Happiness is a key ingredient of well-being. It is thus reasonable to expect that valuing happiness will have beneficial outcomes. We argue that this may not always be the case. Instead, valuing ...happiness could be self-defeating, because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed. This should apply particularly in positive situations, in which people have every reason to be happy. Two studies support this hypothesis. In Study 1, female participants who valued happiness more (vs. less) reported lower happiness when under conditions of low, but not high, life stress. In Study 2, compared to a control group, female participants who were experimentally induced to value happiness reacted less positively to a happy, but not a sad, emotion induction. This effect was mediated by participants' disappointment at their own feelings. Paradoxically, therefore, valuing happiness may lead people to be less happy just when happiness is within reach.
•Theoretical framework of choosing remote versus office work are presented.•Remote work is associated with workplace having better management practices.•It is also associated with workers conducting ...abstract tasks with better skills.•Heterogeneous impacts of remote work on subjective well-being are confirmed.•Those having potential benefits are positively impacted during COVID-19 pandemic.
This study examines the impact of remote work on subjective well-being, such as subjective productivity, work engagement, and health condition, during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also identifies the characteristics of workers and jobs that contribute to the continuous implementation of remote work, using data from the “Japan Household Panel Survey (JHPS)” and “JHPS Special Survey for COVID-19 (Waves 1 and 2).” As for the characteristics of remote work, multinomial logit models indicate that remote work tends to be continuously conducted in workplaces where performance rather than hours worked is valued, flexible work arrangements are allowed, and better management practices are conducted. In addition, workers with better IT skills, those exposed to new technologies, and those engaged in abstract tasks are more likely to work remotely after the state of emergency. Regarding the impact of remote work, we conjecture that the exogenous shift to remote work due to the pandemic had a heterogeneous impact on workers. The first difference models, where unobservable time-invariant worker heterogeneity has been removed, indicate a positive impact on subjective well-being for those who continued to work remotely after the state of emergency was lifted in 2020. Those who only worked remotely as a stopgap measure during the first state of emergency experienced negative impacts of remote work.
El objetivo del presente trabajo fue determinar el bienestar emocional, psicológico y social en adultos argentinos en contexto de pandemia por COVID-19. El diseño metodológico utilizado fue no ...experimental de corte transversal, bajo la modalidad de estudio descriptivo y de diferencia de grupos. Se trabajó con una muestra de 888 participantes, residentes en diferentes provincias de Argentina, de edades comprendidas de entre 18 y 84 años (MEDAD = 36.98; DE= 15.37; 51.2 % mujeres, 48.8 % varones). Los resultados informaron una disposición mayoritaria a experimentar niveles de salud mental languideciente. Las personas que se ubicaron en el polo languideciente del continuo de salud mental presentaron menores niveles de bienestar psicológico. El 56.2 % de los participantes refirió que la mayoría de las veces busca expresar sus emociones con su círculo cercano y el 43 % informó mantener el contacto con sus seres queridos de forma virtual. Se encontró un mayor nivel de bienestar emocional, psicológico y social en personas que expresaron sus emociones y mantuvieron contacto con sus seres queridos de forma virtual. En conclusión, frente a la situación epidemiológica causada por la pandemia de COVID-19 los adultos argentinos presentaron alteraciones significativas en los niveles de bienestar emocional psicológico y social con predominio de un estado de salud mental languideciente.
Facing increasing critique that PISA focuses too narrowly on cognitive achievement and human/knowledge capital, the OECD has recently shifted some of its focus to student happiness. The 2017 ...Students' Well-Being report distinguishes between 'happy schools' and 'unhappy schools', showing that among students who combined high performance and life satisfaction, northern European countries topped the charts. Meanwhile, students in East Asian countries including Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Korea registered the lowest 'life satisfaction' scores among all participating countries. This piece points out some of the problems inherent in the OECD's recent turn to happiness, problematizing the OECD yardstick of life satisfaction. Attempting to keep the critique constructive, we suggest that the OECD may want to consider using alternative metrics, then briefly highlight one developed in East Asia from different first assumptions: the Interdependent Happiness Scale. In conclusion we flag, but cannot answer, some related educational questions concerning policy, pedagogy, and priorities for the future.
The immobilization of enzymes on or in solid supports is crucial for the industrialization of enzymes as chemical catalysts because immobilization provides stabilization, easy separation, and ...recyclability. Here, we show that a water-stable metal-organic framework, NU-1000, with hierarchical pore structure has the right combination of properties to be particularly well-suited as a scaffold for immobilizing enzymes such that they maintain full enzymatic catalytic activity. The immobilized enzyme shows greater resistance to organic solvent and denaturant than does the free enzyme and is characterized by greater reactant accessibility and higher activity than the same enzyme encapsulated in topologically simpler metal-organic frameworks. These findings suggest design rules for hierarchical pore structuring of host frameworks for enzyme-encapsulation applications by demonstrating enzyme immobilization in a solid support whereby the enzyme is highly accessible and retains catalytic activity under chemically challenging conditions.
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•Enzyme immobilization in a metal-organic framework with a hierarchical pore structure•Excellent enzyme accessibility and activity after encapsulation•Improved enzyme stability under harsh conditions after encapsulation
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), which are simplistically viewed as molecular sponges, have garnered widespread media attention in recent years because of their potential in many popular applications, including natural-gas-powered vehicles. MOFs are porous yet robust materials that offer an interesting platform for encapsulating and protecting enzymes from degradation. Enzymes are nature's catalysts, and the delicate structure of enzymes can be understood by considering the irreversibility of frying an egg. In order to apply enzymes broadly as catalysts in industry, the need to protect them from denaturation under harsh conditions is important. Here, we show the applicability of a robust MOF that has structural features that make it intriguing for enzyme encapsulation. The results are important because the enzyme is protected and maintains high enzymatic activity. The long-term goal is to encapsulate specific enzymes that can be used for the detoxification of chemical-warfare agents.
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are porous, crystalline materials comprised of metal nodes and organic linkers. Here, a Zr-based MOF named NU-1000 is used to encapsulate and protect an enzyme. The encapsulation and subsequent protection of enzymes in solid supports is important for the potential industrialization of enzymes as chemical catalysts. NU-1000 is shown to be capable of stabilizing the enzyme under harsh conditions, and in addition, the encapsulated enzyme is shown to maintain full functionality.
•We conceptualize the possible association between conservative outlook and female well-being.•We define conservative outlook as adhering to strict veiling norm (full body burqa) in rural ...Bangladesh.•The probability of female employment is lower in the conservative household.•Conservative outlook is correlated with female self-employment and negatively related to non-farm salaried/casual work.•There is a robust association between conservative outlook and the probability of females being overweight.
Following Identity Theory proposed by Akerlof and Kranton (2000), we conceptualize the interactions between conservative outlook and female wellbeing through influencing gender norms. Conservative households often prefer women to stay home, which correlates to female employment and decision-making autonomy, affecting female physical mobility and female nutrition. Finding a suitable indicator for conservative outlook is difficult as we typically lack household-level ‘value survey’. In the fast modernizing context of rural Bangladesh, wearing burqa (veil) is often perceived as an indicator of socially conservative outlook. Using this insight, we process the data from the second wave of the Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) for 2015 to test the statistically robust association between household-level conservative outlook and gender-sensitive wellbeing indicators such as female employment, body mass index, and decision-making autonomy for the population of ever-married females aged 15–49 years old. After controlling for individual, household, and regional characteristics, and using sub-regional fixed effects, our findings suggest that living in conservative households is associated with lower probability of female employment. Females from conservative households are less likely to be in wage work or salaried jobs. The probability of being overweight is also higher for the females in conservative households as compared to non-conservative households.
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