Activity 2.4: https://create.twu.ca/ldrs591-sp18/unit-2-learning-activities/

This activity was more challenging that the previous, but also more fun and rewarding. Keeping in mind the questions I had posed to myself in the first assignment, I set out to research the connection between health and happiness. I started with keywords first, using ‘happiness and ‘satisfaction’ interchangeably. I abbreviated as mentioned in the video, adding a $ sign in the end. These searches yielded too many results, in excess of 200. Also , also a quick perusal of the first few titles of my research, did not seem relevant to my question either. I then decided to search using both keywords and subject. I used the keywords ‘healt$’ and ‘happ$’, and the subject ‘psych$’, to cover both psychology and psychiatry. This resulted in a list of 25 books.  One of them was this book- ‘Positive psychology in racial and ethnic minority groups : theory, research, and practice.’

The author is Edward Chin-Ho Chang, and it was published in 2016.

Some excerpts from the summary of the book, “research in areas relevant to positive psychology, such as happiness, subjective well-being, and emotional intelligence, has been based on findings from largely White samples and has rarely taken the concerns of the ethnic community into consideration.”, “focuses on four main ethnic groups: Asian Americans, Latin Americans, African Americans, and American Indians”. The intended audience of this book could be vast- psychology, psychiatry, research, spirituality. Without having read the book, I am unable to comment if this could possibly be  self help book intended for the general public. Looking at the contents, I believe it is meant more as an academic read.

The last chapter, ‘Challenges and Prospects for Positive Psychology Research, Theory, Assessment, and Practice in a Multiracial and Multiethnic World’,  seems to be a call for further research. I hope it addresses weakness in their research or biases if any.

For this activity I found that the video tutorials were very helpful. After completing the activity i kept browsing and found some other books that I did not realise the library had. I am looking forward to reading them (someday!)

References

Video-‘Searching for e-books in the classic catalogue’, https://vimeo.com/164163119/b24ecb42e6

Chang, E. C. (2016). Positive psychology in racial and ethnic minority groups: theory, research, and practice.’ American Psychological Association. e-book.