Luís Curral

Transition to higher education represents a critical period marked by academic, emotional, and social challenges that can affect students’ well-being. Although social and emotional competence (SEC) and self-care practices have been identified as protective factors of well-being, there is a gap in understanding how these concepts intersect within higher education. In an exploratory sequential mixed-methods study, we first explored the main challenges perceived by higher education students in adapting to university and which SEC and self-care practices they perceived as most relevant to promoting their personal and academic well-being. Building on these insights, we then investigated the mediating role of self-care practices in the relationship between students’ SEC and their well-being. In the first stage of the study, 16 higher education students (81.3% female, M = 22.19 years) participated in semi-structured interviews; additionally, 204 higher education students (77.9% female, M = 22.10 years) responded to an online survey. Qualitative findings suggested that the most significant challenges in the adaptation to university were of a social and emotional nature, related to emotional challenges, interpersonal relationships, and personal organization. To overcome these, students primarily valued intrapersonal competencies such as self-awareness and self-regulation. Participants predominantly described using personal self-care practices, focusing on psychological and emotional care. Generalized linear model-based mediation analysis sustained that both personal and academic self-care practices mediated SEC effects on students’ personal well-being. However, only academic self-care practices mediated SEC effects on their academic well-being. Self-regulation competencies had the strongest effect on students’ personal and academic well-being, providing quantitative support for the prominence attributed to this competency by students during the qualitative phase. This research contributes to a strengthened theoretical understanding of the interplay between higher education students’ SEC, self-care practices, and well-being, offering new empirical evidence on how these relate.

Transition to higher education represents a critical period marked by academic, emotional, and social challenges that can affect students’ well-being. Although social and emotional competence (SEC) and self-care practices have been identified as protective factors of well-being, there is a gap in understanding how these concepts intersect within higher education. In a two-phase mixed-methods study, we began by exploring the main challenges perceived by higher education students in adapting to university and which SEC and self-care practices they perceived as most relevant to promoting their personal and academic well-being. Building on these insights, we then investigated the mediating role of self-care practices in the relationship between students’ SEC and their well-being. In the first stage of the study, 16 higher education students (81.3% female, M = 22.19 years) participated in semi-structured interviews; additionally, 204 higher education students (77.9% female, M = 22.10 years) responded to an online survey. Qualitative findings suggested that the most significant challenges in the adaptation to university were of a social and emotional nature, related to emotional challenges, interpersonal relationships, and personal organization. To overcome these, students primarily valued intrapersonal competencies such as self-awareness and self-regulation. Participants predominantly described using personal self-care practices, focusing on psychological and emotional care. Generalized linear model-based mediation analysis sustained that both personal and academic self-care practices mediated SEC effects on students’ personal well-being. However, only academic self-care practices mediated SEC effects on their academic well-being. Self-regulation competencies had the strongest effect on students’ personal and academic well-being. This research contributes to a strengthened theoretical understanding of the interplay between higher education students’ SEC, self-care practices, and well-being, offering new empirical evidence on how these relate.

Background: Self-leadership has been associated with several positive organizational outcomes (e.g., performance and innovation). Yet, individual subjective well-being constructs have seldom been explored in the self-leadership literature. We hypothesized that an increase in self-leadership results in increased positive affect resources, namely flow and happiness. Methods: A self-leadership intervention program, interlinked with a real-world longitudinal observational effectiveness-assessment design, was used to test this hypothesis. A sample of 64 middle-managers from a for-profit organization in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector went through one 8-week self-leadership training program, and provided 4383 daily measures of self-leadership, flow, and happiness during working hours on business days, plus 242 post-training modules assessments. Email surveys were used to assess self-leadership and dispositional flow, whereas the experiencing sampling method was used to assess situational (i.e., at-the-moment) flow and happiness. Linear mixed models and mediation analysis were applied to longitudinal data. Results: As hypothesized, an increase in self-leadership was positively associated to (1) situational and dispositional experiences of flow among employees in the FMCG sector and (2) happiness in the workplace. No mediation of flow was found between self-leadership and happiness. Conclusion: Results highlight the potential of self-leadership skills development and practice to shorten the distance between perceived challenges and skills in job-related tasks, as well as to make subjects feel happier in the workplace.

Background/Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affected university students globally, exacerbating their already existing academic stress. This study investigates how the first COVID-19 lockdown (March–July 2020) differently impacted Portuguese, Spanish, and Brazilian university students’ perceived academic stress, personal well-being, academic engagement, and performance. Methods: An online survey collected responses from 1081 university students (78.17% female; Mage = 25.43 years, SD = 9.27). Qualitative data on academic stressors were analyzed using content analysis. Cross-country differences were assessed through chi-square analyses and ANOVAs. Hypotheses were tested with a mediation path analysis. Results: Emotional distress emerged as the most prevalent stressor (54%). The results evidence differences in how students from the three countries experienced their academic life during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Personal and academic well-being mediated stress’ effects on performance. Conclusions: These findings underscore the need for context-tailored interventions and proactive measures to support students’ academic engagement in challenging contexts, informing educators and policymakers alike.

Background/Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly affected university students globally, exacerbating their already existing academic stress. This study investigated how the first COVID-19 lockdown (March-July 2020) differently impacted Portuguese, Spanish, and Brazilian university students’ perceived academic stress, personal well-being, academic engagement, and performance. Methods: An online survey collected responses from 1,081 university students (78.17% female; Mage = 25.43 years, SD = 9.27). Qualitative data on academic stressors were analyzed through content analysis. Cross-country differences were assessed through chi-square analyses and ANOVAs. Hypotheses were tested with mediation path analysis. Results: Emotional distress emerged as the most prevalent stressor (54%). Results evidenced differences in how students from the three countries experienced their academic life during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Personal and academic well-being mediated stress effects on performance. Conclusions: These findings underscore the need for context-tailored interventions and proactive measures to support students' academic engagement in challenging contexts, informing educators and policymakers alike.

Although the effects of openness to experience (OTE) on individual creativity are well‐established, research on how such effects unfold in a team context is scarce. Drawing on theories of group norms and uncertainty reduction, we argue that team mean OTE leads to a climate of team psychological safety which, in turn, facilitates team creativity. We test our hypothesis over three independent studies, the first comprising 35 business student project teams, the second based on 28 professional teams from the automotive industry, both conducted in the United Kingdom, and the third comprising 24 healthcare teams in Portugal. As predicted, across all three studies, team mean OTE was positively associated with team creativity via the affective emergent state of team psychological safety. Furthermore, the mediating role of team psychological safety remained significant even when accounting for team OTE variance, alternative motivational and cognitive emergent states, namely team promotion focus (studies 1 and 2) and team exploration climate (study 3), as well as empowering leadership (study 3). Finally, in study 3, we examined the differential impact of the two major facets of OTE, intellect, and openness, and found that intellect, but not openness, was responsible for driving the indirect effects. Further analysis did not support alternative perspectives concerning team OTE variance or the interaction between mean and variance. Our findings not only contribute to theoretical understanding regarding the relationship between team personality composition, specifically OTE, and team creativity but also provide much‐needed insight into how such effects unfold. We delineate several practical implications for team design and development.

Leaders are crucial to ensuring the well-being of their subordinates. This study aims to understand the effects of two leadership styles (empowering vs. directive) on subordinates’ well-being in an emergency situation (i.e., rural fire). A simulation study was conducted with two experimental conditions (empowering vs. directive leadership), and the subordinates’ stress levels were measured before and after the simulated episode. Contrary to expectations, empowering leadership had no significant effect on subordinates’ stress levels, while directive leadership contributed to reducing them. As expected, this effect was stronger for the subordinates with higher levels of stress prior to the simulated episode.