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Psychology

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Positive psychology

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Pursuit Of Happiness: Freedom And Well-Being In Positive Psychology, Kevin J. Mckenzie Jan 2024

The Pursuit Of Happiness: Freedom And Well-Being In Positive Psychology, Kevin J. Mckenzie

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This project explores the relationship between freedom and well‑being. Through reviewing the literature of positive psychology and existential psychology, clearer pictures of well‑being and freedom emerge, allowing for statistical analysis. By adopting Seligman’s well‑being theory as a model that incorporates hedonic and eudaimonic elements of well‑being and self‑determination theory’s conceptualization of autonomy as a proxy for freedom in existential psychology, this study explores the relationship between these constructs and their theorized factors through correlational analysis. A potential measurement model for an overall well‑being measure incorporating freedom as a factor is proposed and tested using confirmatory factor analyses. The effects of …


Exploring The Definition Of Resilience: A Convergent Parallel Mixed Methods Study In Adults Over The Age Of 65, Sara J. Blessington Jan 2023

Exploring The Definition Of Resilience: A Convergent Parallel Mixed Methods Study In Adults Over The Age Of 65, Sara J. Blessington

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The definition of a word helps us understand its context and how it is meant to be used in daily life or research. When a word lacks a universal definition, it is hard to know how to use it. “Resilience” is that type of word. The resilience community in psychological research does not have a concrete, universal definition for this word. It takes on whatever characteristics are useful to the investigator. This study began with seeking a universal definition for the domain known as resilience. This study used a convergent parallel design with adults aged 60 and older living independently …


Flourishing With Chronic Pain, Michelle A. Taylor Jan 2021

Flourishing With Chronic Pain, Michelle A. Taylor

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Recognizing the need to include individuals with chronic pain in mainstream well-being profiling and to move beyond the debilitating factors inherent in this population, this study aimed to understand how individuals with moderate to severe chronic pain experience well-being in the light of positive psychology. Guided by the PERMA model, the goal was to track enhancers and challenges for well-being in reference to the model’s five components: positive emotions, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. Participants included six individuals living with daily moderate to severe chronic pain. One in-depth interview was conducted with each participant. Results pointed to overall moderate …


Saving A Seat For A Sister: A Grounded Theory Approach Exploring The Journey Of Women Reaching Top Policing Executive Positions, Nicola D. Smith-Kea Jan 2020

Saving A Seat For A Sister: A Grounded Theory Approach Exploring The Journey Of Women Reaching Top Policing Executive Positions, Nicola D. Smith-Kea

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The world of women in law enforcement is a thought-provoking one that has received increasing attention both in academia as well as in practice over the past few decades. Even more intriguing, and despite advances in the profession, is the low number of women in executive leadership positions in law enforcement. There is a vast underrepresentation of women in top executive leadership positions across the 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States. The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of the complex journey of women to top executive policing leadership positions. Embracing a positive psychology approach, …


An Exploration Of Factors Influencing First-Generation College Students' Ability To Graduate College: A Delphi Study, Ashley C. Gray Benson Jan 2020

An Exploration Of Factors Influencing First-Generation College Students' Ability To Graduate College: A Delphi Study, Ashley C. Gray Benson

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation serves as a counter-narrative to the standard deficiency model in published research that characterizes most first-generation college students as feeble and unequipped when it comes to thriving in, persisting in, and graduating from college. This is one of the few studies that examines the success of first-generation college students from the students’ perspective. First-generation college students who graduated from college participated in a Delphi study that addressed this question: What factors influence first-generation college students' ability to graduate college? Three rounds of data collection resulted in ten themes, roughly in order of importance based on feedback from study …


The Effects Of Gender And Perception Of Community Safety On Happiness, Jennifer K. Daffon Jan 2017

The Effects Of Gender And Perception Of Community Safety On Happiness, Jennifer K. Daffon

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Income-based indicators of happiness have been shown to be limited in their ability to predict happiness. Alternative measures of happiness have been gaining prominence in happiness research, and two predictors of happiness were investigated in the current study. The extent to which happiness (measured by affect, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being) could be predicted by gender and perception of community safety was investigated with 19,644 participant responses to The Happiness Alliance Survey. Multiple linear regression models indicated that gender and community safety are significant predictors of affect, life satisfaction, and psychological well-being. The effect of the predictor variables was similar …


A Method To My Quietness: A Grounded Theory Study Of Living And Leading With Introversion, Leatrice Oram Jan 2016

A Method To My Quietness: A Grounded Theory Study Of Living And Leading With Introversion, Leatrice Oram

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Leadership scholar-practitioners must create a more sustainable, diverse, and equitable future, fostering emergence and development of resilient, competent leaders, including those who may have been previously overlooked.Leadership studies, particularly those situated in early trait and behavior paradigms, have long privileged extraverted leaders as ideal.The scholarly conversation is limited on introverted leaders; moreover, most of that literature depicts introversion as either a pathological construct associated with shyness and social anxiety, or includes introversion only by omission, as a state of deficit-of-extraversion.This study instead began with positive inquiry, framing introversion as a positive individual difference, and explored the lived experiences of introverted …


Character Strengths Of Students At Risk Of Dropping Out Of High School, Sarah Baker Jan 2015

Character Strengths Of Students At Risk Of Dropping Out Of High School, Sarah Baker

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The goal of this study was to determine the participants' perceptions about what strengths at-risk students who follow through and graduate from high school have, using the conceptual framework of positive psychology, and its classification system of virtues and character strengths. To reveal the strengths of these students, this study used a qualitative methodology, interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). In addition, the participants were asked to fill out a Likert scale survey to rate how frequently at-risk students who graduated employed each of the 24 VIA characteristics. The purpose of this study was to add to the under-researched area of identifying …


Africentric Resilience Training: A Prevention Program For African American Soldiers, Melissa Boudreau Jan 2015

Africentric Resilience Training: A Prevention Program For African American Soldiers, Melissa Boudreau

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The study develops a mental health prevention program for African American soldiers called, Africentric Resilience Training (ART). The goal of ART is to train soldiers to be psychologically fit, just as they train to be physically fit in the military. The ART curriculum aims to increase soldiers’ resilience and capacity to flourish, while educating them on the occurrence and prevention of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. This program is founded on the principles and structure of the current Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness (CSF2) program in the Army (CSF2, 2012). ART is unique in its utilization of a culturally and racially modified …


Understanding Relational Agility: Exploring Constructs Of Relational Leadership Through Story, David M.I. Mclean Jan 2014

Understanding Relational Agility: Exploring Constructs Of Relational Leadership Through Story, David M.I. Mclean

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Organizational storytelling was used within Tri Fit, a Canadian health promotion and fitness company, to explore relational leadership practices. Through 27 confidential one-on-one interviews and an interview of the four-person leadership team, the research attempted to examine how relational agility, a new leadership construct, exists, how it is defined, and to describe its organizational impacts. Two hundred and forty unique stories were shared through this process, out of which nine storylines emerged. The distillation of these revealed three cultural themes: a culture of relational connection; a culture of nice and a culture that values positivity. Demonstrations of transformational leadership, authentic …


Thankful Learning: A Grounded Theory Study Of Relational Practice Between Master’S Students And Professors, Harriet L. Schwartz Jan 2009

Thankful Learning: A Grounded Theory Study Of Relational Practice Between Master’S Students And Professors, Harriet L. Schwartz

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

No abstract provided.