Search

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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.

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 short book discusses the relatively new concept of project-based leisure in leisure research, and relates it to individual and community well-being and quality of life. The book defines PBL as a short-term, reasonably complicated, one-off or occasional, though infrequent, creative undertaking carried out in free time, or time free of disagreeable obligation. Such leisure requires considerable planning, effort, and sometimes skill or knowledge. The book discusses how PBL contributes to subjective well-being, though doing so more modestly than serious leisure and occupational devotion. The book surveys existing field research of the author's own and other studies, and provides original insights on how PBL activities can be used to generate community involvement and subjective well-being.

Dieses Buch seziert die Art und Weise, wie wir unseren Alltag ausmessen, abwägen und bewerten, um die eigene, ganz persönliche Welt klarer zu sehen und die wertvollen Ressourcen Zeit, Geld und Aufmerksamkeit für ein erfüllteres Lebens einzusetzen. Dafür stehen sechs Methoden zur Verfügung: Messen, Zählen und Wiegen sowie Schätzen, Vergleichen und Abhaken von Checklisten. Dabei fällt die Auswahl der Bewertungskriterien ebenso subjektiv aus wie die eigenen Bewertungen.Dieses Buch stellt diese Messmethoden an alltäglichen Beispielen vor und erläutert die geeigneten Methoden, um zu guten Alltags- und Lebensentscheidungen zu gelangen. Wahrnehmungsverzerrungen und (Selbst-) Manipulationen werden ebenso berücksichtigt wie die Frage, wie sich Unsicherheiten integrieren lassen.

Bei einem stationären Aufenthalt in einer Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie sind jugendliche Patient:innen und deren Familien mit verschiedenen Herausforderungen konfrontiert: Neben der als ‚psychische Krankheit‘ gedeuteten Krisenkonstellation und damit verbundenen Leiden sind es die mit der Einbindung in psychiatrische Institutionen verknüpften Positionierungen, (diagnoseförmigen) Zuschreibungen sowie (familialen) Erwartungen, Hoffnungen und Ängste, mit denen sich Jugendliche vor dem Hintergrund adoleszenter Entwicklungs- und Individuationsprozesse auseinandersetzen müssen. Auf der Basis zweier Fallrekonstruktionen werden adoleszente Subjektbildungsprozesse im Spannungsfeld von familialen Dynamiken, gesellschaftlichen und insbesondere schulischen Transformations- und Normalitätsanforderungen sowie jugendpsychiatrischen Interventionen untersucht. Die Analysen stützen sich auf Interviews mit Jugendlichen und Familiengespräche, die im Längsschnitt durchgeführt wurden. Die qualitativ-rekonstruktive Studie leistet einen empirisch fundierten Beitrag zur sozialisations-, jugend- und familientheoretischen Frage nach der psychiatrisch moderierten und familial vermittelten Ver- und Bearbeitung psycho-sozialer Krisen in der Adoleszenz und der damit verknüpften (Re-)Strukturierung adoleszenter Selbstentwürfe.

This book offers readers a spatial understanding of happiness and subjective well-being. By integrating spatial and geostatistical methods, it sheds new light on the spatial and geographical aspects of subjective well-being. Geographical analysis allows us to measure spatial and regional discrepancies in subjective well-being and to identify heterogeneous profiles in terms of social, economic and environmental patterns. Consequently, the papers gathered here address various topics concerning the spatial aspects of subjective well-being, including social injustice, age, new urban spaces, and tourism. The book proposes a multidisciplinary approach and is intended for scholars and students in the fields of geography, economics and the spatial sciences. By examining several critical dimensions of happiness and subjective well-being, it enriches the complexity of regional decision-making on the path toward happier and more liveable societies.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the historical, economic, and cultural foundations of capitalism, cities, and climate change. By exploring the intersection of urbanization, consumerism, and colonialism, the book sheds new light on the origins and development of the economic system that has shaped our world today. What sets this book apart is its unique approach, which challenges conventional wisdom and offers new insights into the complex relationships between culture, politics, and economics. The book is intended for readers interested in the history and evolution of capitalism and its impact on society, as well as those interested in climate change and urbanization. The content level is accessible for general readers, yet sophisticated enough to appeal to scholars and researchers. The two most important features of the book are its fresh perspective on the history of mercantilism and its examination of the economic landscape of cities and climate change. By reading this book, readers gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationships between urbanization, colonialism, and economic policies, and their impact on contemporary society.

This book studies children's wellbeing from the perspective of Ethiopian immigrant families in Israel. It examines how the meeting of cultures within families affects relationships, language acquisition and the transmission of cultural heritage across generations after immigration. The younger generation, born in Israel or having arrived as infants, are faced with a reality very different from their parent's childhood in Ethiopia. The book therefore addresses these key questions: What are the differences between families that enable some children to adopt a hybrid identity while others feel detached? How are the children affected by their experiences in Israeli society and specifically the educational system? What factors in their childhoods foster resilience and how do these children relate to their Ethiopian heritage? The book presents unique insights into the realities experienced by immigrant families using their own narratives, as it is based oninterviews by the author with 50 members of immigrant families from different generations. It is of special interest to academic courses on wellbeing, family studies, immigrants, diaspora studies, ethnic and religious studies, anthropology, folklore, sociology, gender studies, social work, child psychology and more.

The book addresses the gaps in the body of knowledge from two grounds. Firstly, it adds value through explaining the dynamics of natural resource governance by focusing on the particular arenas of biodiversity resources, water resources and climate change in developing country context. Secondly, it critically scrutinizes the market-centric perspectives on one hand and combines political economy questions that are generally overlooked in discussions of current resource governance framework, on the other. It develops a new framework to examine the reasons behind the degradations of natural resources to offer sustainable solutions to the problems. It shows that the natural resources have been exploited beyond sustainable limits due to the structural rigidities, embedded in, and reproduced by, fragile institutions and unequal power-sharing arrangements under the market-centric economic system. The book formulates a new understanding of sustainability in case of usage and management of natural resources by incorporating the idea of human sociality. It highlights the importance of the well-being of nature, and human beings must go side by side; one without the other is not a sustainable option. The book contains key learnings for scholars and researchers working in the field of development studies who wish to gain a deeper understanding on the sustainable natural resource governance specifically in the contexts of developing countries. For policymakers and policy advocates, the book serves as the groundwork on policies regarding biodiversity resources, water resources, and climate change, specific to the context of developing countries, providing more relevant contents in terms of laying out justification for policy objectives.

Contributing to the targets of SDG #17, this book interrogates how the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and other indicators are (or can be) relevant for entering the global discussion on UN SDGs. By highlighting the topic of'well-being'as a major connecting point between the SDGs, the GEM and other surveys the book has three main purposes: firstly, it shows that GEM data can contribute significantly to the monitoring process of the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals; secondly it analyses the survey's capacity to add value to the global discussion on well-being; thirdly, the book places emphasis on the pressing need for data in order to monitor the achievement of the SDGs. Ultimately, the book provides sound research that can serve as a basis for discussion with the UN on potential partnerships within the framework of SDG 17. The authors encourage GEM and other researchers to ensure that their data serves as a reliable partner to the UN in building a better world, based on well-being for everyone.

This book provides important philosophical insights concerning the kind of creatures we are such that we can experience something we understand as well-being, with these insights then being applied to various areas of social policy and welfare practice. The author defends what he calls The Ontology of Well-Being Thesis (TOWT), addressing ontological questions about the human condition, and how these questions are fundamental to issues concerning what we might know about human well-being and how we should promote it. Yet, surprisingly, these ontological questions are often side-lined in academic, political, and policy and practice based debates about well-being. Addressing these questions, head-on, six features of the human condition are identified via TOWT: human embodiment, finiteness, sociability, cognition, evaluation, and agency. The main argument of the thesis is that these features reveal the conflicting character of human experiences, which can, in turn, have a profound bearing on our experience of well-being. Notably, it is our conflicting experiences of time, emotion, and self-consciousness, which can potentially help us experience well-being in complex and multi-dimensional ways. The author then applies these insights to various social policies and welfare practices, concerning, for example, pensions, disability, bereavement counselling, social prescribing within health settings, the promotion of mental health, and co-production practices. This book is of importance to philosophers, social policy analysts, and welfare practitioners and is also relevant to the fields of psychology, sociology, politics, and the health sciences.

Unter dem Motto „Pro-Ana“ treffen sich seit den späten 1990er Jahren vorwiegend junge Frauen im Internet, um gemeinsam magersüchtig zu werden. Wissenschaftlich wurde das Phänomen bisher vor allem hinsichtlich seiner potentiellen Gefahren untersucht. Im Dunkeln blieb dabei, was Pro-Ana eigentlich ist, welche Handlungen im Zentrum des Phänomens stehen oder wie sich Pro-Ana plattformübergreifend strukturiert. Dabei ist von besonderem Interesse, wie das soziale Gefüge der Teilnehmer•innen vor dem Hintergrund fast ausschließlich digital erfolgender Kommunikation dauerhaft bestehen kann. Über eine soziologische Websiteanalyse wird gezeigt, dass die Teilnehmer•innen die Online-Gemeinschaft in erster Linie als eine Motivationstechnik nutzen, die sie bei ihrem Vorhaben der drastischen Gewichtsreduktion unterstützt. Sie suchen diese auf, um sich in einer Art „Parallelprojektierung“ wechselseitig zum Abnehmen zu inspirieren und zu motivieren: Ihre Gleichheit in Bezug auf Projektziele und -dokumentationen ermöglicht es den Teilnehmer•innen, sich online etwa in Wettbewerben zu messen und einander als Gemeinschaft zu erfahren. Ihre Differenzen im Projektfortschritt bilden hingegen die Voraussetzung dafür, leuchtende Vorbilder unter ihren Mitstreiter•innen zu finden, die den Glauben an die Machbarkeit eines pro-anorektischen Gewichtsabnahmeprojekts in entscheidendem Maße stützen.

This book contains the most recent papers problematizing the notions of health, vulnerability, and well-being for individuals and their environment. Organized in 5 sections the book takes into consideration the critical and phenomenological history of well-being and health, their technological manipulation, how these notions connect with the body and the specific vulnerability of the human being, and what responsible direction we can take to improve people's relation to themselves, to other living beings and their environment. In order to address the issue of the vulnerability of the human world and how to respond to its specific challenges, the contributions in this book discuss the topic from a broad range of perspectives, including anthropological, psychological, sociological, philosophical, and environmental.

Im Mai 2013 wurde eine neue Version des Diagnostischen und Statistischen Manuals psychischer Störungen (DSM-5) veröffentlicht. Im Zuge dessen entstand eine kontrovers geführte Debatte, wo die Grenze zwischen Trauer und Depression zu ziehen ist: Wie, wann und unter welchen Umständen wird Trauer negativ oder unangemessen bewertet? Wer bestimmt, wann ein Mensch unverhältnismäßig trauert? Daniela Blanks Untersuchung über Trauer im Kontext des DSM-5 geht der Frage nach, wie die Differenz zwischen normalen und abweichenden Formen der Trauer in der fortgeschrittenen Moderne hergestellt wird. Diskursanalytisch rekonstruiert sie „Trauer“ als Chance und Risiko für das moderne Subjekt gleichermaßen. Trauer bietet die Chance ein Selbst (neu) zu entdecken und zugleich das Risiko dem Selbst zu entgleiten.

This book presents a new step farther into the twenty-first century, for the first time truly combining a comprehensive global data analysis with social policy theory development. The theory of global ideal-typical welfare regimes, also known as the “Ten Worlds of Welfare Regime Theory”, as set forth earlier by Christian Aspalter, is now in this book tested empirically using a quantitative global data analysis for the first time. The strong and rich results fully vindicated the Ten Worlds Theory. All in all, about 150 countries are included in this test, measuring numerous variables on two main dimensions, i.e., povertization and inequality. The innovative approach of using a new indicator, Aspalter's Standardized Relative Performance Index, is applied, which facilitated the exact measurements of distances between relative performances of each variable, each dimension, each country, and each ideal-typical welfare regime (in relation to one another, respectively). In addition, oneexplanative and one normative meta-study is added to the book, to point to ways to understand and deal with the global culprit of inequality and, hence, poverty.“On the backdrop of decades of comparative theoretical and empirical research we now, for the first time, have a truly global analysis of welfare regimes.” ---- Peter Abrahamson, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen

The book offers critical discussion, constructive insights and informed guidance for future research and applied work that can move us closer towards a sustainable society. This is the first comprehensive edited book linking sustainability and happiness. By doing so, it frames modern society's pursuit of happiness as the ultimate wicked problem challenging sustainable life on earth. Chapters in the book focus on topics such as food systems, neighbourhood developments, project facilitated gathering and dialogue, beauty, and the happiness movement as an alternative to GDP. This book is of great importance to both academics and practitioners working at the intersection of sustainability and happiness.

Tras el éxito de sus dos magníficos libros anteriores, Rousseau no usa bitcoins y Por fin me comprendo, Alfredo Sanfeliz, el “Harari español”, vuelve a sacudirnos con un gran ensayo sociológico acerca de las paradojas y absurdas creencias que se dan en torno al funcionamiento de nuestra sociedad, poco visibles pero que de hecho condicionan nuestro desarrollo, convivencia y bienestar. Nos encontramos anclados en mentalidades que no conciben una sociedad con formas diferentes de rentabilidad o con sistemas de motivación no basados en el dinero tal y como hoy funciona este. Pero tales aspectos deben ceder espacio en favor de la búsqueda de un verdadero bienestar emocional, humano y espiritual. Y esto no es algo que vaya a ocurrir, sino que ya está ocurriendo.

The core of this book is the concept of huodegan (获得感), which refers to a sense of gain that includes perceived individual wellbeing and social development. Given that measuring sense of gain has become critical in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics and along with the social indicators movement in the last decade, building an index for evaluating sense of gain becomes critical. Apart from reviewing the existing index systems for social development and policy and the previous studies exploring the sense of gain, this book highlights the importance of combining Chinese socio-cultural features, established theories, and index systems.

This book aims to provide a complete overview of the current status of lifestyle and transport changes in China, focusing on the ongoing trends in lifestyle and transport technologies, which are shaping a new lifestyle and transport system. An additional focus is to discuss the mechanism behind the influence of transport on lifestyles, and analyze the influence of transport facilities on lifestyles, which will help to give efficient and effective transport solutions. Using macro statistics and survey data from Beijing and Chinese villages and towns, this book explores the interactive development of lifestyle and transportation in China over the past 40 years. The analyses and findings in this book would enhance our existing knowledge of the relationship lifestyle and transport. The policies discussed in the book would provide fresh evidences for policy-making on updating transport services in order to cope with the changes of people's lifestyle. This book will be of great interest to scholars and governmental agencies interested in transport development, transport policy, social transition, sustainable transport, urban planning, urban governance, and is relevant to China and other developing countries.

Through a transdisciplinary perspective, this book examines the complex urban dimension, in front of increasing density, soil consumption, abandoned places, and the recent pandemic which proved megacities particularly inadequate to provide healthy psychophysical conditions. Assuming bodily and emotional comfort as a reference horizon, it tends to inspire the design research overcoming a paradoxical binary logic that separates public and private, outside and inside, culture and nature, mind and places. The first part of the work explores built spaces and addresses sustainable strategies not only to overcome an ecologic and systemic crisis but also to improve places liveability in our contemporary city. The second part deals with our perception of aesthetic spaces, welcoming the stimuli coming from neuro-aesthetics studies on affordances and atmosphere and encouraging the intersection between interior architecture and design culture and arts. The third part examines relational spaces and how they influence human behaviour, starting from psychological, anthropological, and philosophical perspectives. The book benefits scholars and practitioners interested in interior architecture and design, as well as researchers involved in the relationship between people and places. The new challenge posed by the recent pandemic requires more than ever to rely on consciousness, culture and creativity to increase the intelligence of our surroundings, allowing our sense of belonging and improving our personal and mutual well-being.

The book is presented as an Atlas where the map plays a fundamental role in the study of quality of life, as it shows its progression in Argentina from the 19th to the 21st Century. In the book, it can be observed how the concept has evolved along with the dimensions and variables that better represent its spatial distribution. This is one of the original points of the book: the temporal study of the living conditions of the argentine population, empirically and spatially, emphasizing their territorial representation. Although the book maintains the same socioeconomic dimensions (education, health and housing), the tour through the different chapters offers a historical window that allows the reader to know what the forms of information collection were like in different historical moments. This book is written for geographers and members of the scientific community interested in the study of the well-being of the population. It also allows us to observe the evolution of the quality of life from the 19th century to the 21st, so it may be of interest to historians as well.

Beyond White Mindfulness: Critical Perspectives on Racism, Well-being, and Liberation brings together interdisciplinary perspectives on mind-body interventions, group-based identities, and social justice. Marshalling both empirical data and theoretical approaches, the book examines a broad range of questions related to mindfulness, meditation, and diverse communities.While there is growing public interest in mind-body health, holistic wellness, and contemplative practice, critical research examining on these topics featuring minority perspectives and experiences is relatively rare. This book draws on cutting edge insights from psychology, sociology, gender, and, critical race theory to fill this void. Major themes include culture, identity, and awareness; intersectional approaches to the study of mindfulness and minority stress; cultural competence in developing and teaching mindfulness-based health interventions, and the complex relationships between mindfulness, inequality, and social justice.The first book of its kind to bring together scholarly and personal reflections on mindfulness for diverse populations, Beyond White Mindfulness offers social science students and practitioners in this area a new perspective on mindfulness and suggestions for future scholarship.

In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary work, the authors focus on organizational analysis to understand workplace wellbeing, deviating from previous research that mostly looks at the individual worker or intervention. In addressing the question of why workplace health and wellbeing practices initiatives fall short of delivering sustained improvements in worker wellbeing, this book moves beyond localized explanations of the failure of specific interventions. Instead, it creates theoretical frameworks that explain how wellbeing at work can be improved and sustained. The authors use evidence from systematic and comprehensive surveys of the literature as well as new empirical research, and present an explanatory framework of the processes through which organizations change to implement and accommodate workplace health and wellbeing practices. Learning, adaptation and continuation explain successful implementation of workplace health and wellbeing practices, while Gestalting, fracturing and grafting explain how organizations resolve or negotiate conflict between health and wellbeing practices and existing organizational procedures, systems and practices. In addition, the authors reflect on the implications for research of reframing the unit of analysis as the organization and how studies on workplace wellbeing practices can provide a conceptual platform for thinking about the way organizations can create social value in a broader sense. This book, authored by experts in their field, is a great resource for academics and professionals of organizational studies and of worker wellbeing across the social sciences, behavioural sciences, business and management courses, wellbeing research, and labour studies.

The idea of «wellbeing» is increasingly prevalent in global policy contexts. Yet, as the chapters in this collection demonstrate, any understanding of wellbeing is contextual: what wellbeing is depends on where and how we listen and speak, the concepts at our disposal, the humans and nonhumans with whom we engage, and the focus of their, and our, aspirations. Many of the chapters in this collection reflect the context of Aotearoa New Zealand, which, in 2019, introduced a wellbeing approach to public policy that attracted the attention of global policy makers and other stakeholders. In this collection, commentators both from within and beyond Aotearoa take an expansive stance in discussing the concept of wellbeing and its myriad possibilities. The authors speak from an array of disciplines to present and critique ideas about how wellbeing can be understood and pursued across the life course.

For all of the tremendous advances in medicine and treatment the world has seen in the modern era, the human body's ability to heal itself remains a (literally) vital and often overlooked facet of healthcare. Through the use of emotional design, aimed at transforming healthcare environments, such as waiting rooms, in such a way as to boost the emotional wellbeing of patients, and thus their general attitudes, including in regard to their own healing processes, medical institutions can improve outcomes for the people they treat while simultaneously lowering overall costs. Design, as an inherently transdisciplinary, problem-solving activity, is well-suited to this task. And when combined with a field of study such as neuroscience, which can literally map out the perceptions that lead to the experience of particular emotions, healthcare environments can be transformed into spaces (through such innovations as Kansei engineering) that then subsequently transform the people who rely on them the most, leading to more efficiency and less red ink.

This book brings together leading researchers on wellbeing science to provide a multidisciplinary approach to psychological wellbeing with implications for the interconnected societal challenges we face today, including loneliness, neoliberalism, inequality and anthropogenic climate change. Its authors present new and innovative models for understanding, building and improving our understanding of the complex construct of wellbeing. The capacity for individual positive change is explored, as well as the scope for such change to impact on the communities and environments within which we live. Further, the book places individual wellbeing within a broader context that also addresses societal needs and challenges. In doing so, it provides a novel synthesis of individual, societal and environmental perspectives on wellbeing and human flourishing.In the face of an urgent need to build stronger, sustainable and more resilient communities, this book demonstrates how wellbeing science can link the individual with the community through appropriate health and wellbeing policies and offers a guide to a new way for individuals to connect with the world. It will appeal to researchers and professionals working across the fields of psychology, environmental science, public health and public policy.

This open access book defines happiness intuitively and explores several common conceptual mistakes with regard to happiness. It then moves on to address topical issues including, but not limited to, whether money can buy you happiness, why happiness is ultimately the only thing of intrinsic value, and the various factors important for happiness. It also presents a more reliable and interpersonally comparable method for measuring happiness and discusses twelve factors, from A to L, that are crucial for individual happiness: attitude, balance, confidence, dignity, engagement, family/friends, gratitude, health, ideals, joyfulness, kindness and love. Further, it examines important public policy considerations, taking into account recent advances in economics, the environmental sciences, and happiness studies. Novel issues discussed include: an environmentally responsible happy nation index to supplement GDP, the East Asian happiness gap, a case for stimulating pleasure centres of the brain, and an argument for higher public spending.

This volume continues the tradition now established since 2006, of compiling excellent research into the practice and application of community indicators in a single source volume. It focuses on the theme of the Community Indicators Consortium 2020 Summit, as a significant venue for the advancement of the practice and theory of community indicators work. It covers the conference's theme of “community resilience”, which is the capacity of all of a community's elements to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience. In keeping with the practical, “best cases” emphasis of this book series, the editors incorporate a case-based approach to chapters discussing how specific indicators, indices or series of indicators can lead to better decisions and outcomes to help communities adapt and transform in the face of challenges, helping them prepare for both the expected and the unexpected to sustain and improve quality of life, including technology and open source approaches to data sharing and data-focussed collaboration; evolving approaches that use shared indicators to improve overall community well-being and quality of life; research related to community indicators and policy, application, research, and/or practice; and techniques and approaches to measure resilience. This volume is of interest to social scientists, management professionals, social workers and policy makers working on various aspects of community indicators of quality of life and well-being. Chapter “The Cost of Sea Level Rise for the Island Community of Vinalhaven, Maine: Spurring action through collaborative data analysis” is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see licence information in the chapters.

​This book addresses and compensates for the lack of poverty measurement research in China. With regard to the multi-dimensional measurement of poverty, it is clear that the situation of Chinese farmers is problematic in terms of five major aspects: sanitation facilities, health insurance, durable consumer goods, productive assets and modern fuels. Based on these criteria, the book provides a clear direction for policy intervention to comprehensively improve farmers'standard of living and tackle the key problems of poverty alleviation and development in the region. In addition, its analysis of poverty among ethnic minorities, the elderly and children offers valuable reference material for poverty alleviation and the development of special groups.

The book explores, through a reflection on food, the complexity of the concept of well-being. It starts from the consideration that food is a fundamental element for human well-being, and for well-being of the planet as a whole. Not only does food guarantee the survival of human beings, it is also a cultural expression. With regard to the Italian socio-cultural context, the contributors explore how food relates to aspects such as history, tradition, new food styles, health, and the old and new technologies used to produce food. The studies in the book do not simply analyse indicators to illustrate the Italian situation in the'here and now'. As part of the tradition of studies on social indicators, they provide valid and well-founded indications to contribute to an improvement in the quality of life for years to come.This work on the theme of food represents a very useful contribution to the general reflection on well-being and its statistical, sociological, and multidisciplinary study, due to the importance historically given to food in Italy and the socio-cultural implications of food in various life contexts.

This book asks what kind of impacts innovations and technology have on subjective well-being and happiness. It presents the state of the art both in terms of results and theoretical questioning on these topics. It proposes a new concept: innovation that leads to greater happiness, and highlights new research in this area. In so doing, it addresses a less researched area in the field of well-being research. The authors state that notwithstanding the indisputable positive contributions of innovation and technology, there are also drawbacks, which need equal attention in research. This book is of interest to students and researchers of quality of life and well-being, as well as innovation research.