Optimism buffers the detrimental effect of negative self-perceptions of ageing on physical and mental health

Objectives: First, to replicate previous findings on the detrimental effect of negative self-perceptions of ageing (SPA) on physical health outcomes and to expand them to the prediction of mental health; second, to test whether an optimistic outlook to the future can buffer the effect of negative SPA on physical and mental health outcomes.

Design: Data for this study comes from the 2008 and 2011 waves of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS; n?=?6205), a population-based representative survey of adults aged 40–85?years. Mean age of the participants was 61.50 (±12.1), 49.5% were women.

Main Outcome Measures: Self-rated health, physical functioning and depressive symptoms.

Results: Multiple regression analyses indicated that negative SPA predicted deterioration in the three health outcomes over a three-year period, controlling for demographics and illnesses. The most remarkable finding is the interaction with optimism: People who were prepared for physical losses (negative SPA), and who were nevertheless optimistic, were better able to maintain better physical functioning, and lower depressive symptoms.

Conclusion: A multidimensional perspective on ageing, considering both gains and losses at the same time, seems to be best for the maintenance of good health. Individual and societal positive views of ageing should be encouraged.     

Exploration of values: Israeli teachers’ professional ethics

The main purpose of this study was to explore Israeli teachers’ professional ethics and values using the Facet Theory (Guttman in Psychmetrika 33:469–506, 1968). Since Israel does not have a teachers’ code of ethics, such exploration can be a basis for constructing one. The study is mainly exploratory, and the main hypotheses that guided the study were based upon universal structure of values (Pakizeh et al. in J Exp Soc Psychol 43(3): 458–465, 2007 Schwartz, in Advances in experimental social psychology. Academic Press, San Diego, 1992), and were examined using a mapping sentence. The initial findings showed the data deployment on the SSA map exhibits both a radial and an angular form in a Radex configuration. Israeli teachers believe that professional ethics is based on conditioned values. The variables in the SSA map appear in a radial configuration forming three concentric circles: personal values, social values, and universal values. The components representing the code of ethics were deployed in an angular form showing three elements: professionalism, reliability and honesty, and decency.     

Age differences in motivational orientation toward physical activity: an application of social-cognitive theory

According to social-cognitive theory, an individual's motivation to engage in physical activity is based on three postulates: self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and self-evaluated satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The purpose of the present study was to examine age, gender, level of education, and level of activity in relation to those postulates in 2,298 Australians aged between 18 and 78. The authors conducted regression analyses for self-efficacy and for outcome expectations as dependent variables; age, gender, education level, and level of physical activity served as independent variables. Chi-square analyses assessed differences in the health incentive to exercise, the perceived level of activity, and the perceived level of fitness. Results indicated significant age differences on all variables. The older individual felt lower self-efficacy in relation to physical activity and expected fewer benefits from participating in physical activity. However, older individuals who engaged in physical activity rated themselves as more active and fit than nonexercisers of their same age and gender. Physical activity and level of education were positively correlated with self-efficacy, and men were more efficacious than women were. The implications are that interventions aimed at increasing participation in physical activity should take into consideration differences in incentives.     

The relationship of activity restriction and replacement with depressive symptoms among older adults

Activity restriction is known to mediate the disease-depression relationship. Data from 423 older Israeli adults showed that having to give up activities because of failing health was related to more depressive symptoms (DS), whereas satisfactorily replacing these activities was related to DS levels comparable to those of healthier older adults. Giving up and replacing activities mediated, in part, the effect of functional limitations on DS, after controlling for health status, demographics, and resources. Such questions about activities given up and replaced could contribute to the means of assessing the extent and impact of functional limitations on older adults.     

A normative perspective on motivation

Understanding the effects of motivation on instrumental action selection, and specifically on its two main forms, goal-directed and habitual control, is fundamental to the study of decision making. Motivational states have been shown to 'direct' goal-directed behavior rather straightforwardly towards more valuable outcomes. However, how motivational states can influence outcome-insensitive habitual behavior is more mysterious. We adopt a normative perspective, assuming that animals seek to maximize the utilities they achieve, and viewing motivation as a mapping from outcomes to utilities. We suggest that habitual action selection can direct responding properly only in motivational states which pertained during behavioral training. However, in novel states, we propose that outcome-independent, global effects of the utilities can 'energize' habitual actions.     

United we stand? The educational implications of the politics of difference

This paper attempts to follow the changes in the concept state over the last two hundred years, by tracing changes in the aims of public education. Four major stages are identified. The first is characterized by the establishment of the nation-state, when a national and civic education are fused together. The second is marked by the erosion of the identity between state and nation, and by attempts to prevent this process through the development of contradictory educational strategies: neutral civic education and nation building through the mechanism of the melting pot. At the third stage, despite the above-mentioned efforts, the awakening of national minorities demanding special national education sharpens the distinction between civic and national education. This leads to the last stage, the politics of difference, when the nationally homogenous nation-state is replaced by a consciously heterogenous state. Such a state can grant all its members equal civil and national rights only if it endorses traditional liberal values. Hence, despite the fact they firmly criticize liberalism and attempt to revive particular national education supporters of the politics of difference cannot deny that liberal values and civic education offer the best protection for their own ends.     

Leisure patterns among retired workers: Spillover or compensatory trends?

Leisure behavior patterns after retirement were compared retrospectively with those of the preretirement period. The data, which related to former industrial and service workers in Israel, were examined within the context of the spillover and compensatory hypotheses, with retirement representing a non work sphere. Findings revealed a spillover effect, characterized by a high degree of passive, solitary leisure behavior both before and after retirement.     

“I Took the Trouble to Make Inquiries,So I Refuse to Accept Your Instructions”: Religious Authority and Vaccine Hesitancy Among Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Mothers in Israel

Journal of Religion and Health - Voluminous scholarship has shown that religious leaders play an important role in helping patients cope with health issues. There is, however, little research on...