A New Science of Suffering, the Wisdom of the Soul, and the New Behavioral Economics of Happiness: Towards a General Theory of Well-being

The research topic of this collection of articles is centered around suffering and how to cope with it. It covers a range of topics, from self-transcendence and prosocial behaviors to the role of individual and country-level factors in predicting subjective wellbeing, and the need to rethink mental health beyond the medical model. It also looks at mindfulness, stress, savoring beliefs, and life satisfaction among adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the transition from university to the workplace for male South African university graduates.

The articles explore the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationships between self-transcendence and self-enhancement values and emotional adjustment, the relationship between six dimensions of culture and subjective ratings of happiness in 78 countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how utilizing meaning-making strategies such as positive reappraisal and self-distancing can facilitate an adaptive processing of daily negative experiences. They also discuss the concept of existential isolation and how making sense of past experiences is correlated with high presence of meaning in life, and how unconscious integrative complexity is the variable in wisdom's conceptual equation that involves paradox.

Martin Buber's ideas on relationships are also discussed, as well as the themes of suffering and happiness in Turkish folk culture, and the concept of "challengership" which can be applied to education, coaching, and training. All of these topics are related to the overarching research topic of suffering and how to cope with it.