Indian Journal of Positive Psychology

Pages:401-406
Anagha L. Lavalekar (Jnana Prabodhinis Institute of Psychology, Sadashiv Peth, Pune, Maharashtra)

Relationships are vital source of motivation and satisfaction for a human being. Research indicates that quality of intimate relationships has a profound impact on an individual's mental health and general quality of life. It is observed that increasing relationship problems are not only challenging a person's mental health but are also disturbing the social fabric at large. Family being the basic unit of social structure is getting damaged beyond repair due to relationship storms. It may be too late to recognize and revert the losses unless expert guidance and intervention on an emergency basis. The five factor model of relationship building is thus proposed in the present paper titled 'Enhancement of relationships for positive mental health'. They include Empathy, Balancing rights and responsibilities, win- win situations, commitment and creative urge.

Pages:410-413
M. Anbarasu and V. Chandramohan (Department of Psychology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu)

Depression and other psychiatric problems impair academic performance. It is a serious mental health concern that affects learning process of children. Yoga helps students directly to hold his / her physical fitness, forces in balance and indirectly to develop his / her mental powers. The aim of the present study was to find out the role of Yogic Exercises Therapy in the management of depression among students. Once the students are free from depression symptoms, they can concentrate well in their studies and score good marks in the examination. The objective of the present study was to stress the importance of psychological care of students, suffering from depression symptoms, in order to help them to alleviate the ill-effects of depression symptoms thereby successful in their academic as well as in life. Three hundred healthy and well motivated school students, 150 Boys and 150 Girls, studying Higher Secondary Course (+2), age ranging from 15 to 18 years, constituted as a sample for the present study. School students were administered with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to find out the level of depression. Out of 300, 40 school students with mild depression, willing to participate in the study, were divided into two groups such as Control and Experimental group (Yoga). Out of 40, 20 students: 10 Boys and 10 Girls each were allotted to Control and Experimental groups. Experimental group was exposed to certain selected yogic exercises such as Suryanamaskar, Sitting postures such as Paschimotasana, Ardhamatsyendrasana, Padmasana, Vajrasana, Ushtrasana, Standing postures such as Parsavatriconasana, Dhadasana, Prone postures such as Salabhasana, Bhujangasana, Dhanurasana, Supine postures such as Matyasana, Sarvangasana, Halasana, Chakrasana and Relaxing Savasana, twice a day, morning and evening, for duration of thirty minutes, for one month whereas Control group was not exposed to any therapeutic intervention. Students were practicing Yoga in their respective school premises. Boys and girls were undergoing training separately. BDI was administered one month after therapeutic intervention. Follow-up was conducted after three months of continuous therapeutic intervention. Comparison of the performance of Control and Experimental (YOGA) groups showed that there is an extremely significant difference (P < 0.0001) existing between the Mean Pre and Posttest BDI scores. Experimental group was lower (P < 0.0001) than the Control group in the mean Posttest scores of BDI after the management. Results clearly indicated that there is an extremely significant difference (P < 0.0001) existing in the performance of Yoga Boys and Girls. Girls were better (P < 0.0001) than the Boys in overcoming the ill-effects of depression symptoms. Students, who underwent Yogic Exercises Therapy, were free from depression symptoms after practicing yoga.Follow-up assessment was carried out three months after the regular practice of Yogic Exercises Therapy. It was evident from the study that the students, who were practicing yoga, could sustain the psychological wellbeing even after three months of therapeutic intervention. Practicing yoga regularly helped to overcome depression symptoms and thereby promoted psychological wellbeing and academic success among school students.

Pages:417-421
Usha Tiwari Upadhyay (Department of Psychology, Osmania University, Hyderabad) Saroj Arya (Department of Rehabilitation Psychology, National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped, Secunderabad)

Early emotional development and wellbeing lays the foundation for later learning, academic performance, mental health, and the capacity to form successful relationships. The present paper is a critical analysis of the published empirical literature which specifies the application of positive psychology to construct wellbeing among individuals, institutions and community; particularly among children. As positive psychology is the scientific study of positive experience and optimal human functioning, the correlates of wellbeing such as; positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction, character strengths, self-concept and self-esteem, mindfulness, optimism and gratitude are discussed in order to build children's social, emotional and behavioral competencies.

Pages:426-428
Shruti Dutt and Preet Kumari (Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra, Uttar Pradesh)

Environmental degradation is a global issue. The study reported here while acknowledging the needs to address the wider questions, seeks to examine the role that home, school and social life have in leading students to become concerned about deteriorating local and world environment and committed to its preservation. A sample of 100 undergraduate female students of Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra was selected. The Socio-Economic Status Scale Form A (Urban), developed by Kulshreshtra (1980) and a self constructed questionnaire on environmental consciousness was used. Data was analyzed by Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Multiple Regression Analysis. The findings signify that Socio-economic status was the most contributing factor .221% in predicting the environmental consciousness.

Pages:432-435
Arvind K Birdie (Acting Principal & Associate Professor, IIMT School of Management, Vedatya Institute, Gurgaon)

The present workplace and world is blooming complicated and stress full day by day. The present paper reviews the role of mindfulness in workplace. Mindfulness is gaining a growing popularity as a practice in daily life, apart from buddhist insight meditation and its application in psychology. Not that long ago, meditation was seen widely as the preserve of hippies and saffron-clad monks, unsuited for the business world. Nowadays, a growing number of businesses are recognizing what mindfulness has to offer. Being mindful makes it easier to savor the pleasures in life as they occur, helps employees become fully engaged in activities, and creates a greater capacity to deal with adverse events. By focusing on the here and now, many people who practice mindfulness find that they are less likely to get caught up in worries about the future or regrets over the past, are less preoccupied with concerns about success and self-esteem, and are better able to form deep connections with others.

Pages:439-443
Aneesh Kumar (Department of Psychology, Christ University, Bengaluru) Shinto Thomas and Sibnath Deb (Department of Applied Psychology, Pondicherry University, Puducherry)

Adolescence is a major developmental stage characterised by marked growth and development. Family and other significant people play very crucial role during this developmental stage. Sibling relations are given due importance as children grow together and share the same environment. These relations whether positive or disturbing have impact on the adolescent's coping and development even it persists throughout their life. The present secondary research based article aims to understand the dynamics of sibling relations and its impact on adolescent's life. Evidence indicates that sibling relations depend on various factors such as family type, structure, size, economic conditions and gender of the siblings and other factors. A positive and congenial sibling relation helps moulding a child into a sound person whereas disturbing or unfriendly relations including rivalry, bullying and sexual or physical abuse has negative impact on development and can cause severe consequences ranging shame, aggression or fear to severe anxiety, depression and other mental and physical health hazards. Sibling relation often reflects in adolescent's personality, socialisation and interpersonal skills. Evidences also indicate that sibling support and healthy relation can boost up confidence and healthy mental development of adolescent even in adolescent with disability or other disorders. Parents and professionals often fail to understand the dynamics and importance of sibling relation and sometimes incidences of sexual abuse or other potential risks goes unnoticed. The paper recommends the need for family and community-based awareness and effective parenting programs. Also it calls for the attention from professional, parents and researchers to unearth the dynamics of sibling relations.

Pages:448-450
Devesh Kumar Sharma (Amity Institute of Corporate Communication, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh)

The rapid growth of 'Global Village' has brought Indian society to a varied platform where the postmodern generation has lack of values. The biggest challenge that the Indian society is facing is the inculcation ofgood values to the 'Port Modern Generation'. In today's contemporary era which has been entitled as technology driven, where most of the values are being ingrained by electronic media and the internet is a reason enough for the lack of being in touch of human beings is eventually leading them towards the path of brutality and immorality. Terminologies which are related to value system have just become a subject to study such as: Moral and Spiritual Values, Indian Traditional Values, Socio-Cultural Values, Inter-Cultural values, human-values, cultural sensitivity, women empowerment, cultural pluralism, Stereotyping and Ethnocentrism. D.D. Vadekar (July 2002), while writing about Indian traditional values, has also given different perspectives which draw a fine line between values and technology. This Paper as the title suggests, deals with not only the challenges but also with remedieswhich are prevailing in postmodern Indian society and are damaging our value system.

Pages::453-455
Vikas Yadav (Department of Psychology, University of Delhi, Delhi)

Gratitude is the positive emotion one feels when another person has intentionally given, or attempted to give, one something of value. Increasing gratefulness through gratefulness inducing exercises has found to improve the subjective well being of the individual. Yet, the impact of dispositional gratitude on specific domains such as health behaviour is yet to be assessed. In the present study the extent to which dispositional gratefulness predicts self- efficacy for exercise and eating habits is examined. Participants (n=90) were volunteer students of graduate and post- graduate courses of University of Delhi. They completed measures of dispositional gratitude, and measures of self- efficacy for exercise and eating habits. These measures include Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test (GRAT), Exercise Confidence Survey and Eating Habits Confidence Survey (ECHS). Dispositional gratitude was found to be a better predictor for self efficacy for eating habits and mild predictor for self efficacy for exercise. Among the three subscales of the Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test (GRAT), the simple appreciation subscale was the best predictor for self efficacy for eating habits. Lack of sense of deprivation mildly predicts the exercise behaviour.

Pages:05-08
Elham Amirshamsi and Aminallah Fazel (Department of Psychology, Arsanjan Branch Islamic Azad University, Arsanjan, Iran) Seyedeh Maryam Hosseini (Department of Psychology, Marvdasht Branch Islamic Azad University, ‎ Marvdasht, Iran)

This study examined the anticipation of parenting styles and family communication patterns for psychological well-being in young children of employees of Islamic Azad University of Marvdasht. The study population included 196 young children of employees. In correlational study 100 young children with the mean age 16 were selected through available sampling. Instruments included short form of Reef psychological well-being scale, Alabama parenting style questioner (1997) and family communication patterns of Koerner and Fitzpatrik. Correlation and multiple regressions were used for data analysis. Results showed that psychological well being had positive significant relationship with conformation pattern and negative significant relationship with communication pattern. Also psychological wellbeing had significant relationship with positive parenting and cooperation of father and significant negative relation with physical punishment and authority of parents.

Pages:15-20
Zunxia Zhang and Rosalito de. Guzman (The Graduate School, University of Santo Tomas, Espana Boulevard, 1015 Manila, Philippines)

The aim of this research was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of an Innovative Intervention Program to treat depression, by combining emotion-focused cognitive therapy with acupuncture. A total of 30 patients, suffering from depression was selected and randomly assigned to two groups: the experimental (15), who received the innovative intervention program; and a control group (15), who just continued to receive their usual care. Three psychological tests (BDI-II, Zung SDS, and HRSD) were administered to both groups both before and after the implementation of the program. The pre-test and post-test scores of the experimental group showed significant differences (p=0.000) at 0.05 levels. The scores of the control group and experimental groups showed significant differences (P=0.000 or 0.001) in the post-test. This Innovative Intervention Program (CEFCTA) had a significant influence in reducing the level of depression for adult sufferers.