Health behavior, knowledge and attitudes among Swedish university students

A range of health behaviors was related to beliefs concerning health practices and health knowledge. A questionnaire dealing with health-related practices, health beliefs and knowledge of health risk factors was answered by 166 male and 179 female students aged 18–30 years at Stockholm University. Female students reported engaging in better health behavior than males. Beliefs about the importance of health behaviors were closely related to their frequency of occurrence. There was only a weak relationship between health behaviors and knowledge of specific health matters. It is concluded that health attitudes rather than health knowledge determine health behavior.     

中国和澳大利亚父母报告的儿童社会性发展

采用作者编制的《３－９岁儿童社会性发展量表》的英译本,在２８４名澳大利亚儿童中进行测试。结果表明,对于社会文化背景差异巨大的中国和澳大利亚,本量表具有较好的稳定性和跨文化适用性。儿童社会性发展的各个方面,在中澳父母心目中占有不同地位：中国父母重视自我意识、社会技能、意志品质,而澳大利亚父母更重视社会技能和社会情绪的发展。在中澳两个样本中,女孩的社会性发展量表得分均高于男孩。     

Beliefs about stories: Parents' and therapists' explanations of childhood difficulties

Therapists and parents were given vignettes describing the behavioural and emotional difficulties of two nine-year-old children and were asked to rate the importance of a number of possible explanations for such difficulties. Broad agreement was found between parents and therapists, but also there were a number of significant differences. Parents endorsed more child centered explanations and put greater emphasis on physical and developmental factors, while therapists endorsed relationships factors and saw the beliefs of other family members as important. Therapists who were parents showed a pattern of responses that lay between those of parents and non-parent therapists.     

Changes in Anxiety Control Beliefs Following a Brief CBT Treatment and Their Association With Anxiety Symptom Reduction

Anxiety control beliefs (i.e., beliefs regarding one’s ability to cope with external, fear-inducing threats and internal reactions to those perceived threats) have been found to negatively predict anxiety symptoms in children and adults and to be modifiable by cognitive-behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders. The current study examines whether changes in anxiety control beliefs were seen following a brief, intensive treatment for specific phobias, and whether those changes were associated with improvements in the targeted phobia and comorbid anxiety disorder symptoms. Participants were 135 children and adolescents (M age = 9.01 years, 49% male) who received one-session treatment (OST) with or without parental involvement for their primary specific phobia. Results indicated that self-reported anxiety control beliefs significantly increased following treatment and that these increases significantly predicted reductions in specific phobia severity and symptoms of comorbid anxiety disorders 6 months and 1 year following treatment. Findings illustrate that involvement in a single 3-hour OST was associated with changes in anxiety control beliefs and demonstrate the potential importance of targeting control beliefs in pediatric anxiety treatment.     

Emotion Beliefs,Emotion Regulation,and Emotional Experiences in Daily Life

One potential factor that could influence how individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression cope with upsetting events in their daily lives is the beliefs that these individuals hold about whether emotions are malleable or fixed. The current study adopted an experience sampling approach to examine how the beliefs about emotion’s malleability related to daily positive and negative affect and daily emotion regulation efforts among individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression (N = 84). Results demonstrated that individuals having at least moderate symptoms of depression who held more malleable beliefs about emotions reported decreased negative affect both overall during the day and specifically in response to daily upsetting events. Additionally, these individuals who held more malleable beliefs about their emotions also reported more daily use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions in response to upsetting daily events. Results from the current study extend previous work examining the relationship between emotion malleability beliefs, emotional experiences, and emotion regulation to examine these relationships in people who are moderately depressed as they navigate the emotional landscape of their daily lives.     

Causal illusion as a cognitive basis of pseudoscientific beliefs

Causal illusion has been proposed as a cognitive mediator of pseudoscientific beliefs. However, previous studies have only tested the association between this cognitive bias and a closely related but different type of unwarranted beliefs, those related to superstition and paranormal phenomena. Participants (n = 225) responded to a novel questionnaire of pseudoscientific beliefs designed for this study. They also completed a contingency learning task in which a possible cause, infusion intake, and a desired effect, headache remission, were actually non-contingent. Volunteers with higher scores on the questionnaire also presented stronger causal illusion effects. These results support the hypothesis that causal illusions might play a fundamental role in the endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs.     

Paths from core belief disruption to post-traumatic stress symptoms and post-traumatic growth among Korean undergraduates: The mediating role of rumination

The post-traumatic growth (PTG) model proposes that cognitive processing is a key mechanism that leads to growth in the aftermath of traumatic events. Building upon the PTG model, the present study examined the paths from the disruption of core beliefs to post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and PTG via intrusive and deliberate rumination. The sample includes 370 Korean undergraduate students who reported at least one highly stressful experience in their lifetime. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that disruption of core beliefs predicted PTG both directly and indirectly through multiple pathways: via deliberate rumination, intrusive rumination, and the path from intrusive to deliberate rumination. The disruption of core beliefs positively predicted PTSS only through intrusive rumination. No bivariate relationship was found between PTSS and PTG. These findings support the different roles of intrusive rumination and deliberate rumination in mediating the paths from disruption of core beliefs to PTSS and PTG. Implications and limitations of this study were discussed.     

The relationship between dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs and problematic social networking sites use

Social networking sites (SNSs) enrol new subscribers each day. However, problematic SNS use has undesirable effects on psychological functioning. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors that contribute to the development of problematic SNS use. Very few studies have focused on revealing the underlying mechanisms of problematic SNS use. Although many past studies have examined the relationship between metacognitive beliefs and Internet addiction, the association between metacognitive beliefs and problematic SNS use has not been adequately explored. In this study, we aimed to explore the association between metacognitive beliefs and problematic SNS use among young adults. A total of 308 individuals participated in this study. A socio-demographic data form, the Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30), and Social Media Addiction Scale (SMAS) were administered. Group comparisons were performed using multivariate analysis of covariance. Pearson's correlational and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations between metacognitive beliefs and problematic SNS use. The SNS addicts scored higher in all of the SMAS assessments. When compared to non-addicts, SNS addicts obtained higher scores on all the subtests of the SMAS and MCQ-30 except cognitive self-consciousness. The negative beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of worry, cognitive confidence, and need for control thoughts were associated with SMAS mood modification, relapse and conflict subdimensions. Our findings revealed that dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs are related to problematic SNS use among young adults. These findings indicate that mental health workers should consider the modification of metacognitive beliefs in the treatment of problematic SNS use.     

Zero-sum beliefs shape advantaged allies’ support for collective action

Three studies (N₁ = 1,019; N₂ = 312; N₃ = 494) tested whether seeing intergroup relations as inherently antagonistic shaped advantaged social groups’ allyship intentions. More specifically, we tested whether endorsing zero-sum beliefs related to their willingness to support system-challenging and system-supporting collective action. Zero-sum beliefs were negatively correlated with system-challenging and positively correlated with system-supporting collective action intentions. Zero-sum beliefs were more common among advantaged than disadvantaged groups and translated into lower allyship intentions. Advantaged group members with higher levels of zero-sum beliefs were also more likely to experience anger and fear when considering the demographic racial shift in the United States. Increased fear was associated with greater support for system-supporting and lower support for system-challenging collective action. We find consistent evidence that advantaged group members see intergroup relations as a zero-sum game and that these beliefs are negatively related to their intentions to become allies.     

Metacognitions in proneness towards hallucinations and delusions

The objectives of the present study were to examine the degree of co-existence of hallucinations and delusions in the nonclinical population. In addition, we wished to investigate the role of metacognitions in hallucinations and delusions. Finally, we explored the relative roles of positive and negative metacognitive beliefs in proneness to hallucinations and delusions. Three hundred and thirty-one nonclinical participants completed instruments assessing: hallucination-proneness (Launay-Slade Hallucinations Scale; LSHS), delusion-proneness (21-item version of the Peters et al. Delusions Inventory; PDI-21) and metacognitive beliefs (Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire; MCQ). Participants were successively grouped according to their scores on the LSHS and the PDI-21. Results revealed that hallucination-proneness was positively and significantly associated with delusion-proneness. Furthermore, hallucination-prone and delusion-prone participants scored significantly higher on some sub-scales of the MCQ compared to non-prone participants. Finally, multiple regression analysis revealed that positive and negative beliefs were good predictors of proneness towards hallucinations and delusions.