Helena Águeda Marujo

Felicitas Publica and community well-being: nourishing relational goods through dialogic conversations between deprived and privileged populations

This article discusses the theoretical justifications, presumed relevance and value of using community interventions designed to be appreciative and strengths based, participatory and conversational, context sensitive and value driven, to promote well-being actions and coordinated meaning between privileged persons and those living in impoverished material and social conditions. It stresses the need for the field of positive psychology to incorporate new theoretical models, topics and participants, and to contribute actively to human relatedness and social justice. The authors endorse the significance of a “positive community psychology”, approaching collective well-being in terms of civil economy and Felicitas Publica, addressing innovative economic development while enabling conditions for positive relational goods. These interventions have the potential for resourceful and consequential change, where critical conscientisation is one of the vehicles. We recommend the use of a dialogic perspective coupled with affirmative language as transformational procedures, presupposing that social practices are inextricably bound up in discourse. To elucidate the ideas proposed in this article, we describe an intervention involving a Portuguese community in the Azores Islands, where the World Café method and the Appreciative inquiry principles were integrated and linked to a communication model emerging from the Coordinated Management of Meaning theory.

The Live Well Index and the Motivation for Physical Activity Profile: Two Cross-National Studies on the Correlates and Drives for a Life with Quality

Two studies were undertaken in two different samples of eight European countries. The aim of these studies was twofold: (1) to develop and validate, according to psychometric standards, an online self-administered instrument to measure the variables related to what is to “Live well” (the Live Well Index, LWI) taking into consideration four major domains: To Move Well, to Eat Well, to Feel Well and Perceived Health; (2) To investigate the particular role of physical activity in a life well lived, and to develop and validate motivational profiles for doing and sustaining the practice of physical exercise (Aspirational Profiles). The two initial questionnaire were developed using data from (a) a qualitative study (twenty Interviews and two Focus Group) on what is to Live Well, taking the four dimensions into contemplation, and (b) a quantitative study on motivations for physical activity. Both were conducted to generate items that identify domains and portraits. Alongside, an extensive literature review was implemented. Content analysis for the qualitative data was intertwined with principal factor analysis and cluster analysis, regarding the quantitative data, with the aim of generating the final items, either for the LWI and the Aspirational Profiles. The second phase of the two studies included 876 participants from eight European countries for the LWI and a sample of 1177 participants that joined in the pilot validation of the initial questionnaires; This phase included translation, retroversion and validation for each of the languages used in the two questionnaires. A list of easily comprehensible, non-redundant items was defined for the two instruments. The final Live Well Index is a brief measure that includes 17 questions. It can be connected to the Aspirational Profile on physical activity, that includes 19 quastions, and allows for a deeper exploration of the Move Well dimension, one of the four scopes of the LWI. Implications for the study and promotion of quality of life, supported in these pillars, are addressed, in particular in what concerns the role of physical activity for quality of life, and how to promote exercise in accordance with people’s specific motivations.

Narrative Practices and Positive Aging: A Reflection about Life Celebration in a Group of Old Women

The main objective of this article is to address the impact of narrative practices in life celebration after the age of 80 and in the co-construction of a community-positive future. We share here an exploratory reflection about the narratives of a group of older women integrated in a community project. The Wednesday Tea Project (Chá das Quartas) has been ongoing for 4 years, and involves a group of old women experiencing high levels of loneliness and isolation in their small village in Portugal. The Wednesday Tea Project is based on positive psychology methodologies and consists of ritualized sessions that encourage participatory group dynamics. To describe how this project has highlighted the benefits of narrative practices, we utilized a series of scaffolding questions. Some of the most relevant outcomes of this project are: (a) the deconstruction of the dominant social discourse; (b) the publication of a book; (c) the reduction of loneliness feelings by re-membering significant figures; and (d) new levels of action both to women and the community as a consequence of a re-authoring process. Narrative practices seem to have contributed to the consolidation of all time dimensions, giving these women the opportunity to celebrate life after the age of 80, while also allowing the community to be part of and to benefit from the process. A reflection about the contributions of this article to a paradigm change toward positive aging is presented.