Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-15T17:43:27.399Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 20 - Reflections on an Improbable Journey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2022

By
Carol D. Ryff
Edited by
Jamila Bookwala  and
Nicky J. Newton
Jamila Bookwala
Affiliation:
Lafayette College, Pennsylvania
Nicky J. Newton
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario
Get access

Summary

I grew up in a small town in the wild west populated by descendants of early settlers. It was a world of practicality and common sense, where talk did not revolve around the meaning of life. From childhood on, I have been a blend of ambition and inadequacy. The combination was fruitful for getting me through the hoops of higher education and the challenges that followed. My academic journey has included incredible opportunities, particularly of the mentoring variety, as well as interesting obstacles and set-backs. Overall, the driving motivation behind it has been to paint on a big canvas – i.e., to understand human well-being and human becoming in all of its complexity. In so doing, I have been influenced by many mentors, most of whom I have never met. It was reading their work that inspired me and helped me see where to go next. The quest to reach into new territories continues.

Type
Chapter
Information
Reflections from Pioneering Women in Psychology , pp. 254 - 267
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Almeida, D. M., Lachman, M. E., Marks, N. F., Mroczek, D., & Ryff, C. D. (2009). Orville Gilbert Brim: Icon of generativity. Research in Human Development, 6(4), 252–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boylan, J. M., & Ryff, C. D. (2013). Varieties of anger and the inverse link between education and inflammation: Toward an integrated framework. Psychosomatic Medicine, 75(6), 566–574. doi:10.1097/PSY.0b013e31829683bdCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickens, C. (1859). A tale of two cities. New York, NY: Barnes and Noble Classics.Google Scholar
Ephron, N. (2006). I feel bad about my neck. New York, NY: Vintage.Google Scholar
Fancourt, D., & Finn, S. (2019). What is the evidence on the role of the arts in improving health and well-being? A scoping review. Health Evidence Network Synthesis Report, No. 67, Copenhagen: World Health Organization. Retrieved from: www.ero.who.int/en/publications/abstracts/what-is-the-evidence-on-the-role-of-the-arts-in-improving-health-and-well-being-a-scoping-review-2019Google Scholar
Giridharadas, A. (2018). Winners take all: The elite charade of changing the world. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
James, W. (1958). The varieties of religious experience. New York, NY: New American Library. (Original work published in 1902.)Google Scholar
Kirsch, J. A., Love, G. D., Radler, B. T., & Ryff, C. D. (2019). Scientific imperatives vis-à-vis growing inequality in America. American Psychologist, 74(7), 764–777.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krugman, P. (2020). Why do the rich have so much power? New York Times, July 1.Google Scholar
Marmot, M., Allen, J., Boyce, T., Goldblatt, P., & Morrison, J. (2020). Health equity in England: The Marmot review ten years on. London: Institute of Health Equity.Google Scholar
Marmot, M., Friel, S., Bell, R., Houweling, T. A. J., & Taylor, S. (2008). Closing the gap in a generation: Health equity through action on the social determinants of health. Lancet, 372(9650), 1661–1669.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendelberg, T., McCabe, K. T., & Thal, A. (2016). College socialization and the economic views of affluent Americans. American Journal of Political Science, 61(3), 606–623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, J. S. (1989). Autobiography. London: Penguin. (Original work published in 1893.)Google Scholar
Mishra, P. (2017). Age of anger: A history of the present. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. (2010). Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Piff, P. K. (2014). Wealth and the inflated self: Class, entitlement, and narcissism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40(1), 34–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryff, C. D. (1987). The place of personality and social structure research in social psychology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1192–1202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryff, C. D. (1989). Happiness is everything, or is it?: Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 1069–1081.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryff, C. D. (2017). Eudaimonic well-being, inequality, and health: Recent findings and future directions. International Review of Economics, 64(2), 15–178. doi:10.1007/sl2232-017-0227-4CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryff, C. D. (2019a). Entrepreneurship and eudaimonic well-being: Five venues for new science. Journal of Business Venturing, 34(4), 646–663.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryff, C. D. (2019b). Linking education in the arts and humanities to life-long well-being and health. New York, NY: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Retrieved from https://mellon.org/resources/articles/linking-education-arts-and-humanities-life-long-well-being-and-health/Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D., Boylan, J. M., & Kirsch, J. A. (2021). Eudaimonic and hedonic well-being: An integrative perspective with linkages to sociodemographic factors and health. In Lee, M. T., Kubzansky, L. D., & VanderWeele, T. J. (Eds.), Measuring well-being: Interdisciplinary perspectives from the social sciences and the humanities (pp. 92–135). New York, NY: Oxford.Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D., & Kim, E. S. (2020). Extending research linking purpose in life to health: Challenges of inequality, the potential of the arts, and the imperative of virtue. In Burrow, A. L. & Hill, P. (Eds.), The ecology of purposeful living across the lifespan (pp. 29–58). New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Ryff, C. D., & Krueger, R. F. (Eds.). (2018). Oxford handbook of integrative health science. New York, NY: Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Said, E. W. (2004). Humanism and democratic criticism. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Snow, C. P. (1959/1998). The two cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stickley, T. (2017). Arts, health, and wellbeing: A public health approach whose time has come. Perspectives in Public Health, 138(1), 3–4.Google Scholar
Van der Vliet Oloomi, A. (2018). Call me zebra. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×