ABSTRACT
Psychologists from a range of specialisms are now involved in research into mental health, work and leisure. Extensive research into the effects of unemployment indicates that it impairs mental health, even though the effect is not universal, and a small minority of people show gains in mental health after job loss (Warr 1987: 207). This impairment can include deterioration in affective well-being, and diminished perceived competence and aspiration, with reduced motivation and interest in one’s wider surroundings. The conditions associated with positive subjective well-being in daily life, including happiness, are also increasingly a topic of research (Argyle 1987; Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi 1988; Strack, Argyle and Schwarz 1991; Tennen, Suls and Affleck 1991; Haworth 1993). And the psychological and social benefits of work (Jahoda 1982) and leisure (Driver, Brown and Peterson, 1991; Zuzanek and Larson 1993) are receiving increasing attention. These developments have considerable relevance for governments and other policy makers faced with populations increasing in life expectancy, and technology influencing patterns of working life, so that individuals may have to spend as much as half their adult life non-employed. The developments in research are also of considerable theoretical and methodological significance for psychologists and other social scientists, as this chapter will show.
