Supported Decision-Making: Implications from Positive Psychology for Assessment and Intervention in Rehabilitation and Employment

Abstract

Purpose This article reviews existing literature on positive psychology, supported decision-making (SDM), employment, and disability. It examines interventions and assessments that have been empirically evaluated for the enhancement of decision-making and overall well-being of people with disabilities. Additionally, conceptual themes present in the literature were explored. Methods A systematic review was conducted across two databases (ERIC and PsychINFO) using various combination of keywords of 'disabilit*', work rehabilitation and employment terms, positive psychology terms, and SDM components. Seven database searches were conducted with diverse combinations of keywords, which identified 1425 results in total to be screened for relevance using their titles and abstracts. Database search was supplemented with hand searches of oft-cited journals, ancestral search, and supplemental search from grey literature. Results Only four studies were identified in the literature targeting SDM and positive psychology related constructs in the employment and job development context. Results across the studies indicated small to moderate impacts of the assessment and interventions on decision-making and engagement outcomes. Conceptually there are thematic areas of potential overlap, although they are limited in the explicit integration of theory in supported decision-making, positive psychology, disability, and employment. Conclusion Results suggest a need for additional scholarship in this area that focuses on theory development and integration as well as empirical work. Such work should examine the potential utility of considering positive psychological interventions when planning for SDM in the context of career development activities to enhance positive outcomes related to decision-making, self-determination, and other positive psychological constructs.

Refining the Supported Decision Making Inventory

“…However, further research is needed to continue to evaluate this version of the SDMI, explore its feasibility and utility in research and practice as well as its application to policy, particularly related to building systems to actualize the movement toward supported decision‐making in practice. Considering recommendations for assessment and intervention that have emerged from other strength‐based approaches, such as those emerging in the field of positive psychology, could be a direction for future work as recommended by Uyanik, Shogren, and Blanck ().…”

How entrepreneurship drives life satisfaction among people with intellectual disabilities (PwID): a mixed-method approach

“…When combined, the social theory of disability (Abberley, 1987) and the positive psychology theory (Seligman, 2011) seem to support the impact of entrepreneurship on positive outcomes for PwID such as LQ, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Recent studies, for example, argue that entrepreneurship is a good option for PwD as it provides flexibility (Wehman et al, 2015) and could potentially provide these people with engagement, meaning Entrepreneur with ID and life satisfaction and accomplishment, to ultimately enhance their well-being and LQ (cf., Uyanik et al, 2017). However, the job-person fit (Cable and Edwards, 2004) or occupational-personality fit theories (McCarthy et al, 2022) argue that this would only be true if the personality or attitudes of the people who start a business suit all those values and attitudes that the entrepreneurship career represents.…”

“…Recent studies, for example, argue that entrepreneurship is a good option for PwD as it provides flexibility (Wehman et al. , 2015) and could potentially provide these people with engagement, meaning and accomplishment, to ultimately enhance their well-being and LQ (cf., Uyanik et al. , 2017).…”

Supported Decision-Making: Emerging Paradigm in Research, Law, and Policy

“…In one of first cases under the CRPD, a case strikingly similar to that of Jenny’s, in 2019 Mexico’s Supreme Court ordered the removal of guardianship for a fifty-year-old man, named Ernesto, who has an intellectual disability (Espinosa, 2019). In this case, guardianship had removed Ernesto’s right to decide for himself whether to marry, and to make key life decisions such as in the areas of spending and saving money, and in employment (Morris et al, 2019; Uyanik et al, 2017). Guardianship denied Ernesto self-determination and autonomy in life decisions by the appointment of another person who unilaterally substituted his decisions for Ernesto’s.…”