Federica Mauro

Classical accounts of well-being have largely been grounded in homeostasis, conceptualizing well-being as the regulation of affective states around defended set points. More recent Bayesian and active inference approaches similarly characterize living systems as predictive regulators that maintain viable states by minimizing expected surprise. Building on these perspectives, this article proposes an integrative Bayesian framework in which well-being is understood not as a fixed scalar quantity, but as a dynamically maintained viability corridor defined by hierarchically organized prior expectations about preferred affective and interoceptive states. Classical accounts of well-being have largely been grounded in homeostasis, conceptualizing well-being as the regulation of affective states around defended set points. More recent Bayesian and active inference approaches similarly characterize living systems as predictive regulators that maintain viable states by minimizing expected surprise. Building on these perspectives, this article proposes an integrative Bayesian framework in which well-being is understood not as a fixed scalar quantity, but as a dynamically maintained viability corridor defined by hierarchically organized prior expectations about preferred affective and interoceptive states. Within this framework, homeostasis and allostasis are viewed as complementary aspects of the same regulatory architecture. Homeostasis refers to the maintenance of vital variables within viable bounds, whereas allostasis denotes the predictive processes through which such stability is achieved under changing conditions. Well-being is interpreted as the phenomenological expression of these regulatory dynamics, closely related to core affect while remaining analytically distinct from the mechanisms that sustain it. At the event level, affective experience is described in information-theoretic terms. Arousal is formalized as information gain arising from the interaction between prediction error and prior uncertainty, whereas valence follows an inverted-U relationship consistent with the Wundt curve. Drawing on the Central Limit Theorem, the framework further suggests that moderate and metabolically efficient regimes are both statistically prevalent and hedonically preferred, helping to explain why organisms tend to gravitate toward intermediate levels of stimulation. Health is reconceptualized as metastable attunement: a dynamic balance between stability and exploration sustained through flexible precision allocation. Within this perspective, valence functions as a control signal that guides precision tuning across timescales, enabling organisms to maintain viable states while adapting to changing environmental demands. Different dimensions of the good life can then be understood as expressions of this broader regulatory architecture. Happiness reflects the experience that regulation is proceeding better than expected at an acceptable energetic cost; eudaimonia emerges from the alignment of action with identity-level priors, values, and long-term goals; and psychological richness reflects epistemic exploration that expands the agent’s generative model. Accordingly, mindfulness and psychotherapy are interpreted as complementary routes to adaptive regulation, promoting greater flexibility and integration across levels of the self-model. Situated within health neuroscience, the proposed framework provides a theoretically grounded basis for future research at the intersection of computational neuroscience, clinical psychology, and well-being science.

Over the years, there have been many definitions of "health psychology," each of which represents an attempt to delineate the boundaries of this complex and multifaceted field (see Tab. 1).[Table 1 goes about here] Despite some differences, all definitions emphasize the intricate relationship between psychological processes and physical health. Interventions in the realm of health psychology generally involve holistic and multifaceted strategies to address a wide range of health challenges. Integrating mind and body involves understanding how psychological and social factors influence physical health and illness, thereby enabling practitioners to develop more effective interventions.Collective health, on the other hand, can be viewed as both a scientific field that produces various forms of knowledge about the concept of health, and a "social space" (Vieira-da-Silva et al., 2014; Silva et al., 2019) where practices involving actions are carried out across different organizations and institutions. This field has evolved to adopt an interdisciplinary approach that transcends the biomedical and pathology paradigms. Collective health embraces a broader perspective, considering material conditions and social factors that shape health outcomes. Its basic disciplines are epidemiology, health planning/management, and social sciences in health. Collective health provides a framework for understanding how social determinants, such as income inequality, education, and access to healthcare, affect health at a population level (Marmot & Wilkinson, 2006).Within the framework of collective health, health psychology represents a comprehensive approach that bridges individual psychological processes with biological and broader social determinants of health. Whereas collective health highlights the structural and systemic factors that shape populationlevel outcomes, health psychology focuses on understanding the psychological and behavioral mechanisms that influence health. This integration stresses the necessity of addressing health challenges at multiple levels: individual, community, and social. To meet this need, in the course of time, distinct areas have arisen in the field of health psychology, including clinical health psychology, public health psychology, community health psychology, cultural health psychology, and critical health psychology (Marks, 2002;Atala, 2012). This variety of approaches highlights the importance of adapting theories and application models to specific contexts and needs, while maintaining a unifying paradigm for health that provides coherence and allows different theories and models to derive meaning and interconnect. (Marks et al., 2024).In 1946, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health as "a state of complete physical, social, and spiritual well-being, not merely the absence of illness." This definition emphasizes the multidimensional nature of health and acknowledges the need to integrate psychological and social dimensions alongside physical well-being.Aligned with this broader perspective, Engel (1977) introduced the Biopsychosocial Model (BPSM) to address the shortcomings of the traditional biomedical model. Engel proposed that all natural phenomena exist within a hierarchy of interconnected systems, ranging from the biosphere at one end to societal and individual behavior in the middle and down to the cellular and subatomic levels. He argued that understanding health and illness requires considering these interrelated levels, focusing on the interaction among biological, psychological, and social factors.While not without critics (e.g., Atala, 2012; Marks et al., 2024), BPSM is largely considered a cornerstone of health psychology. As a holistic framework for understanding the complexities of health and disease, it marks a deliberate effort within the field to challenge the dominance of the biomedical model while highlighting psychology's critical role in addressing health and illness comprehensively, integrating various dimensions of human experience (Murray, 2014).A more general multi-level framework has since been proposed, which synthesizes both the biological determinants and the social context of health-related experience and behavior (Marks, 1996;Marks et al., 2024). This offers a broader perspective than the narrow focus of traditional psychological models of health, recognizing the variable nature of health and the need for a multidisciplinary approach. The "onion model," adapted from Dahlgren & Whitehead (1991) Defining health and well-being remains a complex challenge (Christoforou et al., 2024). Beyond the WHO's definition, two primary concepts of health have been identified: a biomedical perspective, which views health as the absence of abnormalities, and a functional perspective, which describes health as "the strength to be" and the ability to overcome challenges (Misselbrook, 2014). Broader interpretations of health also emphasize fulfilling social roles, maintaining independence, fostering optimism, and, in some cases, integrating spirituality. Moreover, both internal factors, such as personal adaptation, and external elements, including socio-economic and environmental policies, have been considered essential components of health (Christoforou et al., 2024).Similarly, defining well-being poses challenges. Well-being is a multifaceted construct with definitions that vary by domain, often described as a more emotional and social concept than a healthrelated one, encompassing positive feelings, effective functioning, and contributions to society (Bautista et al., 2023).A related concept is quality of life (QoL), which refers to an individual's perception of their life The interconnection between health and well-being is frequently discussed, with some definitions, such as the WHO's, including well-being as an integral part of health, and strong evidence has linked higher SWB to better health outcomes and longer life, highlighting its...

Introduction: Based on the theoretical framework that a fulfilling life encompasses happiness, meaning, and psychological richness, this study introduces the Italian translation of the Psychologically Rich Life Questionnaire (PRLQ-I), exploring its connection with mindfulness, self-compassion, cognitive fusion, and anxiety, positing psychological richness as a critical, yet distinct, component of well-being. Psychological richness, characterized by diverse and interesting experiences, complements the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of well-being, offering a broader perspective on what constitutes a meaningful life.Methods: After a subsequent back translation procedure, the resulting questionnaire version was checked for the comprehensibility of the items. Then, the PRLQ-I’s reliability and single-factor structure were evaluated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses in a large sample (N = 418) of the Italian population, as well as convergent and discriminant validity.Results: The exploratory factor analysis confirmed the original PRLQ structure, indicating one dimension, namely psychological richness, and the excellent internal consistency of the questionnaire. The confirmatory factor analysis revealed a good fit of the model for the one-factor structure. We then showed that psychological richness is positively associated with mindfulness and self-compassion, confirming that psychological richness is related to other happiness constructs but appears to be distinct from them. Moreover, psychological richness is inversely related to anxiety and cognitive fusion.Discussion: These results demonstrate the optimal reliability of the scale, even in its Italian version. They moreover provide suggestions for incorporating these related dimensions into programs designed to promote psychological richness, confirming its role in enhancing psychological well-being.

Grounded in the theoretical framework that a fulfilling life encompasses happiness, meaning, and psychological richness, this study introduces the Italian translation of the Psychologically Rich Life Questionnaire (PRLQ) and explores its connection with mindfulness, self-compassion, cognitive fusion, and anxiety positing psychological richness as a critical, yet distinct, component of well-being. Psychological richness, characterized by diverse and interesting experiences, complements the hedonic and eudaimonic dimensions of well-being, offering a broader perspective on what constitutes a meaningful life.Method. We translated the original scale into Italian applying a subsequent back translation procedure. The resulting version was administered to a small sample (N=10) to check for the comprehensibility of the items. Then, the Italian version of the PRLQ’s reliability and single-factor structure was evaluated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, in a large sample (N=418) of the Italian population. Moreover, we investigated the relationships between psychological richness and other psychological constructs related to happiness, mindfulness and anxiety.Results. The exploratory factor analysis confirmed the original PRLQ structure, indicating one dimension, namely psychological richness, and the excellent internal consistency of the questionnaire. The confirmatory factor analysis also revealed a good fit of the model for the one-factor structure, confirming that psychological richness is related to other happiness constructs, but appear to be distinct from them. We then showed that psychological richness is positively associated with mindfulness and self-compassion while being inversely related to anxiety and cognitive fusion. Conclusions. These findings support the Italian PRLQ (PRLQ-I) as valid and reliable instrument for measuring psychological richness and confirm the significance of incorporating psychological richness construct in happiness and well-being models, suggesting avenues for mental health practices. They moreover contribute to the understanding of its interplay with mindfulness, self-compassion, and cognitive processes, providing a comprehensive view of the components that foster a fulfilling life.

Objectives: According to the core Buddhist psychology models of the “two arrows of pain” and “co-dependent origination,” pain is the resultant of bodily and mental factors, which can be regulated by meditation states and traits. Here we investigated how pain and the related aversion and identification (self-involvement) experiences are modulated by focused attention meditation (FAM), open monitoring meditation (OMM), and loving kindness meditation (LKM), as well as by meditation expertise. Methods: Theravada Buddhist long-term meditators were matched with a group of short-term meditators. Nociceptive electrical stimulation was administered during FAM, OMM, and LKM, and in a non-meditative rest condition. Experience reports of pain, aversion, and identification were collected in each trial. Results: Pain thresholds were higher in long-term meditators than in short-term meditators. In the short-term meditators, as compared to rest, pain was reduced in FAM and OMM, and aversion and identification in all meditation conditions. In the long-term meditators, pain was reduced only in LKM. Identification was reduced in the three forms of meditation, while aversion was not affected by meditation. Further analyses with a particular focus on long-term meditators showed that pain was predicted to increase with meditation expertise, aversion, and identification. Granger causality analysis revealed that aversion and pain, as well as aversion and identification, causally influenced each other; identification causally influenced pain. This pattern of results about the relationships between pain, aversion, and identification was largely overlapping in the group of short-term meditators. Conclusions: The findings reveal mechanisms of pain in interaction with aversive and identification mental states, as well as their modulation by meditation states and traits. They also suggest that pain feeling is the resultant of coupling of sensory and mental factors, thus highlighting the relevance of the second arrow of pain and providing a clarification of the epistemological gap between sensory causation and mental state causation of pain, in terms of a co-production mechanism with multiple stages. In particular, the evidence about the causal influences of identification on pain highlights a self-related factor of relevance in pain experiences that can be modulated by mindfulness. The study also inspires new testable neuroscientific hypotheses, and sheds new light on core Buddhist psychology models, based on evidence from a controlled experimental setting and experience dimension reports by long-term meditators with enhanced mindfulness skills.

Meditation practice is suggested to engage training of cognitive control systems in the brain. To evaluate the functional involvement of attentional and cognitive monitoring processes during meditation, the present study analysed the electroencephalographic synchronization of fronto-parietal (FP) and medial-frontal (MF) brain networks in highly experienced meditators during different meditation states (focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness meditation). The aim was to assess whether and how the connectivity patterns of FP and MF networks are modulated by meditation style and expertise. Compared to novice meditators, (1) highly experienced meditators exhibited a strong theta synchronization of both FP and MF networks in left parietal regions in all mediation styles, and (2) only the connectivity of lateralized beta MF networks differentiated meditation styles. The connectivity of intra-hemispheric theta FP networks depended non-linearly on meditation expertise, with opposite expertise-dependent patterns found in the left and the right hemisphere. In contrast, inter-hemispheric FP connectivity in faster frequency bands (fast alpha and beta) increased linearly as a function of expertise. The results confirm that executive control systems play a major role in maintaining states of meditation. The distinctive lateralized involvement of FP and MF networks appears to represent a major functional mechanism that supports both generic and style-specific meditation states. The observed expertise-dependent effects suggest that functional plasticity within executive control networks may underpin the emergence of unique meditation states in expert meditators.

Over the last few years, several studies have investigated the possible effects of mindfulness meditation on time perception. Mindfulness meditation has been linked to both longer time production (TP) and increased bodily perception, and bodily processes are in turn thought to lie at the core of human time perception. Nevertheless, the connection between mindful movements (MMs; i.e., specific types of mind–body coordination‐demanding physical activity) and time perception has been ignored. Consequently, in the current study we examined the effect of MMs on TP. A mixed observational study design was adopted to investigate whether (1) the extensive practice of MMs is associated with longer TP and interlimb coordination efficiency, and (2) there is a relationship between these two variables. Thirty‐four healthy adults volunteered, including 11 Aikido and nine advanced Quadrato Motor Training (aQMT) practitioners, and 14 physically non‐active controls. Practitioners of aQMT had significantly longer produced durations in contrast to the Aikido and control groups. In addition, longer produced duration was associated with increased coordination efficiency. In conclusion, the current results are in line with previous studies linking embodied time and mindful meditation, and suggest the importance of incorporating movement meditation, especially in the context of time estimation and the self.