All societies induce both illness and well-being, therefore individual well-being is a product of society. Psychological factors such as attitudes, values and beliefs influence mobility decisions. Mobility plays a role in determining the achievement of psychological needs with respect to freedom and autonomy, access to social life, prevention of isolation and alienation and the promotion of achieving personal goals and gaining control.
Mobility is playing an increasingly important role in determining the achievement of the psychological needs.
• Well-being requires three psychological needs to be met: autonomy, competence and relatedness and the absence of one or more of these leads to diminished well-being.
• People’s perceptions define mobility choices.
• All societies induce both illness and well-being, therefore individual well-being is a product of society.
Individual well-being is a product of society. All societies induce both illness and well-being. In turn, every community shapes and defines what is considered normal (and by default, what is abnormal). The definitions of social deviation have consequences for how stressed and detached people can feel in their environment relative to others
The psychological function of mobility
What we have learned from the work attempting to qualify classical economic theory through the application of heuristics, is that it is not so much the objective elements that define mobility choices but people’s perceptions of them.
Psychological factors such as attitudes, values and beliefs influencing mobility decisions can be predicted. These factors form the perceptual filter through which we see the environment around us and interpret it: why we behave in this way, and not that way.
Psychological research emphasises that personal well-being depends heavily on fulfilling three key psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness:
- Autonomy – the freedom to explore the environment freely.
- Competence – feeling in control of things and capable of accomplishing goals.
- Relatedness – having social support mechanisms around, connected to the world through social ties.
Well-being requires all three psychological needs to be satisfied. They should not conflict although they do reinforce each other. Not possessing these three needs leads to negative emotional states and diminished well-being. This is true for individuals, neighbourhoods and societies as a whole.
Mobility is being found to play an increasingly important role in determining the achievement of these psychological needs. Mobility promotes freedom and autonomy, it promotes relatedness through providing access to social life, and prevents isolation and alienation; and finally it promotes competence in achieving goals and gaining control.
Source:
Pickup, L. (2017, August 10). Mobility from the psychologist’s perspective. MIND-sets Knowledge Center. https://mobilitybehaviour.eu/2017/08/07/mobility-from-the-psychologists-perspective/.
Comment:
I thought the most interesting part of this article were the three components required for well-being, and how the article related them to mobility. It not only gives validity to doing a project that emphasizes mobility, but gives ways to think about mobility. I can think about mobility in relation to these three components— autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Relatedness too is also the component of social isolation that our project also focuses around. This clearly shows how all the ideas are related and gives words and a reason to why this is even an important project to be doing. This psychological approach is also one part of the puzzle that can interact with environmental and other viewpoints.
