Associations Between Financial Strain and the Diurnal Salivary Cortisol Secretion of Long-term Unemployed Individuals

OBJECTIVE: The study investigated the associations between self-rated financial strain and overall diurnal salivary cortisol levels, as well as secretory patterns among long-term unemployed individuals. METHODS: Psychosocial and life-style variables were assessed by means of questionnaires among 85 participants (mean age 42+/-9 years; 56% females). Salivary cortisol was sampled on four occasions during a 24-hour period and data was analysed separately for men and women. RESULTS: Among females, high financial strain was related to higher overall cortisol levels, and to elevated levels in the evening. These associations did not reach significance among men. Multivariate analyses showed that evening levels of cortisol were positively associated with financial strain, but largely unrelated to life-style variables and psychological distress. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that high financial strain influences the diurnal cortisol secretion of unemployed individuals in terms of elevated cortisol levels in the evening. The mediating mechanisms are in need of further investigation.     

Social experience and school bullying

The goal of the present study is to investigate the relationship between school bullying and various aspects of the urban and scholastic environment where participants live, such as sense of community, exposure to dangerous and violent situations within the neighbourhood, perceptions of the safety of the neighbourhood and perceptions of the school environment. The research, performed in Ercolano, a town near Naples, covered the whole of Ercolano's population (n = 734) of 7th, 10th and 13th grade students. Data were analysed using a multivariate analysis of variance. Results showed that bullying role (pure bullies, pure victims, bully victims, not‐involved) is significantly associated with the way subjects perceive their exposure to dangerous and violent situations within the neighbourhood, their relationship with classmates and their relationship with teachers. Pure bullies and bully victims are especially likely to experience dangerous and violent situations in the neighbourhood where they live and have a more negative perception of their relationship with teachers; for pure victims and bully victims, a significant association is obtained with negative perceptions of relationships with classmates. These findings suggest the need for intervention strategies that extend beyond the classroom to the broader community and neighbourhood. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

(Mis-)Coordinating identities in the transition to parenthood: Investigating the co-development of partners’ parenting,domestic and provider identities before and after the birth of the first child

This research takes a socio-psychological perspective to studying the transition to parenthood, by longitudinally investigating how couples dyadically coordinate: (a) the changing centralities of parenting domestic and provider identities, and (b) the consequences of this for stress and relationship satisfaction. We collected longitudinal data from a Swiss community sample of 213 heterosexual, first-time parents, in approximately the 24th week of pregnancy (T1) and 2 years later (T2). Participants completed a sociogram task, sketching the centrality of parenting, domestic and provider identities, for themselves and their partner. We applied actor partner interdependence models to model changing identity centralities at T2, from the (coordination) of T1 identities, distinguishing effects due to one's partner and the individual. Results support identity coordination in couples, especially in the development of the domestic identity. This coordination also had longitudinal effects for couples’ well-being. Results emphasize the social forces that structure the self-concept, and their health consequences.     

Empowering Mimicry: Female Leader Role Models Empower Women in Leadership Tasks Through Body Posture Mimicry

Sex Roles - In two studies we investigated the behavioral process through which visible female leader role models empower women in leadership tasks. We proposed that women tend to mimic the...     

Boys’ and Girls’ Relational and Physical Aggression in Nine Countries

Distinguishing between relational and physical aggression has become a key feature of many developmental studies in North America and Western Europe, but very little information is available on relational and physical aggression in more diverse cultural contexts. This study examined the factor structure of, associations between, and gender differences in relational and physical aggression in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Children ages 7–10 years (N = 1,410) reported on their relationally and physically aggressive behavior. Relational and physical aggression shared a common factor structure across countries. In all nine countries, relational and physical aggression were significantly correlated (average r = .49). Countries differed in the mean levels of both relational and physical aggression that children reported using and with respect to whether children reported using more physical than relational aggression or more relational than physical aggression. Boys reported being more physically aggressive than girls across all nine countries; no consistent gender differences emerged in relational aggression. Despite mean‐level differences in relational and physical aggression across countries, the findings provided support for cross‐country similarities in associations between relational and physical aggression as well as links between gender and aggression. Aggr. Behav. 38:298‐308, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Medical Students’ Decisions About Authorship in Disputable Situations: Intervention Study

In medicine, professional behavior and ethics are often rule-based. We assessed whether instruction on formal criteria of authorship affected the decision of students about authorship dilemmas and whether they perceive authorship as a conventional or moral concept. A prospective non-randomized intervention study involved 203s year medical students who did (n = 107) or did not (n = 96) received a lecture on International Committee of Medical Journal editors (ICMJE) authorship criteria. Both groups had to read 3 vignettes and answer 4 questions related to the distinction between conventional and moral domains. Written justification of student’ choices whether the authorship in a vignette was right or wrong was rated by 4 independent raters as based on justice or a rule. Formal instruction had no effect on students’ decisions on authorship in the vignettes (44, 34 and 39% ICMJE-consistent answers for 3 vignettes, respectively, by students receiving instruction vs. 38, 42 and 30% for those without instruction; P > 0.161 for all vignettes). For all dilemmas, more students decided contrary to ICMJE criteria and considered their decisions to be a matter of obligation and not a choice and to be general across situations and sciences. They were willing to change their decision if a rule was different only for peer situations but not for mentor–mentee situations. The number of students who used rule-based justification of their ICMJE criteria-consistent decisions was significantly higher in the instructed than in the uninstructed group. Instruction about formal authorship criteria had no effect on student’s decisions about authorship dilemmas and their decisions were related to the moral rather than a conventional domain. Teaching about authorship and other professionalism and integrity issues may benefit from interventions that bring intuitive processes into awareness instead of those fostering rule-based reasoning.     

Parental Attitudes,Attachment Styles,Social Networks,and Psychological Processes in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

In this study the authors used a cross-cultural approach to examine parental attitudes, attachment styles, social networks, and some of the psychological processes involved in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Fifty-two children (aged 4–11 years) took part in the study: 30 Italians (15 with ASD and 15 controls) and 22 Cubans (11 with ASD and 11 controls). Findings indicated significant differences between the two cultural groups in terms of the structure of the children's social network and parental attitudes toward their children. However, the mother–child attachment relationship and cognitive and emotional functioning of the study participants were independent of culture.     

Personality and Optimal Experience in Adolescence: Implications for Well-Being and Development

Past research has repeatedly identified relations between optimal experience—or flow—and well-being across the lifespan. In the attempt to identify the conditions favoring this experience, some studies took into account personality traits. While most of them operationalized flow in terms of intensity, we presently focused on perceived occurrence versus absence of flow. Specifically, we investigated the relations between flow occurrence, hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, activities associated with flow, and personality in adolescence. A group of 408 Italian teenagers (mean age = 17.31; SD = 1.13) were administered Flow Questionnaire, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, Psychological Well-being Scales, and the Big Five Questionnaire. Participants reporting optimal experience in their lives were compared with those not reporting it. Results showed that adolescents experiencing flow reported higher satisfaction with life, hedonic balance, and psychological well-being than their counterparts. Findings from logistic regression analyses further showed that openness to experience was the sole personality factor predicting flow occurrence, and that no personality factors were predictive of type of activities adolescents associated with flow. Findings point to the promotion of optimal experience among adolescents through the support of curiosity and openness to new experiences in engaging opportunities for action. They further call for the development of an integrated model taking into account both individual predispositions and social and cultural factors in well-being promotion.     

Enhancing Immediate Retention with Clickers Through Individual Response Identification

Classroom audience response systems, in which students respond to class questions via a remote ‘clicker’ unit, are widely used as a method for increasing student participation and providing immediate feedback in the form of a group frequency distribution. The phenomenon of social facilitation shows that task performance can be enhanced with co‐action of others or with the presence of an audience. To enhance the audience effect, we employed a unique feedback system that displays each individual's response. After reading a text passage, participants responded via a remote clicker to a series of comprehension questions. Participants were provided with no feedback regarding other respondents' answers, group feedback, or individual feedback. The results demonstrated significantly higher test performance with individual response identification. Implications are discussed in terms of applied classroom settings and social facilitation with enhanced options for displaying different types of feedback with clickers during instruction. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.