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Date of Graduation
Summer 5-3-2013
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)
Department
Department of Graduate Psychology
Advisor(s)
Gregg Henriques
Trevor F. Stokes
Jaime Kurtz
Abstract
With the rise of positive psychology, there has been a burgeoning literature on the construct of well-being. Unfortunately, as is the case with much psychological research, the literature is not assimilated and integrated into a broad model for understanding psychology and human nature writ large. Connecting such research to a deep theoretical and philosophical model is particularly important with a construct like well-being because it both is a complicated and central construct for the field. There were two main objectives to the study. First, the goal was to develop a college student course on well-being that was conceptually grounded in Henriques' (2011) unified theory of psychology and one that college students would understand, engage in, and find valuable. The second objective was to explore the extent to which the course impacted student well-being, as assessed by a variety of measures. To address these objectives, a course was developed, and 25 students enrolled and participated in it during the fall of 2011. A second group of 26 students who were enrolled in an alternative psychology course elective also completed the battery of well-being measures and thus served as controls. Results were promising; significant differences on a number of measures of well-being and emotion were found for the intervention group but not for the control group. The implications and limitations of the current research are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Kleinman, Kimbelry Erica, "A unified approach to well-being: The development and impact of an undergraduate course" (2013). Dissertations, 2014-2019. 77.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/diss201019/77
