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Behavioral Sciences
Special Issues
Experiences and Well-Being in Personal Growth
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Experiences and Well-Being in Personal Growth

A special issue of Behavioral Sciences (ISSN 2076-328X). This special issue belongs to the section "Developmental Psychology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 August 2025 | Viewed by 2355

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Madoka Kumashiro

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London SE14 6NW, UK
Interests: personal growth; motivation; ideal self; well-being; close relationships; balancing fundamental needs; work–life balance; attachment styles; self-esteem; autonomy; mentoring
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Personal growth has long been recognized as an essential aspect of human motivation and well-being across the lifespan and, recent decades have seen increasing emphasis in popular culture, fueled by social media, placed on the importance of cultivating experiences and pursuing careers and lifestyles that promote personal growth and provide meaning in life. At the same time, there is growing recognition that relentless pursuit of personal growth motives and experiences may be contributing to the current mental health crisis, aided by social media and the often-unrealistic expectation that individuals should constantly be pursuing experiences and careers/lifestyles that lead to a meaningful life.

In recent years, various psychological disciplines have sought to examine factors and experiences that contribute to personal growth and the importance of personal growth for overall well-being. There is also more understanding of how factors such as individual differences and the social environment, including social relationships, culture, the workplace, and educational settings, can contribute to such personal growth processes, with consequences for well-being. Research on post-traumatic growth also illustrates how some individuals can experience personal growth after experiencing adversity or trauma, which will eventually lead to higher levels of resilience and well-being.

This Special Issue aims to explore the complex relationship between personal growth experiences and overall well-being across the lifespan, drawing on diverse perspectives from across the psychological sciences in both non-clinical and clinical settings. We welcome papers that examine naturally occurring processes or utilize experimental approach or intervention research, as well as high-quality systematic reviews that offer insights into various factors that feed into personal growth motives and experiences, and how these processes negatively or positively affect well-being.

Dr. Madoka Kumashiro
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Behavioral Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • personal growth
  • post-traumatic growth
  • personal development
  • self-improvement
  • self-actualization
  • self-fulfillment
  • well-being
  • identity development
  • positive psychology

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Review

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16 pages, 404 KiB  
Review
Mindfulness, Loving-Kindness, and Compassion-Based Meditation Interventions and Adult Attachment Orientations: A Systematic Map
by Taranah Gazder, Erica Ruby Drummond, Mine Gelegen and Sarah C. E. Stanton
Behav. Sci. 2025, 15(2), 119; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15020119 - 24 Jan 2025
Viewed by 1373
Abstract
Meditation interventions have important benefits, including potentially helping those with higher attachment anxiety and avoidance enjoy better personal and relational growth. This preregistered and reproducible systematic map sought to identify the extent and scope of experimental evidence investigating the role of mindfulness, loving-kindness, [...] Read more.
Meditation interventions have important benefits, including potentially helping those with higher attachment anxiety and avoidance enjoy better personal and relational growth. This preregistered and reproducible systematic map sought to identify the extent and scope of experimental evidence investigating the role of mindfulness, loving-kindness, and compassion-based multi-session meditation interventions in (a) moderating the effects of attachment orientations on outcomes over time and/or (b) changing attachment orientations over time. We conducted a systematic map, as the literature on meditation interventions and attachment is nascent. We searched 5 databases, screening 725 studies. We extracted data from four journal articles and one dissertation (five studies in total) which met our inclusion criteria. Four studies examined the effects of meditation interventions on buffering attachment insecurity and one examined attachment security enhancement. All five studies included a mindfulness meditation intervention, and one included a loving-kindness meditation intervention. All studies were conducted in Western cultures. Studies primarily found evidence for interventions benefitting those with higher attachment anxiety, although some evidence emerged for higher attachment avoidance. Our systematic map highlights a critical need for further application of meditation interventions in an attachment and personal growth context, given the promising nature of early work in this area. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Experiences and Well-Being in Personal Growth)
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Other

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14 pages, 571 KiB  
Project Report
Development of the Self-Directed TRANSCEND Suffering Workbook Intervention: A Population Health Psychology Approach for ‘Everyday’ Suffering
by Richard G. Cowden, Emily C. Hill, Omar S. Haque, Virág Zábó, György Purebl, Johannes H. De Kock and Tyler J. VanderWeele
Behav. Sci. 2025, 15(4), 445; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs15040445 - 31 Mar 2025
Viewed by 266
Abstract
The discipline of psychology has long been interested in understanding human suffering and identifying suitable approaches for effectively managing it. Although there are many clinical models invoking different philosophical worldviews and therapeutic approaches for addressing suffering, they typically require trained professionals and, therefore, [...] Read more.
The discipline of psychology has long been interested in understanding human suffering and identifying suitable approaches for effectively managing it. Although there are many clinical models invoking different philosophical worldviews and therapeutic approaches for addressing suffering, they typically require trained professionals and, therefore, are not widely accessible to the general population. Empirical evidence suggests that even ‘everyday’ experiences of suffering in nonclinical populations can negatively impact mental health and well-being, which has ushered in calls for a population health psychology approach by developing accessible, affordable, and scalable interventions that attend to the experience of suffering. As a response to such calls, we developed the TRANSCEND Suffering workbook, a brief self-directed workbook intervention for suffering. This project report describes the first phase of the workbook development process, including its scope, theoretical underpinnings, central change objectives, organization, and engagement targets. We summarize feedback that laypeople and experts spanning various academic and applied disciplines provided about the workbook and discuss how this feedback was evaluated and used to make refinements aimed at enhancing the utility of the workbook. While empirical testing is needed to determine the efficacy of the TRANSCEND Suffering workbook, we discuss some potential implications (along with caveats and limitations) of this low-intensity intervention for addressing population-level suffering, facilitating growth through suffering, and promoting human flourishing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Experiences and Well-Being in Personal Growth)
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