Robbins Brent Dean
Department of Psychology, Point Park University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jul 22;12:648600. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.648600. eCollection 2021.
In the midst of a global pandemic, psychology has a duty to identify dispositional or character traits that can be cultivated in citizens in order to create resiliency in the face of profound losses, suffering and distress. Dispositional joy holds some promise as such a trait that could be especially important for well-being during the current pandemic and its consequences. The concept of the Joyful Life may operate as bridge between positive psychology and humanistic, existential, and spiritual views of the good life, by integrating hedonic, prudential, eudaimonic and chaironic visions of the good life. Previous phenomenological research on state joy suggests that momentary states of joy may have features that overlap with happiness but go beyond mere hedonic interests, and point to the experience of a life oriented toward virtue and a sense of the transcendent or the sacred. However, qualitative research on the Joyful Life, or dispositional joy, is sorely lacking. This study utilized a dialogical phenomenological analysis to conduct a group-based analysis of 17 volunteer students, who produced 51 autobiographical narrative descriptions of the joyful life. The dialogical analyses were assisted by integration of the Imagery in Movement Method, which incorporated expressive drawing and psychodrama as an aid to explicate implicit themes in the experiences of the participants. The analyses yielded ten invariant themes found across the autobiographical narrative descriptions: Being broken, being grounded, being centered, breaking open, being uplifted, being supertemporal, being open to the mystery, being grateful, opening up and out, and being together. The descriptions of a Joyful Life were consistent with a meaning orientation to happiness, due to their emphasis on the cultivation of virtue in the service of a higher calling, the realization of which was felt to be a gift or blessing. The discussion examines implications for future research, including the current relevance of a joyful disposition during a global pandemic. Due to the joyful disposition's tendency to transform suffering and tragedy into meaning, and its theme of an orientation to prosocial motivations, the Joyful Life may occupy a central place in the study of resiliency and personal growth in response to personal and collective trauma such as COVID-19.
在全球大流行的背景下，心理学有责任确定公民可以培养的性格或特质，以便在面对巨大损失、苦难和痛苦时具备恢复力。作为这样一种特质，性格上的喜悦有望在当前大流行及其后果期间对幸福尤其重要。通过整合美好生活的享乐主义、审慎、幸福主义和超幸福主义观点，“快乐生活”的概念可能成为积极心理学与美好生活的人文主义、存在主义和精神观点之间的桥梁。先前关于状态喜悦的现象学研究表明，瞬间的喜悦状态可能具有与幸福重叠的特征，但超越了单纯的享乐兴趣，并指向一种以美德为导向的生活体验以及一种超越感或神圣感。然而，对“快乐生活”或性格喜悦的定性研究严重不足。本研究采用对话现象学分析方法，对17名志愿学生进行了基于小组的分析，这些学生生成了51篇关于快乐生活的自传式叙述描述。对话分析借助了运动意象法，该方法将表达性绘画和心理剧结合起来，以帮助阐明参与者经历中的隐含主题。分析得出了在自传式叙述描述中发现的十个不变主题：破碎、扎根、居中、敞开心扉、振奋、超越时间、对神秘敞开、感恩、向外开放、在一起。对快乐生活的描述与幸福的意义取向一致，因为它们强调为更高使命服务而培养美德，而这种使命的实现被视为一种礼物或祝福。讨论探讨了对未来研究的启示，包括在全球大流行期间性格喜悦的当前相关性。由于性格喜悦倾向于将苦难和悲剧转化为意义，以及其亲社会动机取向的主题，“快乐生活”可能在应对诸如新冠疫情等个人和集体创伤的恢复力和个人成长研究中占据核心地位。
