Religiosity, Personality, and Happiness: A Study among Israeli Male Undergraduates

A sample of 203 male Hebrew speaking undergraduate students completed the Hebrew translation of the Oxford Happiness Inventory together with the Katz–Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism and the short form of the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The data demonstrate that Eysenck's dimensional model of personality provides significant prediction of individual differences in both attitude toward Judaism and happiness. After taking personality into account there is a small but statistically significant positive correlation between religiosity and happiness.     

Implicit Theories About Willpower Predict Subjective Well‐Being

Lay theories about willpower—the belief that willpower is a limited versus nonlimited resource—affect self‐control and goal striving in everyday life (Job, Dweck, & Walton, 2010). Three studies examined whether willpower theories also relate to people's subjective well‐being by shaping the progress they make toward their personal goals. A cross‐sectional (Study 1) and two longitudinal studies (Studies 2 and 3) measured individuals’ willpower theories and different indicators of subjective well‐being. Additionally, Study 3 measured goal striving and personal goal progress. A limited theory about willpower was associated with lower subjective well‐being in a sample of working adults (Study 1, N = 258). Further, a limited theory predicted lower levels of well‐being at a time when students faced high self‐regulatory demands (Study 2, N = 196). Study 3 (N = 157) replicated the finding that students with a limited theory experienced lower well‐being in phases of high self‐regulatory demands and found that personal goal progress mediated this relationship. Results suggest that the belief that willpower is based on a limited resource has negative implications not only for self‐control but also for personal goal striving and subjective well‐being.     

Intervention Effects on Stage of Change Membership and Transitions among Adolescent Energy Balance Behaviors

The transition from childhood to adolescence is a crucial period for the development of healthy behaviors to be sustained later in life. With obesity a leading public health problem, the promotion of healthy behaviors has the potential to make a huge impact. The current study evaluated Stage of Change progression in a large (N = 4158) computer-delivered, Transtheoretical Model-tailored intervention focusing on physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption (FV). Markov models were used to explore stage transitions and patterns of discrete change from sixth to ninth grade. Nested model comparisons examined the consistency of these patterns across time and intervention condition. Major findings supported models in which participants were free to transition forward and backward to any of the stages, but higher probabilities were observed for remaining in the same stage or for transitioning one or two stages forward. Participants in the intervention group had higher probabilities of transitioning toward Maintenance, with more change occurring relative to the comparison group during transitions from grades six to eight but not for grades eight to nine.     

Childhood and Adulthood Socioeconomic Statuses in Relation to Union Interest: Exploratory Surface Relationships

Using response surface methodology for exploratory data, we examined the linear and nonlinear surface relationships between no mobility and mobility in reference to union interest defined by willingness to join a labor union. Analyses were conducted on survey data collected from U.S. nonunion employees (N?=?1,010) who indicated their socioeconomic status (SES) in childhood and adulthood in reference to social class, education, and English language/literacy (e.g., language/literacy during childhood, language/literacy now). Surface relationships were mostly linear. For example, among status indicators, a linear surface was found for employees whose childhood and adulthood language/literacy were the same (no mobility): Lower status nonmobile employees showed more union interest than higher status nonmobile employees. In contrast, a nonlinear surface was found for employees whose childhood and adulthood language/literacy were not the same (mobility): Upwardly mobile employees showed less union interest than downwardly mobile employees showed more interest. Details of the surface relationships and future modeling of the relationships in terms of mediational processes are discussed.     

Linking Family-of-Origin Experiences and Perpetration of Sexual Coercion: College Males’ Sense of Entitlement

Sexual coercion on college campuses has become of major concern in recent decades. In recent years, researchers and policy makers have called for greater attention to this topic in order to reduce the sexual violence on college campuses. Recent research has examined the impact of family-of-origin experiences on the perpetration of sexual coercion. The current study examines the association between family-of-origin experiences, such as warmth and hostility between parents, inconsistent parenting, and overparenting during childhood, and the perpetration of sexual coercion among emerging adult males while examining feelings of entitlement as a possible mediator. Data from 326 male undergraduate students were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results show that warmth and hostility between parents has a significant association with parenting behaviors (i.e., overparenting and inconsistent parenting) and that hostility between parents is associated with the perpetration of sexual coercion by the offspring in young adulthood for males. Also, findings suggest that while overparenting and inconsistent parenting during childhood are not directly associated with the perpetration of sexual coercion during emerging adulthood, they are strongly related to feelings of entitlement, which in turn was found to be associated with the perpetration of sexual coercion for males. These results have important implications for family life education, including relationship and parenting education, and for future research.     

School-Aged Children’s Attachment Dismissal Prospectively Predicts Divergence of Their Behavioral and Self-Reported Anxiety

Recent studies on attachment in middle childhood suggest that dismissing children tend to underreport their psychological distress relative to physiological indices of distress. However, this has yet to be examined in the context of behavioral indicators of distress. In this longitudinal study, a community sample of children (N?=?34, M _age?=?9.59 years) completed the Child Attachment Interview at Time 1. Three years later, they returned and completed the Trier Social Stress Task for Children (TSST-C), providing ratings of their state anxiety before and after the stressor. Four raters coded children’s behavioral signs of anxiety (e.g., non-signaling gestures, eye movement, posture, facial expression) on a 7-point scale during the storytelling and arithmetic tasks in the TSST-C. Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that greater attachment dismissal was associated with greater behavioral anxiety in both the story and math tasks, but was not associated with greater increases in self-reported anxiety. Dismissal prospectively predicted increased divergence of behavioral and self-reported anxiety, such that higher dismissal was associated with higher divergence scores (i.e., underreporting of anxiety relative to behavioral indicators). We discuss these results in terms of their contribution to understanding attachment and emotion in an understudied developmental phase.     

Conceptualising and testing the Narnian Character Virtue Scales: a study among 12- to 13-year-old students

ABSTRACT

This paper sets out to examine and to operationalise 12 key character virtues identified within C. S. Lewis’ Narnian texts: courage, curiosity, forgiveness, fortitude, gratitude, hard work, humility, integrity, justice, love, self-control, and wisdom. A pilot study among 56 year eight students (12–13 years of age) generated nine five-item instruments displaying adequate internal consistency reliability, and suggested ways in which the other three measures (curiosity, integrity, and love) could be enhanced in future work. Construct validity was explored by examining the correlations between these 12 character virtues and sex, self-concept, and empathy, and by locating these 12 character virtues within the three-dimensional psychological space proposed by Eysenck’s model of personality.     

The Future Work Self and Calling: The Mediational Role of Life Meaning

Research on calling prevailingly focuses on the positive effects on well-being and career development. However, explorations of the predictors and emergence of callings are sparse. We tested a model in which clarity about the future work self promotes one’s sense of calling through increased life meaning. We sampled 473 Chinese college students with a three-wave panel design over 1 year. Using time-lagged analysis, we found that the future work self at T1 significantly predicted increased life meaning at T2, which, in turn, significantly predicted increased calling at T3. This indirect effect was significant and supported the hypothesized longitudinal mediation model. The reverse effects of one’s calling as a predictor of self-clarity about one’s future work life or life meaning were not confirmed. Our findings suggest that among Chinese college students, self-clarity about one’s future work life and understanding one’s life meaning are two important steps in the development of one’s calling.     

Changing patterns of religious affiliation,church attendance and marriage across five areas of Europe since the early 1980s: trends and associations

This study draws on three waves of the European Values Survey (conducted between 1981 and 1984, between 1989 and 1993, and between 1999 and 2004) across five countries for which full data are available (Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain, and Sweden) in order to address five research questions. Question one examined changes in religious affiliation. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non‐affiliated increased. Question two examined changes in church attendance. Across all five countries, the proportions of the non‐attenders increased. Question three examined changes in marital status. Across all five countries the proportions of the population checking the category ‘married’ declined, although in Spain the decline was marginal. Question four examined the association between religious affiliation and being married. The religious affiliated were more likely to be married than the non‐affiliated. Question five examined the association between church attendance and being married. Weekly attenders were more likely to be married than the non‐attenders. Overall these data support the close association between religion and marriage across five European countries (where there are very different religious climates) and support the hypothesis that changing religious values and changing family values go hand‐in‐hand.     

Lexical and semantic fluency discrepancy scores in aMCI and early Alzheimer's disease

Episodic memory is compromised in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), but lesser deficits in other cognitive domains are also commonly observed and may be helpful in identifying this group. The relative difference in performance on lexical and semantic fluency tasks may be a sensitive and specific measure in aMCI and early Alzheimer's disease (AD). We compared four groups of participants, 35 early AD, 47 aMCI, 24 healthy controls, and 18 depressive out‐patient controls, on semantic and lexical fluency as well as other neuropsychological tests. Early AD and aMCI patients showed a distinct pattern of semantic impairment in the two fluency measures compared with the healthy and depressive controls. The findings implicate early failure of the semantic memory system in aMCI and AD and suggest that consideration of the discrepancy in performance on semantic and lexical fluency measures may help in the early identification of AD.