Integrative Psychology

Huppert et al 2011 - Flourishing across Europe

Wellbeing on a spectrum of flourishing to mental disorders

Created 10 components based on the antonyms of anxiety and depression disorders from the DSM 4 and the ICD 10, due to the proliferation of anxiety and depression in society

Components were tested by using compatible items to represent them from the European Social Survey on 40k ppts from 23 countries

These were factor analysed into 2 main factors that captured 43% of the variance

Reapplying them to the European Social Survey, Denmark and Switzerland had the highest percentage of flourishing population whilst Portugal and Russia had the lowest percentages

Huppert et al 2011 Components and Factors

Positive characteristics - emotional stability, vitality, optimism, resillience, self esteem, positive emotions

Positive functioning - engagement, competence, meaning, positive relationships

WHO 2012 definition of wellbeing

two dimensions

Subjective (hedonic) - one’s subjective experience of life

Objective (eudaimonic) - comparison of life circumstances with the norms and values of how they should be

Flourishing

Life going well, feeling good and functioning effectively

World Happiness Report (yearly)

Published by the University of Oxford with other collaborators

wide scale project where they ask over 140 countries (roughly 100k ppts) one single question as a metric of life evaluation

life evaluation typically estimated as a metric of 6 factors

World Happiness Report factors

having someone to count on, log GDP per capita, generosity, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption

Passini and Norman (1966), Universal conception of Personality Science

84 american undergraduates who had never interacted with one another beyond 15 minutes in the same room with no communication, asked to rate one third of their group on pole A and another third pole B

Prior to this, 5 five factor model domains (emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, culture and extraversion) had 5 bipolar items coded for them, so participants were rating one another on these items that were created with the intent of being coded into a certain factor

Factorising the correlations in their results found that the majority of items loaded onto the factor they were expected to, suggesting an innate understanding of what ABCDs go together and thus that there is something real in how they are formed and aggregated in personality science

Remes et al (2021) bio-psycho-social aetiology of depression

Comparing a range of risk and protective factors for depression, from 470 papers on major depressive disorder and other depressions under the same umbrella category

Biological (Remes et al 2021)

Biological - risks come from having a myriad of other phyiscal health conditions, high stress levels particularly impacting the HPA Axis, poor gut microbiome, inflammation, and brain derivied neurotropic factor or its related single nucleotide polymorphisms

Psychological (Remes et al 2021)

Psychological - negative self concept, sensitivity to rejection, neuroticism, rumination (though this can also be a protective factor if between depression and poor attentive control)

Social (Remes et al 2021)

Social - poor level of education, income, undergoing adverse childhood experiences, suffering from gender inequality, negative social determinants increase your propensity to engage in risk behaviour which then increases your propensity for depression

Hayes et al 2006 - Acceptance and Committment Theory

Primary source of psychopathology is due to an inability to change behaviour from poor cognitive control brought on by negative language

Psychological flexibility

Flexibility comes from - contact with present moment, acceptance, connection with values, committed action, defusion, self as context

Psychological Inflexibility

Inflexibility comes from - dominance of conceptualised past and future, lack of value clarity, experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, inaction, attachment to conceptualised self

Gloster et al 2020 - Meta-analysis on ACT

Comparing 20 meta-analyses of a total of 133 studies with 12k participants

On the 9 focusing on depression, 6/9 showed a small to medium effect size of ACT positively improving depressive symptoms, over the control group (e.g. waitlist) or other psychological therapies (other than CBT)

Graham et al 2017 - Personality and Mortality

Taking data from 15 longitudinal datasets to compare big five traits and mortality, plus mediating the effects with smoking

44k ppts altogether

C had the largest effect, weighted ratio of 0.89 meaning 44% difference in risk from someone 2 sd above vs 2 sd below (which is 97% of the population)

E had 24%, A 20% N a 20% negative effect increasing mortality

E and N both increased propensity to smoke which in turn increased mortality

Barrick and Mount (1991) Job Performance

Meta-analysis of 117 studies featuring 24k ppts in 5 occupational groupings

Testing Big 5 on training proficiency, performance ratings and personell data

Hypothesised Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability would be the best predictors of such

C was best for all occupational groupings, small effect size

Result replicated in various other studies, including Salgado and de Fruyt 2005 and Illiescu 2023

Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979)

Individuals seek to enhance their self esteem by identifying themselves with ingroups and detaching themselves from outgroups

Occurs in 3 stages

Social categorisation - we categorise the world and ourselves to better understand our social environment, but this then becomes prone to stereotypes and prejudices based on them

Social identification - we identiy ourselves with the groups we categorise ourselves in, in order to share their group worth and to know which norms and values to adopt

Social comparison - we compare our ingroup to outgroups in order to improve our sense of social desiraility and self image, but this become prone to intergroup conflict

Henrich et al 2010 - the weirdest people in the world?

Comprehensive review of the database to see the extent WEIRD populations are unusual

96% of research in top psychology journals between 2003 and 2007 were from Western Industrialised backgrounds, 70% of psychology authors from the US

Henrich telescoping methods and dimensions

4 telescoping methods - industrialised vs non industrialised, western vs non western industrialised, americans vs other western societies and educated vs non educated americans

On various dimensions including propensity to conform, spatial cognition, personal choice, moral reasoning, visual perception and individualism, the WEIRD and particularly American sample were distinct from other investigated countries and samples, including even educated vs non educated American

Hofstede 2011 - Culture description

Collective programming that distinguishes members of one group or category from others

Formed from various studies aggregating the individual differences within country to see country wide differences in comparison to one another

Created 6 dimensions (2 added more recently to his original 4)

Hofstede 6 dimensions (2011)

Power Distance

Uncertainty Avoidance

Individualism (vs Collectivism)

Maculinity (vs Femininity)

Long term (vs Short Term) Orientation

Indulgence (vs Restraint)

Power distance

Extent that less powerful members will accept unequal distribution of power

Uncertainty Avoidance

Level of stress experienced in a society when faced with ambiguity or uncertainty in the future

Individualism vs Collectivism

How much a society may prioritise looking out for oneself vs looking out for the group (family, culture) unit, indiviudal vs groupwide identity

Masculinity vs Feminity

How much the population aligns in values about assertiveness vs caring

Long term vs Short term orientation

Do people focus more on the future and so are future minded and adaptable, or more about the past/present and so believe in stability

Indulgence vs Restraint

Instant gratification vs controlling human desires, leisure and relaxation vs a scarcity or strict mindset over enjoyment

Song and Chan 2024 - Emotional Regulation

Comparing east and western countries on how much they engage in emotion regulation strategies

meta analysis and review of 21 studies with 37k ppts, roughly split 50/50

Song and Chan 2024, emotion strategies looked at

Supression, reappraisal, acceptance, avoidance, rumination, mindfulness, distraction, self compassion and expression

Out of the 9

suppresison -.29 effect size for the east, more suppressive

avoidance -.57 for the east, more avoidant with their feelings

Allik et al 2019 Mean Profiles of the NEO PI R

Comparing mean profiles from 76 samples across 62 countries and 37 languages, 70k

Mean profiles formed from self descriptions/reports within country using the NEO-PI-R

98% of cases, subscale t scores were within 1 SD of a mean established from a profile based on American norms

People within country were 8 times more different than people between country, ANOVA showed no significant difference between the big 5 variables

SOTO 2019 Loopr Project

Large scale replicability project trying to see how replicable trait-outcome associations are

78 associations on 48 unique outcomes, 87.2% of associations were replicable with effect sizes in the same direction, majority were not as strong as the original association but positive association suggests there was still something meaningful that was being measured