Happiness in the workplace remains to be an under-researched field which is unfortunate considering that the happiness-productive worker link has been strongly established. More essentially, there has been a lack of research on happiness in the workplace which considers a specific sample of millennials. In preparation for a workforce dominated with millennials, this research will help address the gap with regards to the lack of research on Malaysian millennials’ happiness in the workplace. Through a thorough literature review, six predictors or antecedents of happiness in the workplace among millennials which are meaningful work, work autonomy, transformational leadership, workplace friendship, work life balance, and gratitude have been chosen in this research. This study consists of millennials (“millennials” or Generation Y is defined in the selected literature as individuals born between years 1982 and 2004) who have undergone full time employment of at least one year or more. The results indicated that all the six predictors showed significant moderate to high positive relationships with happiness in the workplace. Multiple regression analysis showed that all six predictors significantly predicts millennials’ happiness in the workplace, besides gratitude. Implications of this study with regards to managing millennial talent in organisations are then discussed.

Perfectionism or a tendency to aim for an unrealistic standard can impair happiness. However, the potential mechanisms of perfectionism to explain the association between trait emotional intelligence (EI) and happiness are still understudied. This study explores the mediating role of perfectionism in the relationship between trait emotional intelligence (EI) and happiness among young adults. A cross-sectional sample of 259 young adults aged between 18 to 35 years old was recruited. All analyses were conducted using SPSS and AMOS Structural Equation Modeling. High trait EI was linked to low perfectionism and high happiness levels. Furthermore, perfectionism mediated the relationship between trait EI and happiness. Although high trait EI lowered maladaptive perfectionism, the negative impact of maladaptive perfectionism remained and subsequently led to decreasing happiness levels of young adults. This study offers an enhanced understanding of the role of perfectionism in explaining the happiness state of young adults. Moreover, it provides practical implications for using trait EI and managing perfectionism tendency to manage the happiness and wellbeing of the young adult population.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between gratitude and workplace friendship with affective well-being (AWB) at work amongst millennial employees. Specifically, it details the mediating effect of workplace friendship in explaining the linkages between gratitude and AWB at work. Design/methodology/approach This study used a sample of 272 millennial workers in this study. A survey invitation was sent out to all of the respondents through email. A 20-item job-related AWB (Van Katwyk et al., 2000) scale was used to measure AWB. Workplace friendship was measured using six-items of the workplace friendship scale (Nielsen et al., 2000) and gratitude was measured using McCullough et al.’s (2002) six-item gratitude questionnaire (GQ-6). Findings The study found that gratitude and workplace friendship enhanced workplace AWB among millennial workers. Workplace friendship functioned as a mediator, which delivered the effect from gratitude towards workplace AWB. Gratitude was found to positively predict workplace friendship and subsequently workplace friendship positively predicted workplace AWB. Practical implications Nurturing positive feelings at work through excellent psychosocial resources and healthy work friendships would improve millennial workers well-being. Henceforth, encouraging millennial employees to cultivate workplace friendships, can help the manager to enhance millennial employees’ feeling of belongingness, and thus, promote better AWB. Originality/value Investment on employee’s human capital and values can be valuable resources to increase millennial employees’ performance at work. Millennial workers are a unique generation that put emphasis on the subjective experience. Hence, capitalising on their subjective experience can be one of the keys to better increase their well-being and performance at work.

Research has demonstrated that repeated engagement in low-effort behaviors that are associated with immediate reward, such as Internet use, can result in a pathological reinforcement process in which the behavior is increasingly selected over other activities due, in part, to a low availability of alternative activities and to a strong preference for immediate rather than delayed rewards (delay discounting). However, this reinforcer pathology model has not been generalized to other Internet-related behaviors, such as online gaming or smartphone use. Given the widespread availability of these technologies, it is also important to examine whether reinforcer pathology of Internet-related behaviors is culturally universal or culture-specific. The current study examines relations between behavioral economic constructs (Internet demand, delay discounting, and alternative reinforcement) and Internet-related addictive behaviors (harmful Internet use, smartphone use, online gaming, and Internet sexual behavior) in a cross-sectional sample of college students (N = 1,406) from six different countries (Argentina, Australia, India, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the United States). Using structural equation modeling, Internet demand was associated with harmful Internet use, smartphone use, and online gaming; delay discounting was associated with harmful smartphone use; and alternative reinforcement was associated with harmful Internet and smartphone use. The models were partially invariant across countries. However, mean levels of behavioral economic variables differed across countries, country-level gross domestic product, person-level income, and sex at birth. Results support behavioral economic theory and highlight the importance of considering both individual and country-level sociocultural contextual factors in models for understanding harmful engagement with Internet-related behaviors.

Studies have been suggesting that millennials put a higher emphasis on their subjective wellbeing experience at work as an aspect in their decision to stay in an organisation. In this paper, we investigated how work-life balance explained job-related affective wellbeing among millennial employees. In addition, we investigated how work autonomy moderated the relationship between work-life balance and job-related affective wellbeing. Our assumptions were; 1) those who had higher work-life balance experienced better job-related affective wellbeing, and 2) when under high work autonomy, job-related affective wellbeing levels will be higher compared to when in lower levels. To test our proposition, we surveyed a total of 272 millennial workers using PROCESS MACRO SPPSS extension. Our results suggested that work autonomy had an extremely important role in increasing millennial workers’ affective wellbeing. Affective wellbeing state of millennial workers were significantly higher when under high work autonomy levels compared to when they were lower. Implication of this paper includes understanding the importance of work autonomy inside the organisation towards millennial workers. It also offers several managerial implications on key areas to improve affective wellbeing of millennials at work.

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PurposeCoronavirus (COVID-19) rapidly became the “new normal” with profound implications for everyone's daily life. In this paper, emerging psychologists from diverse cultural backgrounds discuss four main ways in which COVID-19 impacted diverse psychological populations.Design/methodology/approachThis paper was written as a reflection on how COVID-19 has impacted diverse psychological populations using authors' academic and personal experiences.FindingsFirst, the authors explore inaccessible populations with a focus on domestic violence victims living in rural areas. Second, the authors consider consequences of social isolation with a focus on remote workers. Third, the authors investigate the consequences of public (dis)trust in the pandemic with a focus on migrant worker communities. Finally, the authors discuss pandemic-relevant subcultures with a focus on “anti-vaxxers”.Social implicationsThe paper concludes with a discussion of negative implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on diverse psychological populations, both for the present and the future, and ends with an action plan of possible interventions to overcome these limitations.Originality/valueOverall, the current paper provides a broad overview of how the pandemic has shaped and will continue to shape diverse psychological populations.