Internal and External Factors Underlying Variations in Adolescents' Daily Optimal Experiences.

This study investigated how the internal psychological states (i.e., challenge-skill perception, positive and negative affect, and effortless attention) and contextual features (i.e., activity and company) of momentary experiences relate to optimal experience in adolescents' lives. Data were collected from 245 Portuguese adolescents (14-19 years old, 63% female) by using the experience sampling method. Multilevel modeling revealed that challenge-skill and positive affect were positively associated with optimal experience, while negative affect was negatively associated with optimal experience. Effortless attention mediated the associations between internal states and optimal experience, while activity and company only moderated some of these associations. These findings will inform practitioners about the factors that should be addressed in interventions with adolescents to promote optimal experiences in their lives.

A Scoping Review of Flow Research.

Flow is a gratifying state of deep involvement and absorption that individuals report when facing a challenging activity and they perceive adequate abilities to cope with it (EFRN, 2014). The flow concept was introduced by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975, and interest in flow research is growing. However, to our best knowledge, no scoping review exists that takes a systematic look at studies on flow which were published between the years 2000 and 2016. Overall, 252 studies have been included in this review. Our review (1) provides a framework to cluster flow research, (2) gives a systematic overview about existing studies and their findings, and (3) provides an overview about implications for future research. The provided framework consists of three levels of flow research. In the first "Individual" level are the categories for personality, motivation, physiology, emotion, cognition, and behavior. The second "Contextual" level contains the categories for contextual and interindividual factors and the third "Cultural" level contains cultural factors that relate to flow. Using our framework, we systematically present the findings for each category. While flow research has made progress in understanding flow, in the future, more experimental and longitudinal studies are needed to gain deeper insights into the causal structure of flow and its antecedents and consequences.

Influência da autoestima, da regulação emocional e do gênero no bem-estar subjetivo e psicológico de adolescentes / Influence of self-esteem and emotion regulation in subjective and psychological well-being of adolescents: contributions to clinical psychology

INTRODUÇÃO: A literatura científica tem evidenciado que a autoestima e a capacidade de regulação emocional estão presentes em vários quadros psicopatológicos, contudo a influência dessas variáveis no bem-estar tem sido pouco estudada teórica e empiricamente. OBJETIVO: Pretende-se analisar a relação dessas variáveis com o bem-estar subjetivo (satisfação com a vida) e com o bem-estar psicológico (felicidade e significado). Pretende-se, ainda, verificar a capacidade de predição do gênero, da autoestima e das estratégias de regulação emocional (supressão emocional e reavaliação cognitiva) nos diferentes componentes do bem-estar. MÉTODOS: Participaram do estudo 216 adolescentes de uma população normativa de ambos os sexos. Foram administrados, a todos os participantes, quatro instrumentos para avaliar a autoestima, a capacidade de regulação emocional, o bem-estar subjetivo e psicológico. RESULTADOS: A supressão emocional correlacionou-se negativamente com todas as medidas de bem-estar, enquanto a reavaliação cognitiva evidenciou correlação positiva mais significativa com os níveis de felicidade. A autoestima revelou correlação positiva forte com a satisfação com a vida e maior capacidade de predição do bem-estar do que as estratégias de regulação emocional. CONCLUSÃO: A autoestima revela ser uma variável importante na promoção do bem-estar dos adolescentes, assumindo-se como elemento fundamental numa intervenção clínica positiva e preventiva.

BACKGROUND: Scientific literature has shown that self-esteem and emotion regulation are related to various psychopatological disorders, although, few studies have investigated the influence of these variables in well-being. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to analyze the relations of these variables with subjective well-being (life satisfaction) and psychological well-being (happiness and meaning). It also wants to investigate the predictive value of gender, self-esteem and emotion regulation strategies (suppression and cognitive reavaluation) on the different components of well-being. METHODS: A normative sample of 216 adolescents, from both sexes, has answered four instruments that evaluated self-esteem, the emotion regulation capacity, subjective and psychological well-being. RESULTS: Suppression has correlated negatively with all the measures of well-being meanwhile cognitive reavaluation has correlated positively and more strongly with levels of happiness. Self-esteem had showed a strong and positive relation with life satisfaction and a higher predictive value of well-being than emotion regulation strategies. DISCUSSION: Self-esteem has revealed being an important variable in the promotion of adolescent well-being, assuming a primary role in the field of a more positive and preventive clinical practice.