Culture,types of social withdrawal,and children's beliefs: An integrative perspective

Cultural norms and values provide guidance for children to judge and evaluate specific behavioural characteristics including shyness, unsociability, and social avoidance. The perceptions and attitudes of children, in turn, determine how they exhibit and regulate their behaviours and how they respond to peers' behaviours in social interactions. Investigation of children's beliefs across societies may shed some light on the processes in which culture is involved in shaping the display and developmental significance of different types of social withdrawal. To achieve a better understanding of the role of children's beliefs in mediating cultural influence on development, it will be important to examine how children's beliefs about withdrawn behaviours are associated with patterns of social interactions and relationships in various circumstances.     

Teachers' self-efficacy beliefs as determinants of job satisfaction and students' academic achievement: A study at the school level

Teachers' self-efficacy beliefs were examined as determinants of their job satisfaction and students' academic achievement. Over 2000 teachers in 75 Italian junior high schools were administered self-report questionnaires to assess self-efficacy beliefs and their job satisfaction Students' average final grades at the end of junior high school were collected in two subsequent scholastic years. Structural equation modeling analyses corroborated a conceptual model in which teachers' personal efficacy beliefs affected their job satisfaction and students' academic achievement, controlling for previous levels of achievement.     

When beliefs are not enough: Examining the interaction of diversity faultlines,task motivation,and diversity beliefs on team performance

Diversity faultline strength – the extent to which diversity attributes within a group converge in such a way that they split a group into homogeneous subgroups – can decrease group performance. Based on the categorization–elaboration model (CEM) of workgroup diversity, we assumed that task motivation can overcome the detrimental effects of faultlines. We further assumed that this effect is contingent on the groups' diversity beliefs and that it is mediated by the elaboration of task-relevant information. Forty-three student groups worked on a computer-simulated complex problem solving scenario. The group faultline strength was calculated over the attributes gender, age and educational background. Information elaboration was elicited by means of behavioural coding. Results revealed a three-way interaction of faultline strength, diversity beliefs and task motivation: groups overcame the detrimental effects of faultlines only if they exhibited pro-diversity beliefs and high task motivation. The three-way interaction of faultline strength, diversity beliefs and task motivation was partly mediated by information elaboration. Practical and theoretic implications are discussed.     

Infant sleep moderates the effect of infant temperament on maternal depressive symptoms,maternal sensitivity,and family functioning

Observed infant temperamental difficulty and infant sleep efficiency and sleep variability were examined as predictors of maternal depressive symptoms, maternal sensitivity, and family functioning. Eight observations at 8-months postpartum were used to assess infant temperament, and actigraphy was used to measure infant sleep for 1-week at the time of the 8-month assessment. Structured clinical interviews were used to assess maternal depressive symptoms between 5 and 12 months postpartum and at 15 months postpartum, and observational assessments were used to assess maternal sensitivity and family functioning at 15 months postpartum. Variability in infant sleep moderated the effect of infant temperament on maternal depressive symptoms, maternal sensitivity, and family functioning. Infant temperament was positively associated with maternal depressive symptoms when variability in infant sleep efficiency was high, but not when variability in infant sleep efficiency was low. Likewise, infant temperament was negatively associated with maternal sensitivity and family functioning when variability in infant sleep efficiency was high, but not when variability in infant sleep efficiency was low. Results underscore the importance of infant sleep for maternal and family health.     

Psychological mechanisms in the maintenance of insomnia: arousal, distress, and sleep-related beliefs

The purpose of this study was to examine whether arousal, distress, and sleep-related beliefs are related to the maintenance of insomnia. From a randomly selected sample from the general population (n=3600), 1936 participants filled out a baseline and 1-year follow-up survey. Logistic regressions were used to investigate whether arousal, distress, and beliefs were related to sleep status (insomnia: n=116; poor sleep: n=222; normal sleep: n=529; good sleep: n=234) over 1 year. Cluster analysis was employed to assess whether it was possible to classify the participants based on their profiles of psychological functioning. The results showed that beliefs in the long-term negative consequences of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and arousal were significantly related to the maintenance of insomnia (18-72% of the variance). Of the individuals with persistent insomnia, 91% belonged to a cluster characterized by high scores on sleep-related beliefs, anxiety, depression, and arousal, and 9% to a cluster defined by low scores on the mechanisms. This study shows that sleep-related beliefs, anxiety, depression, and arousal are related to the maintenance of persistent insomnia, but also that these mechanisms often co-occur in individuals with insomnia.     

Stress mindset in athletes: Investigating the relationships between beliefs,challenge and threat with psychological wellbeing

ObjectiveStress is omnipresent in daily life and can be acutely experienced by athletes due to additional circumstances such as deselection and injury. Trait beliefs athletes have about the stress they experience as well as the cognitive appraisals of this stress may be important in determining psychological wellbeing. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between stress mindset, irrational beliefs, cognitive appraisals and psychological wellbeing in athletes using path analysis. Broadly speaking, it was hypothesised that stress mindset would relate negatively to depressive symptoms and positively to vitality through appraisals (i.e., challenge and threat), while irrational beliefs would relate to positively to depressive symptoms and negatively to vitality through appraisals.Methods415 athletes (227 females, Mage = 33.86 years, SD = 17.73) completed an online questionnaire pack assessing stress mindset, irrational beliefs, challenge and threat appraisals, depressive symptoms, and vitality. Using path analysis, the tested hypothesised model demonstrated an excellent fit to the data.ResultsFindings demonstrate that the relationships between stress mindset, irrational beliefs and psychological wellbeing is linked by direct and indirect effects of challenge and threat in athletes. Stress mindset was positively associated with challenge and negatively associated with threat, whilst self-depreciation and awfulizing demonstrated significant positive associations with threat. Self-depreciation was found to significantly relate to stress mindset, challenge, threat and depressive symptoms to a greater extent than the other types of irrational beliefs.ConclusionsFindings suggest practitioners should be aware of the role that stress mindset and other irrational beliefs have in potentially influencing athlete psychological wellbeing.     

Coping with adverse drug events in patients with heart failure: Exploring the role of medication beliefs and perceptions

This study describes coping strategies that patients with heart failure (HF) use to manage adverse drug events (ADEs). The included coping strategies were social support seeking, information seeking, non-adherence and taking alleviating medication. The role of beliefs about medication and ADE perceptions in explaining these coping strategies was assessed using the Self-Regulation Model. We performed a cross-sectional study including 250 HF patients who experienced an ADE. Patients completed validated questionnaires assessing their coping strategies, ADE perceptions and medication beliefs. Social support (60%) and information seeking (32%) were the most commonly used strategies to cope with ADEs. Non-adherence was reported by 7% of the patients. Multivariate linear regression analysis showed that demographics, clinical factors and medication beliefs explained only a small amount of the variance in coping strategies, whereas ADE perceptions explained a substantial amount of variance. Path analysis showed that patients’ perceptions about the timeline, consequences and controllability of ADEs by the health care provider were directly related to their coping behaviour. The effect of patients’ medication beliefs on their coping strategies was consistent with mediation through their ADE perceptions. Our results support the value of the Self-Regulation Model in understanding patients’ coping behaviour with regard to ADEs.     

Maternal avoidance,anxiety cognitions and interactive behaviour predicts infant development at 12 months in the context of anxiety disorders in the postpartum period

BackgroundFew studies have examined the relation between anxiety disorders in the postpartum period and cognitive as well as language development in infancy.AimsThis longitudinal study investigated whether anxiety disorder in the postpartum period is linked to infant development at twelve months. A closer look was also taken at a possible link between maternal interaction and infant development.Study designSubjects were videotaped during a Face-to-Face-Still-Face interaction with their infant (M = 4.0 months). Specific maternal anxiety symptoms were measured by self-report questionnaires (Anxiety Cognition Questionnaire (ACQ), Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ), Mobility Inventory (MI)) to check for a connection with infant development. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-III (Bayley-III) were used to assess infant language and cognitive development at one year of age.Subjectsn = 34 mothers with anxiety disorder (SCID-I; DSM-IV) and n = 47 healthy mothers with their infant.Outcome measuresInfant performance on Bayley-III language and cognitive scales.ResultsInfants of mothers with anxiety disorder yielded significantly lower language scores than infants of controls. No significant group differences were found regarding infant cognitive development. Exploratory analyses revealed the vital role of “maternal avoidance accompanied” in infant language and cognitive development. Maternal neutral engagement, which lacks positive affect and vocalisations, turned out as the strongest negative predictor of cognitive development. Maternal anxiety cognitions and joint activity in mother-infant interaction were the strongest predictors of infant language performance.ConclusionsResults underline the importance to also consider the interaction behaviour of women with anxiety disorders to prevent adverse infant development.     

Don't cheat,be happy. Self‐control,self‐beliefs,and satisfaction with life in academic honesty: A cross‐sectional study in Poland

Academic dishonesty is dishonest behavior at school or university which is supposed to result in a passed exam or in a positive grade. Academic dishonesty is a global problem, present at every stage of education. Since the consequences of this phenomenon may be serious, such as a low level of knowledge despite receiving a diploma from a school or university or carrying dishonest behaviors over into other domains of functioning, research into this phenomenon also seems to be of high significance. Cheating, plagiarism, and falsification are the forms of academic of dishonesty. The aim of this study was to establish how academic dishonesty is related to self‐control, self‐beliefs, and satisfaction with life. The sample consisted of 631 participants, to whom we administered the Academic Honesty Scale, the Brief Self‐Control Scale, the Social Success Index, the Normalcy Feeling Scale, the Social Comparison Scale, and the Satisfaction With Life Scale. We found that academic dishonesty was linked with some of the variables. The results indicated that academic dishonesty and self‐control were negatively related to academic cheating and that social comparison was positively related to plagiarism and falsification. It also turned out that women scored lower than men on academic dishonesty. Research findings on academic dishonesty have a number of important implications for education, particularly for psychologists, teachers, and sociologists.     

Religiousness,social support and subjective well‐being: An exploratory study among adolescents in an Asian atheist country

Few studies have focused on the relationships among religiousness, social support and subjective well‐being in Chinese adolescent populations. This study tries to fill this gap. Using cluster sampling, we selected two groups: Group A, which included 738 Tibetan adolescents with a formal religious affiliation and represented adolescents from a religious culture, and Group B, which included 720 Han adolescents without a religious affiliation and represented adolescents from an irreligious culture. Structural equation modelling showed that only in Group A did social support mediate (partially) the relationship between religious experience and subjective well‐being; furthermore, the results of a hierarchical regression analysis showed that only in Group A did social support moderate the relationship between religious ideology and subjective well‐being. Possible explanations for the discrepancies between the findings obtained in this study and those obtained in previous studies are discussed.     

The perception of the past,present, and future in preadolescent asthmatic children: An exploratory study

A study of preadolescent males and females determined that males and females appear to perceive their quality of life in the past year, the present, and the future year similarly. However, differences between males and females emerged in the number of psychosocial variables that were associated with the three above time periods. Results suggest that females' perception of the past, present and future are significantly associated with a host of psychosocial variables and associated with the self, while males' perception of time appears less determined by psychosocial and perception-of-self variables. This may suggest that one's sex role influences how one perceives time.     

The role of values in road safety culture: Examining the valuation of freedom to take risk,risk taking and accident involvement in three countries

National focus on individual freedom versus paternalistic values is a fundamental theme, which defines the status of traffic safety in different countries. The present study examines the role of such values in road safety culture based on survey data from car and bus drivers from three countries with distinctly different road safety records: Norway (N = 596), Israel (N = 129) and Greece (N = 386). While Norway has the highest road safety level in Europe, and Israel also performs better than the EU average, the road safety level in Greece was far below the EU average. As these positions reflect differences in policies and national regulations in drivers’ freedom to take risk, we hypothesize a higher focus on individual freedom to take risk and lower focus on paternalism among the Greek drivers. Results indicate, in accordance with our hypothesis, that the Greek drivers value freedom to take risk in traffic higher than drivers from Norway and Israel. Greek drivers also expect higher levels of risk taking from other drivers in their country, they report higher levels of risky driving themselves, and are more often involved in accidents. Thus, it seems that values have an important role in Road Safety Culture (RSC), legitimizing and motivating risky driving, which are related to accidents. We found, however, contrary to our hypotheses, that the Greek drivers also had the most paternalistic attitudes among the drivers in the three countries. In the present paper, we try to solve this Greek paradox.     

Overstepping the boundaries of free choice: Folk beliefs on free will and determinism in real world contexts

We know little about the commonality of folk beliefs around applications of psychological research on the unconscious control of behaviours. To address this, in Experiment 1 (N = 399) participants volunteered examples of where research on the unconscious has been applied to influence their behaviours. A subset of these were presented in Experiment 2 (N = 198) and Experiment 3 (N = 100). Participants rated the extent to which the behaviour being influenced in these contexts was: (1) via the unconscious, (2) free, (3) the result of prior conscious intentions, (4) under conscious control. Relative to judgements about the extent to which behaviour was influenced via the unconscious, the remaining judgements regarding conscious control of behaviours were either higher (e.g., political contexts) or lower (e.g., therapy). This study is the first to show, using ecologically valid examples, the folk beliefs people share on psychological constructs concerning free will and determinism.     

The associations of cultural worldviews,political orientation,and trust with COVID-19 risk beliefs in the U.S.

Given that risk beliefs predict engagement in behaviors to prevent disease, it is important to understand the factors associated with risk beliefs. In the present paper, we conducted path analyses to investigate the associations of belief systems (political orientation and cultural worldviews of individualism and hierarchy) with COVID-19 risk beliefs (i.e., perceived likelihood, perceived severity, and worry about disease; Studies 1 and 2), and the indirect effect through trust in information sources in these relationships (Study 1). Two online panels of U.S. adults were surveyed at three timepoints during the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 1: baseline n = 1,667, 1-year follow-up n = 551; Study 2: n = 404). Results of path analyses indicated that, across studies and timepoints, when controlling for political orientation, trust, and demographic factors, greater individualism had consistent significant direct effects on lower perceived severity and worry about COVID-19, whereas greater hierarchy had consistent significant direct effects on lower perceived severity. However, after accounting for cultural worldviews of individualism and hierarchy (and trust and demographic factors), none of the associations among political orientation and any of the three COVID-19 risk beliefs were significant. The test of indirect effects indicated that individualism and hierarchy were indirectly associated with lower perceived severity of and worry about COVID-19 through less trust. The findings suggest that cultural worldviews of individualism and hierarchy play a role in shaping people's risk beliefs.     

Acute effects of viloxazine HCl and flurazepam when given alone and in combination on sleep EEG: A double-blind interaction study with normals

Viloxazine, an aryl-oxypropanolamine type β-adreno-receptor antagonist, has been used in the treatment of depression. In a double-blind drug interaction study with flurazepam, a commonly used benzodiazepine hypnotic, viloxazine administered alone decreased the amount of time spent in REM sleep, increased the amount of time in the “light” stages of sleep, and increased the number of transitions to awake. However, no interactive effects of the combined administration of viloxazine and flurazepam could be detected.     

Barriers and challenges in the practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia: A qualitative interview study

Counsellors face a lot of problems and stressors in their daily lives. As a person, counsellors may face challenges to deal with their personal expectations and responsibilities in life, work, family and community. As a professional, counsellors may face difficulties in dealing with professional issues and ethical dilemmas in their professional practice such as countertransference and value conflicts. These raise issues concerning their perceived multicultural competence and the adequacy of their training. Informed by a multicultural counselling perspective and drawing on semi-structured interviews with 12 professional counsellors in Malaysia, this study discusses the types of barriers and challenges faced by Malaysian counsellors and how these challenges were manifested and addressed in the cross-cultural counselling sessions. Results revealed five emerging themes based on participant counsellors’ responses on the barriers and challenges encountered in their practice of multicultural counselling in Malaysia. These were challenges related to counsellors’, clients’, presenting issues’, third-party and specific contexts’ characteristics. Research implications for the education and training of counsellors in the specific Malaysian socio-political context are also discussed.     

Investigating the neurodevelopmental mediators of aggression in children with a history of child maltreatment:An exploratory field study

Maltreatment of children is a chronic community problem that increases the risk of future aggression. Despite several decades of research highlighting this relationship, few studies have explored the potential neuropsychological deficits that are likely to mediate it. This exploratory study aimed to examine how child maltreatment may be associated with aggression via impairment in the developing prefrontal-limbic-autonomic pathways that are implicated in neuropsychological models of aggression. Furthermore, it aimed to investigate the relationship between child maltreatment and both reactive and proactive aggression subtypes. To investigate this non-invasively in an at-risk population, children with a documented protective care history (n = 20) and a community control group (n = 30), aged between 6 and 12 years, were compared on measures of cardiovascular functioning, affect regulation and cognitive functioning aligned with this neuropsychological model. Whilst no group differences were found on cardiovascular functioning (i.e., resting heart rate, heart rate reactivity, heart rate variability), the protective care group performed significantly worse on measures of affect regulation and cognitive functioning (i.e., global intelligence, executive functioning, smell identification and social cognition). The relationship between child maltreatment and aggression was mediated by executive dysfunction and affect dysregulation but not global IQ, social cognition or olfactory identification. The results suggest that interventions targeting aggression in maltreated children will benefit from clinical assessment and psychological strategies that address the executive dysfunction and affect dysregulation that has been associated with this clinical outcome.     

Culture and the organization of infant sleep: A study in the Netherlands and the U.S.A.

This study investigates differences in the amount and structure of infant sleep in two cultural places with previously documented, divergent parental beliefs and practices. Eight-month-old infants (n = 24 per site) were recruited from towns in the Netherlands and the eastern U.S.A. To evaluate sleep, infants’ physical activity was recorded at home for 24 h using a miniature actigraph, while parents kept a diary of infant activities. Measures derived from actigraphy include total sleep, longest sleep episode, longest wake episode, number of sleep episodes, and percent of sleep during nighttime, as well as time in the stages of Quiet and Active Sleep. Measures based on the parental diaries include most of these aspects as well, except those related to sleep stages. Results based on the more precise actigraphy method indicate that (1) the Dutch infants averaged 13.65 h of sleep per 24 h, 1.67 h more than the U.S. infants; this difference was mostly due to daytime sleep; (2) The Dutch infants’ longest wake episode averaged less than that of the U.S. infants, while their longest sleep episode appeared slightly longer. (3) The Dutch infants, compared to the U.S. sample, spent more time in the Quiet, rather than the Active phase of sleep; (4) They began their Quiet sleep earlier in the evening than did their U.S. counterparts. Measures derived from parental diaries are largely in agreement with the actigraph findings. These results are consistent with reported and observed practices and beliefs in the two communities. The pattern of differences – less apparent maturity among the Dutch in the amount of sleep, but greater apparent maturity in the structure of sleep -- illustrates that behavioral and neurological maturity can be assessed only in the context of the developing child’s adaptation to the specific demands and affordances of the culturally structured developmental niche.     

Psychological skills and mindfulness training effects on the psychological wellbeing of undergraduate music students: An exploratory study

This study explored the efficacy of psychological skills and mindfulness training intervention on the psychological wellbeing of undergraduate music students. Participants were undergraduate music students (n = 36) from the Department of Music at a South African university, 21 of whom were elected to take the psychological skills and mindfulness training intervention. Data on their self-reported psychological wellbeing, psychological skills, mindfulness and performance anxiety levels were collected pre-and post-intervention. The analysis applied non-parametric procedures to determine changes in students’ psychological wellbeing after the seven-week intervention programme. Findings suggest improvements in psychological wellbeing, psychological skills, mindfulness and performance anxiety with training. Psychological skills and mindfulness training may have benefits to the psychological wellbeing of music students.