The Effects of Stress on the Lives of Emerging Adult College Students: An Exploratory Analysis

This study systematically analyzed the personal reports of 20 emerging adult college students with regard to how stress affects their lives. Qualitative analyses revealed that stress influenced students' lives in both positive and negative ways. Implications of these findings for physical and mental health are discussed. Recommendations for counseling practice are provided.     

The relationship between employment quality and work-related well-being in the European Labor Force

In this article, data from the 2005 European Working Conditions Survey are used to examine the relationship between contemporary employment arrangements and the work-related well-being of European employees. By means of a Latent Class Cluster Analysis, several features of the employment conditions and relations characterizing jobs are combined in a typology of five employment arrangements: SER-like, instrumental, precarious unsustainable, precarious intensive and portfolio jobs. These job types show clear relationships with separate indicators of job satisfaction, perceived safety climate and the ability to stay in employment, as well as with an overall indicator for work-related well-being. The findings from this multifaceted approach towards employment quality raise questions about the long-term sustainability of highly flexible and de-standardized employment arrangements.     

Change-oriented behavior: A meta-analysis of individual and job design predictors

We propose and meta-analytically test a theoretical model of individual and job-based predictors of change-oriented behaviors. Meta-analytic tests (106 effect sizes, N = 28,402) demonstrate that employee's proactive personality is a stronger predictor of change-oriented behavior than the five-factor model (FFM) personality traits of openness and extraversion. Also, enriched job characteristics (autonomy, complexity, and task significance) are more important in predicting change-oriented behavior, than un-enriched job characteristics (routinization and formalization). Finally, we establish work engagement as a mediator that provides an explanation for how and why proactive personality and enriched job characteristics predict change-oriented behavior. We provide both theoretical and empirical integration of the literature with practical implications for managing change-oriented behaviors, which are increasingly recognized as important to both organizational effectiveness and employee career management.     

The fight against stigma: an overview of stigma-reduction strategies and interventions

In many health conditions, people are severely affected by health-related stigma and discrimination. A literature review was conducted to identify stigma-reduction strategies and interventions in the field of HIV/AIDS, mental illness, leprosy, TB and epilepsy. The review identified several levels at which interventions and strategies are being implemented. These are the intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational/institutional, community and governmental/structural level. Although a lot of work has been carried out on stigma and stigma reduction, far less work has been done on assessing the effectiveness of stigma-reduction strategies. The effective strategies identified mainly concentrated on the individual and the community level. In order to reduce health-related stigma and discrimination significantly, single-level and single-target group approaches are not enough. What is required is a patient-centred approach, which starts with interventions targeting the intrapersonal level, to empower affected persons to assist in the development and implementation of stigma-reduction programmes at other levels.     

In search of shared and nonshared environmental factors in security of attachment: a behavior-genetic study of the association between sensitivity and attachment security

The current article presents results from a twin study of genetic and environmental components of maternal sensitivity and infant attachment and their association. The sample consisted of 136 twin pairs from 2 sites: Leiden, the Netherlands, and London, UK. Maternal sensitivity was assessed in the home at 9-10 months, and infant attachment security was observed in the laboratory at 12 months. The study yielded little evidence that genetic factors are involved in variations between twins in maternal sensitivity ratings but did find that shared variance in maternal sensitivity was able to account for some of the similarity between twins in attachment security. Weak nonshared associations between sensitivity and attachment appeared to suppress the magnitude of the correlation between attachment and sensitivity in twin children. The results could indicate that the attachment security of one twin may depend on the relationship the parent has with the other twin. The results are brought to bear on the validity of attachment theory as a theory of primarily shared environmental effects in children's development and the continuing challenge posed to attachment theory by within-family differences in socioemotional processes.     

Effects of visual deprivation on space representation: immediate and delayed pointing toward memorised proprioceptive targets

Congenitally blind, late-blind, and blindfolded-sighted participants performed a pointing task at proximal memorised proprioceptive targets. The locations to be memorised were presented on a sagittal plane by passively positioning the left index finger. A 'go' signal for matching the target location with the right index finger was given 0 or 8 s after left-hand demonstration. Absolute distance errors were smaller in the blind groups, with both delays pooled together; signed distance and direction errors were underestimated with the longer delay, and were overestimated by blind groups, whereas the blindfolded-sighted group underestimated them. Elongation of the scatters was stretched but not affected by delay or group. The surface scatter was greater with the longer delay; and orientation of the main axis of the pointing ellipses shows the use of an egocentric frame of reference by the congenitally blind group for both delays, the use of egocentric (0 s) and exocentric (8 s) frame of reference by the blindfolded-sighted group, with the late-blind group using an intermediate frame of reference for both delays. Therefore, early and late visual-deprivation effects are distinguished from transient visual-deprivation effects as long-term deprivation leads to increased capabilities (absolute distance estimations), unaltered organisation (for surface and elongation), and altered organisation (amplitude and direction estimations, orientation of pointing distribution) of the spatial representation with proprioception. Besides providing an extensive exploration of pointing ability and mechanisms in the visually deprived population, the results show that cross-modal plasticity applies not only to neural bases but extends to spatial behaviour.     

Warning signs for suicide: theory, research, and clinical applications

The current article addresses the issue of warning signs for suicide, attempting to differentiate the construct from risk factors. In accordance with the characteristic features discussed, a consensus set of warning signs identified by the American Association of Suicidology working group are presented, along with a discussion of relevant clinical and research applications.