ARROW@TU DUBLIN Here Are 5 Secret Steps To Living A More Meaningful Life [RTÉ Brainstorm] by Catherine KellyABSTRACT
Living life under a constant pandemic cloud has resulted in mental health and emotional issues becoming strong contenders for first place at the forefront of public health concerns worldwide. Consequently, many individuals are suffering from elevated levels of anxiety, anger, loneliness and despair. With the resilience of our nation at stake, we need to find hope, peace and contentment now more than ever. What if we could retrain our brain to shift from a negative mind-set to a positive one?
Publication Date: 2021
ARROW@TUDUBLIN Events, social connections, place identities and extended families by Bernadette Quinn and Theresa RyanABSTRACT
The study reported here investigates the role that planned social gatherings play in shaping social connections, forging group identity and re-affirming connections with significant ‘home’ places within families where relationships extend across space. Empirically, it draws on a study of the Gathering, a 2013 national tourism initiative that encouraged people in Ireland to organise ‘gatherings’ to attract ‘home’ family members scattered across the globe. It reports data generated using mixed methods administered in two Irish counties. The findings demonstrate the profound meanings that the gatherings had for participating family members. The events served to strengthen existing family ties and to create new ones both between family members separated by geographic distance and spread across family generations. They further served to renew and revitalise connections with the family ‘home’ place, to enhance a sense of belonging for the family units studied and to strengthen family identity.
BSc in Human Nutrition and Dietetics, in collaboration with the LIFELINE project
ARROW@TUDUBLIN Peer Mentoring and the First Year Experience by Aiden CarthyABSTRACT
The transition from secondary level learning to independent study can be difficult to negotiate and many students also experience emotional pressures as they adjust to a busy social environment at college (McAleavy, Collins and Adamson 2004 ; O’Reilly 2008). Many third level institutions are exploring ways to improve the first year experience and one such approach that has gained increasing interest in recent years is the provision of peer mentoring. This paper outlines and evaluates a pilot peer mentoring programme that was conducted with first year business students (n = 112) from three separate courses at a third level institution in Dublin, Ireland. Three first year groups were chosen for participation in this study due to on-going low levels of engagement and high levels of attrition. A novel 360o approach was formulated, whereby students where provided support by mentors, lecturers and support staff. In order to measure the efficacy of the programme, feedback was elicited from participants and key academic variables (GPA and attrition rate) for participants and a matched sample that did not receive coaching were also compared. Results revealed that GPA increased significantly for one of the three student groups involved and that the attrition rate decreased significantly for one of the three groups.
Publication Date: 2015
Intimacy, attachment to the partner, and daily well-being in romantic relationships by Jesse Poucher, Karen J. Prager, Forouz Shirvani, Julie Parsons and Juhi PatelABSTRACT
Self-disclosure ordinarily benefits individual well-being; however, if someone discloses with an unresponsive listener, self-disclosure may fail to enhance well-being. Because prior research has primarily studied the additive effects of disclosure and listener’s responsiveness on well-being, this study investigated their interactive effects on well-being in romantic relationships. Because attachment orientation is closely associated with needs for intimacy, we further inquired into moderating effects of attachment on associations between intimacy and well-being. One-hundred fifteen cohabiting couples completed 21 daily diaries in which they recorded their experiences interacting with their partners. High self-disclosure during interactions that lacked expressed understanding yielded negative rather than positive outcomes. Multiple interactions between participants’ and partners’ attachment insecurity and intimacy were especially associated with depressive symptoms and relationship satisfaction. Results highlight the importance of the relational context of self-disclosure and well-being.
Publication Date: 2022
Romantic nostalgia as a resource for healthy relationships by Evans, N. D., Juhl, J., Hepper, E. G., Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., & Fetterman, A. K.Abstract
Nostalgia is an emotion that confers psychological benefits. The literature has neglected romantic nostalgia—that is, nostalgia specifically for past experiences shared with one’s partner—and its potential advantages for relationships. We examined romantic nostalgia in one correlational study, two experiments, and one daily diary study (N = 638). Romantic nostalgia was positively associated with greater relationship commitment, satisfaction, and closeness (Study 1). Additionally, inducing romantic nostalgia via a writing task (Study 2) or music (Study 3) strengthened relational benefits. Finally, participants reported more positive relationship-specific experiences on days when they felt greater romantic nostalgia (Study 4). We discuss contributions to the nostalgia and relationships literatures.
Romantic relationships are vital to psychological well-being and physical health (Simpson & Campbell, 2013), and it is therefore crucial to understand how romantic partners can restore, maintain, and enhance relationship functioning. One potential arrow in their quiver is romantic nostalgia, defined as nostalgia specifically for past experiences shared with one’s current romantic partner. Nostalgia, more generally, entails several psychological benefits, including social connectedness and meaning in life (Sedikides et al., 2015). We built on this theoretical and empirical foundation to investigate whether romantic nostalgia brings about relationship-specific benefits.
Publication Date: 2022
Perceived Social Support and Stress: a Study of 1st Year Students in Ireland by McLean, L., Gaul, D. & Penco, R.Social support is consistently associated with positive outcomes for students, in terms of wellbeing and academic achievement. For first year students, social support offers a way to deal with stressors associated with the challenge of transitioning to university. The current research was conducted with a range of first year students (n = 315) early in their first semester in university. Both male and female students reported moderate levels of social support and perceived stress, while those with higher levels of social support reported lower levels of stress. Gender differences were apparent in both the levels and sources of social support that students perceived as available to them. Female students reported higher levels of social support and stress than males, suggesting that university initiatives for enhancing social support and dealing with stress may require a gender-specific focus. The results are discussed in terms of recommendations for developing students’ social supports during first year, in order to mitigate for the experience of stress and to enhance student experience of their educational journey.
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