Well-Being Report [70 marks – 1,600 words inclusive of in-text citations]

This project requires you to construct a report to analyse someone else’s social relationships and well-being. Your report should be written as a scientific essay. You should not use the ‘Introduction’, ‘Methods’, ‘Results’, ‘Discussion’ format for this assignment. You will need one other person for this project. Approach one person and ask for their consent to be interviewed about their social relationships and well-being. This person should not currently be a student in PSY353  Positive Psychology this semester, but can otherwise be a schoolmate, a friend, a colleague, a family member, a relative, or anyone else you know who is willing to be interviewed about their happiness and well-being. Spend some time interviewing your chosen candidate—you may conduct either a purely qualitative interview (i.e., asking the person questions and letting them respond in an open-ended manner) or you may optionally include quantitative measures as well (i.e., administering short well-being measurement scales). Ensure that you obtain enough information to be able to construct this report based on the requirements below—to this end, you are strongly encouraged to plan your interview beforehand. Provide evidence of your interview in an Appendix section. This should minimally include notes about what questions you asked as well as notes about the interviewee’s answer. An exact transcript of the interview is not required, and you can provide notes of the interview in point form. A maximum of 15 marks will be deducted if there is no evidence of the interview provided in your Appendix. Ensure that there is no personal information or identifying details in your submission as well as your Appendix—if you need to refer to the person, use a pseudonym (i.e., a fake name) to ensure that the person cannot be identified.

Your report should address the following key points:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of theories and evidence from positive psychology to appraise your interviewee’s overall well-being, and how their satisfaction with their social relationships may contribute to their overall well-being. You can decide whether to focus on one specific relationship of the interviewee that is particularly important or influential to your interviewee, or their social relationships in general.
• Analyse the factors that contribute to or hinder your interviewee’s satisfaction with their social relationships. You should include a discussion of culture and personality, but additional relevant points should also be included. In your discussion, provide an evaluation of the extent to which these factors could be subjected to personal choice.

o Culture (e.g., aspects of Singapore culture, or if the person is not a resident of Singapore, then aspects of their country’s culture)

o Your interviewee’s personality

o Additional relevant factors that influence the interviewee’s social relationships

• Propose three recommendations that can improve this person’s social relationships. For each recommendation, critically evaluate whether there may be limitations and challenges to the recommendation and suggest how these limitations and challenges can potentially be overcome or at least mitigated by the person you interviewed.

Ensure that empirical evidence and concrete examples from your interviewee are provided throughout your answer.

Additional Guidelines: Identifying Relevant Material

For this assignment, you must interview one person and construct a scientific report of this person’s relational well-being. Your report should not purely be descriptive and should not only summarise the interview at the surface level. Rather, it should apply scientific theories, evidence, and principles and demonstrate in-depth analysis. You should read widely and beyond the textbook to add depth to your report. Reference to relevant research studies and examples will help to strengthen your answer. The information in the textbook is limited, therefore you are advised to go beyond the textbook and course material to search for relevant information and incorporate them into your discussion.

Other Information References (5 marks)

The References lists the full reference of all sources cited or referred to in your assignment. In-text citations also need to be presented accurately in APA format.

Note: Valid academic sources include peer-reviewed academic journal articles, academic books and book chapters. The iStudyGuide, student theses, and online websites, blog posts, or videos are NOT considered valid academic sources. There will be no awarding of 1, 2, or 3 marks.

5 marks: Perfect use of APA style. Demonstrates a thorough understanding of APA format and referencing conventions. A minimum of 5 valid academic references are cited.

4 marks: Near perfect use of APA style. Demonstrates a very good understanding of APA format and referencing conventions. A minimum of 5 valid academic references are cited.

0 marks: Fails to meet the above requirements.

English competency (Deduct up to 5 marks)

No marks are allocated to English competency, but a penalty of up to 5 marks will apply for errors.

1–2 mark penalty: Minor errors present, such as typos and spelling or punctuation mistakes.

3–5 mark penalty: Major errors or a fair number of minor errors present, such as spelling or punctuation mistakes, or use of colloquial and/or non-academic writing style.