Indigenous Thriving: Driving Indigenous Success from School to University and Employment This symposium synthesises recent research coming out of the Indigenous Thriving Program in the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University. Our focus is on solutions, not problems; on Indigenous strengths, not deficit approaches; and on success, not failure. Our mission is to transform and enrich Indigenous lives and communities and enable Indigenous children and youth to not just succeed but thrive from school to university, building the foundation for securing employment and leading productive and fulfilling lives. Alex Yeung presents the findings from our research on the reciprocal effects of self-concept and academic achievement for Indigenous school students. Anthony Dillon then imparts insights from our research on an Indigenous boarding program in a large private boys’ school that has demonstrated success in recruiting and graduating Indigenous boys from disadvantaged backgrounds. Georgia Durmush and our team of Indigenous Research Interns will then present key insights from the successful implementation of a university-based Indigenous research internship program. Finally, Natasha Magson will present results from a paper investigating the role of Self-Determination Theory’s motivational drivers (autonomy, competence and relatedness) on the job outcomes of Indigenous professionals.

Overcoming obstacles in personal goal pursuit: Making sense of the diverging influences of personality and motivation on goal progress Goal pursuit is an important aspect of development (Heckhausen et al., 2010). Nevertheless, setbacks frequently interfere with it (Holding et al., 2017). How people overcome these roadblocks impacts their success and well-being. This symposium regroups talks on the influence of personality and motivation on obstacles in goal pursuit: First, André St-Jacques will present research on psychological need sacrificing, the self-imposed abandonment of need satisfying activities. He will explore how personality (e.g., dispositional mindfulness) and motivational factors can protect against need sacrificing and burnout. Second, Ariane Marion-Jetten will discuss the role of perfectionism in predicting action crises. Action crises occur when people hesitate between continued goal pursuit and disengagement. She will present longitudinal and experimental results linking perfectionism and action crises and consider how future studies can improve our knowledge of this relation. Third, Shelby Levine will discuss collaborative autonomy in goal pursuit as a means of overcoming challenges. She provides evidence that individuals often develop autonomous personal goals collaboratively. Longitudinal results demonstrated a dynamic reciprocal relation between autonomous motivation and autonomy support over time. Fourth, Amanda Moore will address the consequences of goals ill-suited to one’s personality. She proposes that autonomous motivation facilitates intentional changes in personalities to pursue personal goals. Two longitudinal studies provide evidence that personality change goals can increase success and well-being over time. Professor Richard Koestner, a leading scholar in human motivation, will provide insights on key findings, discuss how these findings contribute to goal pursuit literature as well as avenues for future research.

Benefits of non-judgmental cognitions The way people appraise their environment and how they reflect upon their experiences influence their functioning (Pessoa, 2008). While some of these cognitive processes are automatic and reactive, others, such as non-judgmental cognitions, are conscious and can be regulated to foster optimal functioning. A better understanding of these types of cognitions could thus contribute in promoting psychological health. Yet, what actually constitute non-judgmental cognitions remains unclear. This symposium explores non-judgmental attentional processes that show promise in fostering optimal functioning. Results from three randomized controlled trials and one diary study will be presented. The first paper, focusing on self-compassion and its relation with parents’ psychopathology, shows that (1) self-compassion and anxiety symptoms can be improved by a parenting workshop and that (2) initial self-compassion also predicts decreases in parents’ anxiety. The second paper focuses on philosophy and children’s self-determination and shows how participating in philosophy exercises aimed at increasing children’s awareness of their values led to greater self-determination. The third paper focuses on intrinsic and extrinsic values and shows (1) how they relate to adolescents’ well-being, and (2) how non-judgmental reflection about one’s values lowered the importance of extrinsic values of university students. The final paper focuses on athletes’ self-provision of autonomy support through an autonomy-supportive self-talk and shows how more autonomy-supportive self-talk during specific training sessions was positively related to positive outcomes during these trainings. Overall, this symposium suggests that non-judgemental cognitions such as self-compassion, value identification, and autonomy-supportive self-talk could foster optimal functioning in both children and adults.

Self-Beliefs and Their Relations: Current Findings From Studies Taking a Meta-Perspective Students’ self-beliefs are of great importance, for example, to their identity, well-being, life choices, and motivation. Thus, the question of what factors relate to self-beliefs is of high relevance. This symposium will present the findings of three studies that have examined self-beliefs and motivation from a meta-perspective. The first two studies will focus on students’ academic self-concept. More specifically, Study 1 will present findings from a meta-analysis of the 2I/E model, which describes the formation of students’ self-concepts through social, dimensional, and temporal comparisons, to examine how students’ self-concept formation depends on various comparison processes. This research will be complemented by Study 2, a second-order meta-analysis that integrates findings from 80 meta-analyses on the relations of self-concept, self-efficacy, and self-esteem with numerous other variables. Finally, Study 4, another second-order meta-analysis, focuses on academic motivation, which is strongly related to other self-beliefs, and summarizes findings from 125 meta-analyses, which have examined the relations of motivation and various student and instructional variables. In summary, all three studies provide up-to-date findings on the relations of central self-beliefs and motivation by integrating and comparing data from different studies and/or countries. A central goal of this symposium will be to bring these findings together and discuss their impact with leading experts from the field.

Substantive Methodological Synergies in Research on Student Motivation and Engagement. Educational researchers currently face a time of fast-paced methodological innovations, growing interconnectedness, and exponential increases in computing power. This creates exciting opportunities for them to revisit unresolved issues, to tackle previously inaccessible problems, and to investigate new areas (Marsh & Hau, 2007). These opportunities come at the cost of having to keep pace with these new developments. Substantive-methodological synergies are specifically designed to fill this gap. In the present symposium, we illustrate advanced statistical models, and combinations of them, that have yet to be applied regularly in educational research. Focusing on student engagement and motivation, we illustrate: Paper 1) How multi-group latent profile analyses combined with preliminary bifactor analyses can be used to identify academic self-determination profiles and to test the similarity of these profiles across two samples of high school students; Paper 2) How multi-group latent profile analyses combined with preliminary exploratory structural equation modeling can be used to identify academic motivation profiles and to test the similarity of these profiles across disciplines among a large sample of PhD students; Paper 3) How growth mixture analyses combined with preliminary bifactor analyses can be used to identify profiles of secondary school students characterized by distinct longitudinal self-determination trajectories; Paper 4) How multilevel path analyses, combined with bifactor modeling, can be used to contrast alternative perspectives on the combined role of need-supportive teaching practices in the prediction of student engagement. Presenters will ensure a coverage of methodological and theoretical implications of the results.

Substantive Methodological Synergies in Person-Centered Organizational Research. Quantitative researchers live in really exciting times of fast-paced methodological innovations, backed up with increasing computing power and growing interconnectedness and data availability. This creates opportunities to address previously inaccessible research problems, to revisit unresolved issues, and to address new research questions (Marsh & Hau, 2007). However, this also creates concerns for substantive researchers who fail to keep pace with new methodological developments. Substantive-methodological synergies are specifically designed to fill this gap. In the present symposium, we do so by illustrating breakthrough applications of advanced person-centered analytic models that have yet to be applied regularly in the organizational sciences. Whereas more common variable-centered analyses focus on average associations obtained across variables in a specific sample of participants, person-centered analyses focus on the identification of subpopulations of participants differing quantitatively and qualitatively from each other. In this symposium, focusing on employee burnout, engagement, commitment, and leadership perception, we illustrate how: Paper 1) classical latent profile analyses can be extended to more than one level of analyses; Paper 2) How latent transition analyses can be used to study longitudinal person-centered associations across constructs; Paper 3) How a hybrid combination of latent profile and mixture regression analyses can help to resolve the classical within-domain exacerbation phenomenon on the dual role of abusive and constructive leadership; Paper 4) How growth mixture analyses can contribute to our understanding of longitudinal trajectories of occupational commitment. Presenters will ensure a dual coverage of methodological considerations involved in model estimation and of the theoretical implications of the results.

Facilitating Authenticity: ‘Being Myself’ in Different and Challenging Contexts This symposium will present three talks exploring the antecedents of authenticity and itsimplications for well-being. A first talk will explore the ways in which solitude, the state ofbeing alone and not interacting with others, changes the way that authenticity isexperienced and its benefits. In a second talk, we will explore how authenticity can befacilitated through supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) self-disclosure in healthcare contexts. Finally, we explore how linguistic markers ofauthenticity in LGBTQ coming out narratives relate to ownership and well-being. Thesestudies utilize correlational, experimental, and multi-wave data and build a richer pictureof how authenticity can be supported and its implications for well-being in a number ofcategorically different relationships and in LGBTQ samples who may not always feelsupported in being authentic.