Attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine among medical and psychology students

The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasing in Europe as well as in the USA, but CAM courses are infrequently integrated into medical curricula. In Europe, but also especially in the USA and in Canada, the attitudes of medical students and health science professionals in various disciplines towards CAM have been the subject of investigation. Most studies report positive attitudes. The main aim of this study was to compare the attitudes towards CAM of medical and psychology students in Germany. An additional set of questions concerned how CAM utilisation and emotional and physical condition affect CAM-related attitudes. Two hundred thirty-three medical students and 55 psychology students were questioned concerning their attitudes towards CAM using the Questionnaire on Attitudes Towards Complementary Medical Treatment (QACAM). Both medical students and psychology students were sceptical about the diagnostic and the therapeutic proficiency of doctors and practitioners of CAM. Students' attitudes towards CAM correlated neither with their experiences as CAM patients nor with their emotional and physical condition. It can be assumed that German medical and psychology students will be reluctant to use or recommend CAM in their professional careers. Further studies should examine more closely the correlation between attitudes towards CAM and the students' worldview as well as their existing knowledge of the effectiveness of CAM.     

Criminality of women in Slovenia

Both in theory and research, the criminality of women is a fairly overlooked area, crime being primarily a male sphere, with men committing on average around 96% of all criminal acts, and women only 4%. To understand the criminality of women, and in particular the criminality of women in Slovenia, the author focuses on the following theses: (1) For the understanding of the gendered aspect of criminality it is not so much important why the number of women involved in crime is so low, but rather why the number of men is so high; (2) The criminality and criminal acts committed by women in Slovenia are a reflection of the traditional image of the woman, which manifests in the social division of gender roles, and also influences the extent and types of criminal acts; and (3) For the understanding of criminality, it is necessary to research it from the point of view of gender, as only this kind of approach enables the examination of the overlooked point where criminality is reproduced.     

Working in the hidden economy: Associations with the latent benefits and psychological health

Hidden economy working can provide income and cushion the financial hardship during unemployment; can it also substitute for some latent functions of regular employment? According to Jahoda's theory, the latent functions include the time structure, regular shared experience, information about personal identity, a link with the collective purpose, and enforced regular activity. This article explores whether the undeclared working reduces the degree of deprivation of these functions during unemployment and, consequently, improves the psychological health of a person. The data were collected from a sample of unemployed persons (N = 1138) registered with the Croatian Employment Bureau. A series of questions about their day-to-day activities were used to estimate the amount of undeclared working, an ad hoc developed scale to assess the extent of their latent deprivation, and the SF-36 Health Survey to measure their psychological health. The ANCOVA revealed that the participants who were often engaged in the hidden economy working exhibited reduced latent deprivation and improved psychological health compared to those who were sometimes engaged. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that their better psychological health was partially mediated through reduced latent deprivation. However, the unemployed who were never engaged in undeclared working exhibited a relatively high psychological health as well.     

Unemployed people in search of a job: Reconsidering the role of search behavior

A three-wave longitudinal study of unemployed persons in Croatia was used to examine the antecedents of job-seeking behavior and reemployment. A series of demographic, motivational and job-constraint variables were posited to influence job-seeking behavior, which, in turn, was hypothesized to affect (re)employment. The participants were surveyed in 2003 (N = 1138), and their employment status was checked in 2004 (N = 601) and 2005 (N = 452). Regression analyzes supported only one slice of the model—the antecedent-job-search relations. All motivational variables, in particular employment commitment and perceived financial strain, proved to be relatively strong predictors of job-search intensity. However, they appeared to be only weakly related to the (re)employment outcome. Demographic variables—in particular education, age, and employment duration—appeared to be the main determinants of (re)employment, operating presumably through their influence on employers’ hiring decisions. It was suggested that existing theory and heuristic frameworks overstate the importance of job-seeking activity. Further research is suggested to examine why purposeful and proactive job searching does not pay more.     

Publication patterns in developmental psychology: Trends and social networks

Interest in publication patterns has been steady. Journals have instituted policies in an effort to curb bias and provide globally representative research. This study aimed to examine if publication patterns were present in two developmental psychology journals. It also explored the social networks of prominent authors and the prevalence of informal author–editor relationships, searching for any potential power groups. Data were taken from empirical articles published between 2005 and 2014 in Child Development (CD) and The International Journal of Early Childhood (IJEC) data points were geographical authorship affiliation, informal author relationships as established by co‐publishing, and connections to journal editors via identical affiliation. Results confirmed the previously established North American dominance in published research. In CD a strongly interlinked social network was identified between authors over the 10 years, with 15 chief influentialists binding groups of authors together. Results suggest that patterns are still present in published research in the realm of developmental psychology. To conclude, the potential implications of these patterns within developmental psychology are presented.