Description: While there are many winter events to celebrate, Christmas is one of the big ones. Given the amount of energy and effort put into Christmas and all that it entails for some people from surprising there has not been a lot of research done on the psychology of Christmas. This little piece gives us a light overview.
Source: Christmas and Psychological Well-being
Date: December 24, 2015
Links: Article Link — https://christmasunwrapped.wordpress.com/tag/psychology/
So, what do you like about the Christmas holiday? Certainly it is nice after fall term final exams are done to have a little bit of downtime even without some sort of Winter Festival. The research described in this brief article examined what it was that people enjoyed most about Christmas experience in terms of their life satisfaction. Perhaps not surprisingly the high scores in this pretty study were for things like spending time with family, enjoying food and drink, religious activities, traditional activities, spending money and other people, (which was actually rated higher than) receiving gifts from other people, and helping others. The study also found that levels of reported happiness were higher when more weight was placed upon family and religious experiences then on spending money or receiving gifts. So perhaps like most times of the year, how this time of year goes for you depends on what you decide to make of it.
Questions for Discussion:
- What are some of the factors that want to talk about if one were asked to speak briefly about what a psychology of Christmas might look like?
- What advice might you give to people or families that might increase their sense of well-being over this winter festival?
- What about your own Christmas psychology? Training in particular you’re going to do to improve or optimize your own well-being during the time off you have between now and when classes start again sometime in January?
References (Read Further):
Kasser, T., & Sheldon, K. M. (2002). What makes for a merry Christmas?. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(4), 313-329.
Petrelli, Daniela, and Ann Light. “Family rituals and the potential for interaction design: a study of Christmas.” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI) 21, no. 3 (2014): 16.
Birg, L., & Goeddeke, A. (2014). Christmas Economics-A Sleigh Ride. Available at SSRN 2526055. http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/103883/1/804404429.pdf
