development experiences during education are relevant for wellbeing in youth career transitions from an interdisciplinary lens, using longitudinal data from different national educational contexts. Seven empirical chapters culminate in a conceptual model and recommendations for careers and wellbeing-oriented prevention and intervention programs to assist young people as they transition into the world of work. Following a foreword by Professor Stephen Lamb (the Springer International Study of City Youth series editor) and introduction by the editors, the book consists of empirical chapters based in six national and educational contexts, focusing specifically on schooling, higher education and transitions between compulsory schooling and young adulthood. Each national context chapter generates insights based on a longitudinal cohort study with at least two data points concerning information on young people's career development and wellbeing. The empirical chapters are followed by discussion and conclusion chapters by the editors. The editors reflect on the evidence generated in this book and question what we know about the relevance of career development experiences on young people's wellbeing during education-to-work transitions. Implications of these empirical findings on career interventions and policy making across the educational systems are discussed. The contributions in this book show that career development experiences while in education matters, not only for employment outcomes, but also for our subjective wellbeing in early careers. Key conclusions point towards a need for theoretically integrating: (i) the sensemaking role of time; (ii) resource-based approaches to careers; as well as (iii) the efficacy of career development experiences to overcome structural inequalities. Methodologically, this book shows the value of nationally representative longitudinal datasets that focus on young people's educational and labour market experiences.

This volume explores several aspects of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum's framework for thinking about individual well-being. Called the functioning and capability approach (FCA), this framework radically departs from the conventional approach to the concept of individual well-being in welfare economics insofar as it identifies an individual's well-being as the value attached to the individual's achievements along certain dimensions of life and her freedom to choose a vector of such achievements rather than as the individual's happiness or desire fulfillment. The volume consists of two main parts. Part I outlines and studies the basic conceptual and analytical framework and its major features in detail. Part II of the book is devoted to application of the analytical structure of the FCA to practical problems of measuring well-being, deprivation, and inequality in a society. The book concludes with a discussion of the main conclusions of earlier chapters and the role of social scientists and philosophers in the FCA. This volume will be of interest to students, researchers, and practitioners studying multidimensional well-being, deprivation and inequality.

This book bridges knowledge gaps by exploring transformative approaches for sustainable development to ensure high-quality and positive education and increase educators'and learners'well-being. It offers research findings, best practices, case studies and empirical research. The work inspires and guides educators in implementing effective strategies by means of interdisciplinary approaches. It is a valuable resource supporting ongoing professional development for teachers and educational leaders, enhancing pedagogical strategies, curriculum design and a safe positive educational environment. Additionally, it addresses global challenges in education, fostering a broader discourse on education's role in promoting interdisciplinary approaches, sustainable development, and well-being for a more inclusive future.

Social robots have significantly advanced in capabilities and availability, gradually becoming part of everyday life. Their new interactive features are relevant to the struggling care sector. As Western societies age, the demand for care services rises, yet the workforce does not grow at the same rate. This book explores the potential of social robots to support the workforce and enhance the well-being of residents in care homes. Using a socio-informatics approach, this research investigates how residents and caregivers interact with social robots, examines and facilitates their appropriation, and provides insights into the development of the robots'software and hardware. The research and development were carried out collaboratively in care homes with the people who work and live there. The findings indicate that social robots can be beneficial in care homes. They broaden the options for social care workers and, when integrated into daily routines, can provide brief respite periods. Additionally, they positively impact residents by engaging them in cognitive and physical activities. However, the robots can only assist, and not replace, care workers.

This book critically interrogates ‘wellbeing', a concept that is exploding in popularity across the globe. The collection of essays asks not only how wellbeing can be defined and measured, but what is created and excluded in the process of striving for and articulating wellbeing. The editors propose a narrative framework as a novel and insightful lens through which to analyse wellbeing and understand how the “good life” is sought, experienced and talked about. With case studies from around the world, the contributions explore the tensions and overlaps between various scripts about what it means to live well—historically, socially, culturally, economically, and spiritually. The collection brings together a rich array of disciplinary perspectives, including: sociology, politics, anthropology, history, indigenous studies, religious studies, development studies, paediatric medicine, and gender and sexuality studies. The diversity of chapters make the book accessible and appealing, not only to scholars and students of wellbeing in the health and social science disciplines, but also to a broader public readership intrigued by the rise and impact of a buzzword.

This book provides a systematic review of the research literature related to the effectiveness of organizational policies and programs on work-life balance (WLB). It discusses policies and practices related to workload management, flextime, flexplace, alternative job arrangements, and family care. Based on the evidence, the authors make specific recommendations to organizational executives and HR directors to design and implement work-life balance policies and programs to maximize their effectiveness and help employees achieve their optimal level of work-life balance. Specifically, the authors discuss how to: (1) identify employees with greater need for WLB programs, (2) evaluate environmental circumstances for WLB programs (3) design effective WLB policies and programs, (3) facilitate effective implementation of WLB policies and programs, (4) provide management support for WLB policies and programs, and (5) evaluate performance of WLB policies and programs. Written lucidly by experts in the field and with many case studies and examples, this book appeals to a wide range of academic and professional readers.

This book aims to formulate recommendations for achieving a healthy neighborhood living environment for the middle-income people in China‘s suburbs. In China, the expeditious urbanization triggers the prosperous commodity housing development, which further grows with the spatial restructuring and socioeconomic transition. Residential suburbanization is generated, accompanied with the emergence of new-middle class and the change of lifestyle. However, the health effects of suburbanization in China are overlooked. This book investigates the health performance of suburban residents and the effects of suburban living on residents‘ health. This book also examines the resident-environment transaction modes to unfold the underlying mechanism of suburban living affecting residents'health. Suburban residents had to passively adapt to their residential environment, which is the obstacle for achieving a health-promoting environment. The institutional dynamics determining the health performance of suburban living environment were addressed with the roles of governments, developers, planners, housing managers, residents‘ committee, and ordinary residents in commodity housing development. The book found no institutional support for the creation of health-promoting environments, especially with default of governments and excessive dependence on developers for public service facilities and the absence of civil society. Thus, the book proposes that institutional innovations are necessary in term of embedding the health dimension in all sectors of the society, enlisting collaboration between public and private sectors, and between health and non-health sectors, and thus cultivating the optimization of residents-environment transactions to create health-promoting environments.

This book argues that the substantial life and property loss caused by urban flooding might not be a pure result of a vulnerable physical environment-social factors, especially the individual attributes and capacities, could have pivotal roles to play in the resilience discourse as well. In light of this, this research investigates the relationship between individual resilience to urban flooding and urban management, endeavoring to identify place-responsive measures for building resilience for residents vulnerable to urban flooding.

This volume provides innovative perspectives on the scholarly connection between the humanities and happiness, and considers the narrative expressions of happiness and recent investigations about happiness, its metrics, and objective insights about human wellbeing. This volume relates intemporal humanistic values to views across social and behavioural sciences, and thereby covers a broad interdisciplinary frame, from philosophy, psychology, literary studies, to the communication sciences. The philosophers in this volume discuss the achievement of happiness through the cultivation of virtue, as well as the logic of the gift as an experience of personal fulfilment and the fact that happiness is inextricably linked to hope. Their chapters take on the approach of the permanent human struggle to generate global horizons of happiness and thus attain eternal bliss. Scholars from other fields of the humanities and communication sciences consider the positive messages of environmental happiness in virtual platforms, where the Homo digitalis finds happiness at the click of a button, often under the endorsement of celebrities, or under the visual fruition of playful objects. They also present the intertextual memory of happiness as a condition for humanistic research. Finally, this volume considers the sphere of education as the best place in which to apply the results of sustainable happiness measurement and research, and to realize this complementary, humanistic perspective on happiness research.

This book presents advanced methodologies for analyzing attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine across 10 countries spanning both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, employing cutting-edge Big Data and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) techniques. Serving as an important resource for policymakers, it addresses attitudes towards and causes of growing vaccine hesitancy —a pressing concern identified by the World Health Organization as a top 10 global health threat. Moreover, the book sheds light on key factors associated with positive vaccine attitudes, aiming to bolster vaccine uptake rates. The authors explore the role of happiness in shaping health-related decision-making, offering actionable policy recommendations for governments. By sharing best-case practices, they equip policymakers and health officials worldwide with the necessary strategies to address future pandemics effectively.

A compilation of case studies illustrating how arts, culture and other community assets were used by individuals and communities to cope and develop resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic, demonstrating valuable lessons that might help us develop resilience in similar future crises. Threaded through all the contributions, readers will discover a focus on the experiences and voices of those marginalised during the pandemic, because of their lived experiences of structural inequalities, or due to mental or physical ill-health or age. These are difficult and complex topics, and there are vital lessons here for policy and for practice in the arts and for provision of health and care.

This handbook provides an extensive overview of the links between quality of life and social change as pursued in not only humanitarian and development work, but also in the private sector and academia. It combines theoretical and practice-focused chapters and addresses socio-economic, environmental, and political/governance aspects as well as communication and human behavioural factors that favour or hamper social change dynamics. The handbook showcases vast diversity both in the authorship—which includes practitioners from a wide range of sectors and academics from various disciplines—as well in geographical contexts and regions. The chapters cover a wide range methods and tools, which facilitate an inclusive understanding of the relationship between quality of life and social change. They show connections between micro (individual) changes and the dynamics that derive from them at the meso (community), macro (country) and meta levels (planet) of quality of life, and the social change processes sustained through time. The chapters demonstrate that quality of life and social change mutually condition and nurture each other. The handbook overall provides a holistic perspective to social change processes that includes both material and non-material aspects relating to quality of life. This comprehensive and one-of-a-kind volume is of interest to a wide readership, from students and researchers of social development, quality of life and wellbeing research, to development workers, policy makers and other government officials. The handbook is bundled with an interactive online course.

Depressivität ist nicht bloß ein individuelles Thema, sondern zeichnet sich, wie auch andere Formen psychischer Leiden, durch einen nicht vernachlässigbaren Grad an sozialer Variabilität aus. Forschung zu den sozialen Determinanten psychischer Gesundheit weist folglich insbesondere darauf hin, welche Rolle die gesellschaftliche Umwelt für die Entstehung von Erkrankungen spielt und kann somit der Konzeption neuer Präventionskonzepte dienlich sein. Das vorliegende Buch beschäftigt sich mit der Depressivität von Personen über 50 Jahren in verschiedenen europäischen Wohlfahrtssystemen. Durch einen vergleichenden Ansatz mithilfe von Daten des'Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe'(SHARE) werden regimespezifische Effektdynamiken im Hinblick auf Stressexposition, die Ausstattung mit Bewältigungsressourcen und Depressivität aufgedeckt. Hiermit soll einerseits auf die Möglichkeit wohlfahrtsstaatlicher Einflussfaktoren auf die psychische Gesundheit hingewiesen sowie auch eine Synthese von Regimetheorie und soziologischer Stressforschung vorangetrieben werden.

This book showcases nine possible scenarios for future cities, based on different aspects and characteristics of the term'proximity'. Different points of view have been investigated on many themes related to the city of proximities: from bottom-up design actions to the inclusive city, from neighborhood services to public space in transformation, to platforms and economies of proximity. When discussing the concept of proximity, it is imperative to several aspects of building and inhabiting the city of fifteen minutes. The city and its neighborhoods are complex structures, made up of stratified levels of evolving systems, that encompass administrative and political aspects, urban spatial considerations, the dynamics of human interaction, and more. The necessity to re-appropriate the urban space leads all inhabitants to contemplate different aspects of their lives concerning proximity space, reflecting on how behavior, actions, and relationships can be improved and transformed to make our future more sustainable. This book envisions future scenarios that will make public space an active and functional place for the city, more inclusive, responding to the needs and desires of the different populations that inhabit it.

This book is to elucidate personal and social bases for personal resilience, thus addressing the issue concerning the predominance of social factors in shaping resilience. Essentially, the book starts with a clarification of resilience as a phenomenon rather than a trait. The clarification also identifies the personal bases in terms of the resilience process, which specifies belief about resilience as a precursor to learning about resilience, action for resilience, and resilience successively. To justify the personal and social bases, the book expounds the analytical-functionalist framework to specify voluntaristic and deterministic mechanisms to perform the four requisite functions of goal attainment, adaptation, integration, and latency. Equipped with the conceptual and theoretical grounds, the book proceeds to scrutinize the effects of personal and social factors on resilience and its process. The personal factors include personal background characteristics, personality, functional disability, and various beliefs, whereas the social factors include experiences of caring, peace, violence, and social exclusion in society, kindness, sociability, and aid from other people, and social capital. The scrutiny engages five databases about 6.948 Chinese people in Hong Kong and neighboring Chinese cities, composed of the public, service users, older adults, students, and people with visual impairment. Overall, the book presents ample theoretical and empirical substances to clarify the genesis of resilience.

This book breaks down barriers between disciplines engaging with flow, by speaking from geography into psychology to establish geographical foundations for this psychological phenomenon. It frames and works with the multiple contradictions within the extant literature as productive rather than prohibitive, thereby encouraging collaboration across discrepancies as well as across disciplines. It incorporates new materials and perspectives to research on flow, including aesthetic theory, new materialism, more-than-human geographies, and critical development geographies to broaden the theoretical and empirical landscape of future flow scholarship. It also digs more deeply into pre-existing areas of interest within flow research than has been done before, for example, with respect to ‘dark'flow, ‘flowability'and (tele)presence, to facilitate more nuanced engagement with such terms. It takes a step back from the detailed empirical work that characterizes most current flow research to pose questions as to how such divergent, even contradictory, findings can emerge from scholarship on a supposedly universal experience that is purportedly robustly constructed, and whether this contrariness is necessarily problematic or emblematic of flow itself and therefore worthy of conceptual elaboration. Finally, it evokes global scale and long-term critical perspectives on the future evolution of flow to counteract the presentism within existing work that emphasizes immediate gains (e.g., performance, wellbeing, profit), in an attempt to pre-empt the worst ramifications of the progressive commodification and strategization of flow. This innovative book is of interest to scholars from a range of fields, from psychology, to business and human resource management, leisure studies, and critical human geography.

This reference work is an important resource in the growing field of heroism studies. It presents concepts, research, and events key to understanding heroism, heroic leadership, heroism development, heroism science, and their relevant applications to businesses, organizations, clinical psychology, human wellness, human growth potential, public health, social justice, social activism, and the humanities. The encyclopedia emphasizes five key realms of theory and application: Business and organization, focusing on management effectiveness, emotional intelligence, empowerment, ethics, transformational leadership, product branding, motivation, employee wellness, entrepreneurship, and whistleblowers; clinical-health psychology and public health, focusing on stress and trauma, maltreatment, emotional distress, bullying, psychopathy, depression, anxiety, family disfunction, chronic illness, and healthcare workers'wellbeing; human growth and positive psychology, discussing altruism, authenticity, character strengths, compassion, elevation, emotional agility, eudaimonia, morality, empathy, flourishing, flow, self-efficacy, joy, kindness, prospection, moral development, courage, and resilience; social justice and activism, highlighting anti-racism, anti-bullying, civil disobedience, civil rights heroes, climate change, environmental heroes, enslavement heroes, human rights heroism, humanitarian heroes, inclusivity, LGBTQ+ heroism, #metoo movement heroism, racism, sustainability, and women's suffrage heroes; and humanities, relating to the mythic hero's journey, bliss, boon, crossing the threshold, epic heroes, fairy tales, fiction, language and rhetoric, narratives, mythology, hero monomyth, humanities and heroism, religious heroes, and tragic heroes.

This volume examines progress in sustainable and resilient development of niche forms of tourism from a health and wellbeing perspective. It also aims to offer deep and innovative insights on the supporting role of non-pharmaceutical interventions to enhance resilience and wellbeing of visited and visiting communities. A comparative and critical discourse of the role of hard medicine is also offered, from both a core and supplementary perspective, particularly, from eudaimonic and physiologically restorative standpoints. Furthermore, indigenous non-pharmaceutical interventions and spiritual healing mechanisms are discussed in the context of their potential to facilitate long term immunity and happiness. The book conceptually situates health as a fourth pillar of sustainability, and examines its role in stimulating long-lasting transformations rooted in positive psychology, inner transformation and sustainable consumption of organic productsand services. It designs an evolving transformational ‘Quality of Life'paradigm that strengthens the foundations of health/wellbeing-based sustainable development initiatives and resilience of tourism systems. The work will be of interest to academic, professional, and various public and private stakeholders of tourism such as destination marketing organizations, policy makers, hospitality industries, tour operators, host communities, NGOs, and government agencies.

Everybody wants to know what makes people happy. Artistic takes on the topic in literature, popular songs and cinema are widespread, but not terribly helpful. Psychological accounts are mostly about how to avoid unhappiness. So who actually is happy, and why? This book offers real answers from the real world of American society. Their source is the General Social Survey, a scientific poll of Americans offering some five decades of state-of-the-art data. An additional enhancement is a set of qualitative interviews commissioned by the author adding depth to the extraordinary breadth of the GSS. The approach of the book is distinctly sociological. Are married Americans happier than unmarried Americans? Does social class matter? How about college? The answers lie within this wide and deep dive into happiness in America.

This open access book examines an interdependent approach to happiness and well-being, one that contrasts starkly with dominant approaches that have originated from Western culture(s). It highlights the diversity of potential pathways towards happiness and well-being globally, and answers calls - voiced in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals - for more socially and environmentally sustainable models.Leading global organizations including the OECD, UNICEF, and UNESCO are now proposing human happiness and well-being as a more sustainable alternative to a myopic focus on GDP growth. Yet, the definition of well-being offered by these organizations derives largely from the philosophies, social sciences, and institutional patterns of Europe and the United States. Across seven chapters this book carefully probes the inadequacy of these approaches to well-being globally and reveals the distorting effect this has on how we imagine our world, organize institutions, and plan ourcollective future(s). It shares a wealth of evidence and examples from across East Asia - a region where interdependence remains foregrounded - and concludes by provocatively arguing that interdependence may provide a more sustainable approach to happiness and well-being in the 21st century. A timely and accessible book, it offers fresh insights for scholars and policymakers working in the areas of psychology, health, sociology, education, international development, public policy, and philosophy.This is an open access book.